Barbara Kay's controversial National Post op-ed of last week about Quebec and support for Hezbollah has provoked an intense reaction, even garnering comment from the Quebec premier. In a rarely-seen move, André Pratte, chief editorialist of Montreal's La Presse, has been exchanging missives in the letters-to-the-editor section of the Post with Mrs. Kay.
Today Mrs. Kay announced she is standing by her original comments, which is sure to provoke further discussion and debate.
Debate is a good thing, of course. But why has the reaction to this article been so visceral?
Most Quebecers are not anti-semitic. But anti-semitism has historically been a serious problem in francophone society, and Barbara Kay has touched a nerve by raising this topic. Quebec seems to have this hangup about raising certain touchy issues. It can be quite an un-introspective society. If you dare bring up one of these taboo subjects, you are roundly castigated and immediately ostracized. The Kay article and the fallout from it is an example of that: everyone gangs up on the offender. Another of these "out-of- bounds" topics is the partition of Quebec in the event of a YES vote. Quebec's bien pensants have deemed it a closed issue, so even daring to question the conventional wisdom (that Quebec is indivisible) is considered heresy in many circles.
As Whittaker Chambers once observed, people don't get mad when you tell lies about them -- they get mad when you tell the truth. Perhaps that phenomenon is at play here.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:22 AM
