“Unknowns live in kings at home. I who had accepted their laws … “
Serge Fiori’s independence was as indisputable as it is discreet.
So inevitably, when we watched the artists of his generation who paid tribute to him, the whole case gave off a powerful scent of nostalgia for the 70s and 80s.
Nostalgia coupled with sadness when you think of the two failed referendum meetings, this impression of uninformed promise, unfinished project, decline and resignation that French Quebec gives today.
Wow!
But if everything was not said for good?
A light survey published on June 26 advanced that 48% of 18-34 year olds are now favorable to Quebec’s sovereignty.
Statistical aberration? It is possible. It will take other data to see more clearly.
But if this is confirmed, this is the best news for a long time for sovereignists who have not had too much to rejoice in recent years.
The PQ may be at the top of the surveys, it is difficult to see what it could do in power, in a provincial setting and without the necessary support to try to do what it exists.
If it is real, this rise in sovereignist feeling among young people is fundamental because we have rarely seen a collective project triumph which is not supported by those who will live it fully in the years that follow.
If it is real, it is also surprising because it contrasts with the clichés frequently associated with young people: depoliticized, indifferent, wokes, citizens of the world and from nowhere, heirs of the gloom of their parents boomers, strictly concerned about the prices of housing, ecology, their anxiety, their job, etc.
If it is real, how to explain this rise in sovereignism among young people?
A simple explanation could be that each generation (or at least the socially committed fringe of it) is looking for a cause.
Formerly, here it was the protection of French, the extension of the rights of workers, women, etc.
In the United States, it was civil rights, opposition to the Vietnam War, etc.
Sens
Another more fruitful explanation perhaps lies in an environmental examination in which our young people grew up.
Not having known the world before the Internet and social networks, they lived in a virtual universe of fleeting, temporary, superficial, made of misleading likes and staging.
Could it be that they achieve emptiness, the superficiality of all this?
Could it be that they thought they were related to others, to finally realize that they were isolated?
Could it be that they are looking for true meaning, authentic collective, shared identity, more nourishing common experiences than empty calories in social networks?
The philosopher Réjean Bergeron proposed a similar explanation recently.
These young people will express their sovereignism with words that will not be those of my generation. No importance.
I repeat it: if this is confirmed, it’s the best news for a long time.