Silent revolution

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term Silent Revolution ( French Révolution tranquille ) denotes an important period in Québec's history . During the 1960s, this Canadian province underwent profound social and economic change, shaped by the secularization of society and the creation of a welfare state . Between 1960 and 1966, the provincial government brought the health and education systems, which had previously been dominated by the Roman Catholic Church , under the control of the state, expanded state services and made extensive investments in education and infrastructure. It allowed state employees to organize in trade unions and enabled the largely French-speaking population to take control of the economy of their own province.

Starting position

Several events are considered to be the precursors of the Quiet Revolution. These include the four-month miners' strike in Asbestos (1949), violent riots after the ice hockey player Maurice Richard was banned (1955), the signing of the Refus global manifesto by the dissident artist group Automatistes (1948-1949) and the publication of the book Les insolences du Frère Untel (1960), which denounced the almost absolute dominance of the Roman Catholic Church. Radio Canada , the newspaper Le Devoir and the political magazine Cité Libre published by Pierre Trudeau were considered intellectual forums for critics of the society of the time.

The government of Québec was controlled by the strictly conservative Maurice Duplessis , the chairman of the Union nationale . Election fraud and corruption were commonplace in Québec. The Union nationale received support from most of the Catholic clergy, who continued to run most of the provincial schools and hospitals. Parish priests sometimes quoted the election slogan of the Union nationale: Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge ("Heaven is blue, Hell is red") - an allusion to the party colors of the Union nationale (blue) and the Liberals (red) . The Catholic Church, however, was not entirely on Duplessis' side. Individual Catholic unions and members of the clergy, including Archbishop Joseph Charbonneau , criticized Duplessis, but the overwhelming majority of the clergy in small towns and in the countryside supported the head of government.

Due to the small population of Québec (and Canada as a whole), capital for investment was regularly scarce. For this reason, the province's natural resources have mainly been developed by foreign investors. For example, the US Iron Ore Company of Canada promoted iron ore mining. Until the second half of the 20th century, the majority of Québec's francophone workers lived below the poverty line and were not represented in corporate management positions in their own province.

Maurice Duplessis died in 1959, shortly afterwards his successor Paul Sauvé . The following year the Parti libéral du Québec won the elections and Jean Lesage became the new head of government. The Liberals began with the promise to fundamentally modernize the frozen society and to extend the influence of the Francophones on their own economy. Their election slogans were Maîtres chez nous (“Gentlemen in their own house”) and Il faut que ça change (“Things have to change”).

secularization

In 1961, the Parent Commission was set up to develop recommendations that led to the implementation of various reforms. The most important was the complete secularization of education. Schools retained their Catholic or Reformed character pro forma, but in practice they became secular institutions. Other reforms were the introduction of compulsory schooling up to the age of 16 and free instruction up to the eleventh year of school. Previously, most Francophone children had left paid schools after 6 or 7 years, much less school years than Anglophone children.

Although the Union nationale came back to power in 1966, reforms continued. In 1967, the Cégep was introduced as a pre-university educational institution, and in 1968 the government created the University Association of the Université du Québec . The social loss of importance of the Catholic Church, which in the 1960s took place in Québec in a similar way to other western countries, led to a noticeable decrease in the birth rate among the Francophones. Church proclamations against contraception have been largely ignored.

Economic reforms

In 1962, the Parti libéral called new elections to secure approval for their most important reform project - the nationalization of the entire electricity industry in the province and its unification in the state company Hydro-Québec . The Liberals won the elections with an enlarged majority in the Québec National Assembly and within six months René Lévesque , Minister of Natural Resources, nationalized it.

As a result, other public law institutions emerged with the aim of increasing the province's level of economic autonomy. The state-owned companies SIDBEC (iron and steel), SOQUEM (mining), REXFOR (forestry) and SOQUIP (petroleum) were set up to exploit the province's natural resources. In 1962, the government set up the Société générale de financement investment company to encourage Québecans to invest in their economic futures and make small businesses more profitable.

In 1963, the federal government approved the establishment of the Régie des Rentes du Québec (RRQ) social security agency, which is independent of the national pension scheme Canada Pension Plan . The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec was founded in 1965 to manage the income from the RRQ and to provide capital for various projects in the public and private sectors. A new labor law ( Code du travail ) came into force in 1964. It simplified the formation of trade unions and gave state employees the right to strike.

nationalism

The Quiet Revolution led the province's francophone residents to emancipate themselves from the influence of the English-speaking elite that had previously dominated the economy. They no longer viewed themselves as French Canadians , but instead developed a new, more positively occupied identity than Quebecers ( Québécois ), which is no longer focused on the mother country of France .

When the French President Charles de Gaulle visited the world exhibition Expo 67 in Montreal , he shouted Vive le Québec libre! In front of a large crowd that had gathered in front of the city hall . ("Long live free Québec!"). On the one hand, the controversial speech angered the Canadian government, but on the other, it encouraged the growing independence movement to advocate self-employment. In 1968 René Lévesque founded the separatist Parti Québécois . A small group of Marxist separatists, the Front de liberation du Québec , carried out an increasing number of explosive attacks and other acts of violence, which culminated in the October crisis in 1970 . In 1976 the Parti Québécois won the provincial elections to the National Assembly for the first time.

As a social movement

“We refer to a period of about six years, 1960–1966, during which a broad movement set new conditions as the" silent revolution ". It was run by a newly emerging class, which was guided by the goals: active state action and at the same time technocratic social planning. This group itself determined the conditions of their social advancement, both relatively and absolutely. As a result, a whole series of measures had the effect of fundamentally changing their living conditions, as well as their ways of acting, their ways of thinking and their way of expression. "

- Létourneau, 1995 :

literature

  • Yves Belanger, Robert Comeau, Céline Métivier (eds.): La révolution tranquille. 40 ans plus tard - un bilan. VlB, Montreal 2000, ISBN 2-89005-753-4 .
  • Michel-Rémi Lafond: La révolution tranquille. 30 ans après, qu'en reste-t-il? Editions de Lorraine, Hull 1992, ISBN 2-9801249-4-X .
  • Alice Rücknagel: Révolution tranquille. Quebec Silent Revolution. Identity change in Francophone Canada . GRIN Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-640-45364-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see Commission Parent in the French Wikipedia, with links to the original results of the commission
  2. ↑ Partis de si loin ... , by Josée Boileau, Le Devoir , September 25, 2010, in French.
  3. ↑ For details, see Taillez, Felix de: "Amour sacré de la Patrie" - de Gaulle in New France. The symbolism, rhetoric and history of his speeches in Québec in 1967 . Utz Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-8316-4073-7 .
  4. ↑ On désigne par Révolution tranquille cette période d'environ six ans (1960–1966) au cours de laquelle une collectivité, propulsée par une nouvelle classe fortement inspirée par l'idéal de l'interventionnisme étatique et de la planification technocratique, pose les conditions de sa promotion relative et absolue en lançant tout un train de mesures qui auront pour conséquences de modifier fondamentalement ses manières d'être, de faire, de penser et de dire. Jocelyn Létourneau, La production historienne courante portant sur le Québec et ses rapports avec la construction des figures identitaires d'une communauté communicationelle. Recherches sociographiques, 36, 1, 1995, pp. 9 - 45; here p. 28