Témoignage à la Commission Bouchard-Taylor

Je me suis inscrite pour donner un témoignage oral à la Commission Bouchard-Taylor sur les accommodements raisonables, mais à cause du nombre élévé des inscriptions, mon nom n'a pas été retenu sur la liste. On m'a offert l'option d'envoyer mon témoignage par écrit, ce que j'ai fait. Le voici (sans quelques petits détails identifiants):

J’ai « immigré » au Québec à partir de la Nouvelle-Écosse en 2001 afin de faire un doctorat à l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. J’ai choisi le Québec comme mon pays parce que j’étais, et suis toujours, souverainiste, et, somme tout, je trouve le Québec plus progressif sur le plan social que le reste du Canada, y compris dans son choix d’interculturalisme plutôt que de multiculturalisme, ce qui permet à une anglophone comme moi de participer pleinement à la vie sociale collective à condition de vouloir bien s’intégrer, notamment en parlant le français. J’ai déménagé à Montréal en 2002 afin de terminer mon doctorat à McGill, où depuis 2005 je suis chercheuse postdoctorale.

My research falls within the fields of literature and gender studies. I am certain that Professors Bouchard and Taylor are familiar with the concept of “heteronormativity,” which legitimizes and privileges certain gender and sexual norms and practices as natural when, in fact, they are socially constructed. Heteronormativity has been responsible until quite recently for various forms of discrimination against LGBT people because these supposed “norms” infiltrate legal discourse (marriage law, adoption laws, etc.). By analogy, I would like to discuss a concept which is rarely, if ever, named: “Christian-normativity”. I’d like to present three examples, two of which come from my own experience and which I consider an undue imposition of Christianity into my life, and which go socially unrecognized as impositions at all because Christian-normativity blinds people to the religious beliefs and assumptions underlying so-called “normal” practices.

Sur le plan juridique, la Constitution canadienne elle-même constitue un cas flagrant de la contradiction entre la loi écrit et l’envahissement de la chrétien-normativité. L’introduction de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés dit, « Attendu que le Canada est fondé sur des principes qui reconnaissent la suprématie de Dieu et la primauté du droit », tandis que le point 2.a dit, « Chacun a les libertés fondamentales suivantes : liberté de conscience et de religion ». Il est tout à fait incohérent de garantir la liberté de religion—qui inclut la liberté de ne pas avoir de religion du tout—et de reconnaître en même temps la suprématie d’un Dieu (présumé chrétien, bien sûr) qui veille sur ceux qui n’y croient même pas, ainsi que sur ceux qui sont chargés d’assurer le respect de la liberté de religion comme les juges et les politiciens. Il est illogique de mettre « Dieu » et « la primauté de droit » dans la même phrase sans considérer que le droit pourrait être compromis par les interprétations que certains attribuent à leur Dieu. Il est heureux que le Québec n’ait pas signé cette Constitution canadienne et n’ait pas inscrit de telle incohérence dans sa propre Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, mais il faudrait rester vigilant pour que de telles influences chrétien-normatives ne s’ingèrent dans nos lois, car on voit déjà cette ingérence dans plusieurs espaces publiques.

En 1999, je me suis mariée au Palais de Justice de Trois-Rivières. Nous avons choisi le Palais de Justice par exprès parce que nous étions athées et ne voulions pas nous marier à l’église. Vous pouvez imaginer mon surprise de constater, à l’entrée dans la salle de cour le moment venu, un grand crucifix, d’à peu près six à huit pieds d’hauteur, suspendu au mur au dessus du banc du juré. Non seulement était mon mariage civil envahi par la présence de ce symbole religieux non souhaité, mais j’étais d’autant plus outragée parce que le message envoyé par un tel symbole religieux est tout à fait contradictoire au discours légal. Un crucifix laisse entendre aux jurés que, même s’ils sont tenus à prendre des décisions en suivant la loi au pied de la lettre, ils sont sous le regard d’un autre discours moral qui, selon leur croyances personnelles, pourrait ne pas s’accorder avec la loi, menant ainsi à une application inégalitaire de la loi dans des procès. Il en va de même pour le travail des politiciens à l’Assemblée nationale qui débattent souvent des projets de loi ayant un caractère moral. Je recommande donc à la Commission de mandater le gouvernement de bannir l’affichage des signes et symboles religieux comme des crucifix dans les lieux gouvernementaux, tels les cours de justice et l’Assemblée nationale. Ces symboles ne sont pas des représentations de l’héritage culturel du Québec, mais bien de son héritage religieux. Or, la culture ne se réduit pas à une seule religion pratiquée par certains citoyens. Le Québec peut très bien—et doit—affirmer son héritage cultural (par le drapeau, la Fête nationale, la création d’une citoyenneté et une Constitution québécoise qui rassemble tous les citoyens) sans avoir recours à la religion, car la religion est essentiellement privée et non pas publique.

The form of Christian-normativity which I find the most personally offensive and invasive, and which unfortunately is often regarded as banal, is the infiltration of Christmas symbols and songs into the public sphere, especially in spaces which ought to remain religiously neutral, and hence entirely secular. Lest we not forget the underlying religious nature of this increasingly commercialized holiday, Christmas is fundamentally at its origin a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ as the supposed son of a supposed God—a myth which non-Christians do not believe and should not be forced to endure in the public sphere. I am deeply perturbed and offended that for at least one and a half to two months of the year (and it continues to creep sooner and sooner each year, increasing beginning on November 1st), it is nearly impossible to escape this infiltration of Christian propaganda within the public sphere in spaces which ought to remain neutral and secular. In particular, it is discriminatory for non-Christians to be forced to listen to Christmas songs, which are tantamount to Christian propaganda, since it is impossible for one to choose not to hear them when they are played in pubic spaces, such as government buildings and especially in buildings which are essential services, such as grocery stores and pharmacies. Grocery stores are officially recognized as essential services since they are permitted to hold extended opening hours. Short of going on a hunger strike for more than a month every year, it is impossible to boycott grocery stores. (Even if one were wealthy enough to eat only in restaurants during the one to two month Christmas period, these too participate in this practice of Christian propaganda, but are luxuries, not essential services, and therefore beyond the scope of my complaint). The same is true of pharmacies which dispense essential medication. While it is possible to avoid shopping centers and commercial stores during the Christmas period (which indeed I do every year), it is not possible to avoid grocery stores and pharmacies. I thus recommend that the Commission mandate the government to ban Christmas songs and Christmas paraphernalia in government buildings and spaces that constitute an essential service, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and post offices.

Some people will undoubtedly argue that Christmas songs are not actually religious and offensive to non-Christians, or that they are not really Christmas songs but rather “winter songs” or “holiday songs” or « des chansons du temps des fêtes », but these are clearly euphemisms intended to excuse a current practice, and the very recourse to a euphemism implicitly recognizes these songs as Christian-normative and hence offensive to non-Christians. It is certainly not customary to play “spring songs”, “summer songs”, or “fall songs” in public spaces, and this inconsistency highlights the euphemistic nature of these so-called “holiday songs”. Admittedly, sometimes Christmas songs are now played in public spaces in instrumental versions without words, but the insidiousness of Christian-normativity, which has forced this propaganda on almost all citizens in the Western context since childhood, makes it impossible to hear instrumental versions without automatically recalling the words. Just as I was indoctrinated against my will (and against article 2.a of the Charter of Rights of Freedoms) as early as elementary school (when our teachers forced us to recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning before classes began), so too has every school child been indoctrinated to know the words to such songs as “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger,” songs which celebrate the myth of Christ’s birth, despite the lack of any historical or scientific evidence documenting such events, and certainly without any scientific proof as to the supposed godliness of this person. At their very core, Christmas songs are Christian propaganda, and even those that are not explicitly religious, such as “Frosty the Snowman” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” are still implicitly Christian since they support the overall celebration of Christmas as a holiday, and hence of Christ’s birth. Again, we certainly don’t play songs about the sun shining in summer or leaves falling in autumn, so the cultural origin underlying these “winter songs” is clearly Christmas and not the winter season.

While the term “propaganda” may seem exaggerated, the OED definition (2: “a movement for the propagation of a particular doctrine, practice”; and 3: “the systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view”) describes perfectly the phenomenon of the Christmas song, which by its supposed innocuousness and cheerful disguise, is the perfect medium for retelling in a repetitive and indoctrinating fashion the myth of the birth and life of Jesus Christ without provoking a critical regard or analysis of its content. “Myth,” furthermore, is an equally apt term, since the difference between “myth” and “religion” is merely a matter of whether or not one believes the narrative. If one were to believe in Zeus and Hercules, they would be the foundation for a religion, and not considered ancient Greek myth. The only difference between Zeus/Hercules and God/Jesus is the number of people who still believe in the latter and who have made that myth normative.

Furthermore, as a former employee of a retail store during my undergraduate days, I can testify to how demeaning and discriminatory it is for stores to subject their employees to Christmas songs and decorations for 8-hour work days, several days a week, for well over a month and sometimes as much as two months (one-sixth of the entire year). For non-Christian employees (who cannot complain without being labelled a grinch and opening themselves to unfair treatment from bosses or colleagues), this incessant propaganda amounts to ongoing aural rape (far from exaggerating here, rhetoric has been figured as a form of penetration analogous to rape since ancient times, particularly during the early modern period). Moreover, employees in retail situations, such as those who work at check-out counters in grocery stores and pharmacies, are usually only paid minimum wage, and such working-class employees (often students and single parents) simply cannot afford to quit their jobs, however uncomfortable these working conditions may make them, and therefore have no choice but to endure this incessant Christian propaganda, unless the government steps in and legislates a secular work environment for them.

While it may not be possible to intervene in shopping centers and other commercial stores where capitalism and the free market economy implicitly constitute the law, at the very least the government could set an example by protecting the employees who work in essential services, and by accommodating the non-Christian customers who have no choice but to consume such essential products as food and medicine. It does not hurt, injure or otherwise inconvenience Christians not to listen to and see Christian songs and symbols in the public sphere (since they are free to do so in private), but it does violate the right to freedom of religion of non-Christians if these songs and symbols infiltrate the public sphere, especially in government spaces and essential services.

En tant que citoyenne non-chrétienne, qui même en restant vigilante et en essayant de m’accommoder moi-même en évitant des représentations de la chrétienté, il m’est impossible de ce faire dans une société chrétien-normative. Face à l’influence insidieuse de la chrétien-normativité, il faut que le gouvernement intervienne afin de protéger le droit à la liberté de religion—et de la religion—de citoyens non-chrétiens en légiférant que l’espace publique doit devenir laïque.