Like you, I was touched, moved and overwhelmed by the national honor paid Tuesday to Karl Tremblay, singing boss of the Cowboys Fringants.
The patriotic speech of Jérôme Dupras, the clenched throat of Jean-François Pauzé, the tear cloth in Marie-Annick Lépine’s pocket and these three who held each other with spit.
There was beauty and truth in this ceremony.
Now, after a few days of reflection, what would you say if we were to think together about how we would like to pay tribute to our loved ones who have died?
- Listen to Jean-François Baril’s sports report on QUB radio :
ROOM FOR QUESTIONS
Let’s be honest: in the next few days, in the next few months, very, very big names in the artists’ colony will be leaving us. Builders, creators, thinkers who are 80, 90 or even almost 100 years old.
Here is a list of questions that run through my mind…
How do we want to say goodbye to them together with respect and dignity?
Does it have to be a national funeral? And if it is a state funeral, who should decide who is entitled to it or not?
Do we deny national funerals to people who disagree and reserve them for figures “everyone loved”?
Should we reserve national funerals for the people who moved us?
What are the criteria, how do we measure this: beyond so many tickets sold, beyond so many messages of mourning on social media?
Should we like Tuesday’s ceremony and ban media access?
Since I hate the term “media circus” (as if the media are clowns who lack class with their big boots), why not open the door to the media and do it respectfully?
The national tribute to Karl Tremblay was broadcast on the Cowboys’ Facebook page. In the future, at other events of this kind, can we avoid favoring an internet gangster who makes fun of Quebec culture?
Should all televisions broadcast the event at the same time?
Should we prefer broadcasting on public television, Télé-Québec?
Can we “invent” a ceremony that is neither religious (national funeral in a church) nor without ritual?
I think out loud with you.
In a column in L’Actualité entitled “The state treats its dead badly,” published this year after the death of Michel Côté, former culture minister Christine St-Pierre noted: “There is no criterion or Analysis grid to decide whether a state funeral should be organized. It is the rule of arbitrariness and that should change.”
I interviewed Christine St-Pierre on QUB Radio. It was she who suggested a national tribute (instead of a funeral) to Lise Payette’s family, respecting Madame Payette’s wish not to have a religious connotation.
Christine St-Pierre told me that she thinks we should take inspiration from French ceremonies, which are completely secular, very sober and solemn.
AFP
FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD
Two questions seem to me to be essential…
How do you organize a ceremony that is both intimate and communal?
How do we honor people in entertainment without it being a spectacle?