If you were shocked by Jean-François Lisée's famous column in The dutyon the topic of “anti-Quebec identity,” you’ll swallow wrong when you watch the documentary series Maisonneuve on the ONF website.
I watched all six half-hour episodes and heard several disturbing statements in them.
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In 2015, about ten Cégep Maisonneuve students left or attempted to leave the country to join the bloodthirsty Islamic State in Syria.
The following year, the college received a $400,000 federal grant to “implement measures to support ethnocultural diversity.”
The documentary Maisonneuve follows students, teachers and social workers as they look back on the events of those years.
Here are some shocking statements from the six episodes.
Mohamed Mimoun (Momo), “Corridor Worker”: “The radicalization of a person comes from exclusion at the grassroots.” When there are closed doors, when there is stigmatization, when there is a prejudice that is added to daily life about what a young person is If a person experiences it, then it is certain that we will tell him: “Go somewhere else, you have no place here.”
Reyane Bouzitoune, student: “Are we giving our young people the space to be heroes?” These people who are leaving are not bad people, they are not people who have bad intentions. These are people who want to be heroes, who want to feel like they are doing something for the cause [leur] are important to us. Why did they feel the need to leave to become heroes for the causes they care about? Are we giving them enough space here to defend the things they believe in?”
Jean-Félix Chénier, political science teacher: “We are no longer a people who are “tenants and unemployed in our own country”, to sing Felix Leclerc. It is not because you, as a French-Canadian, have experienced a colonial relationship throughout history that you are unable to maintain a colonial relationship yourself with others, immigrants and indigenous peoples. The “Maître chez nous” from 1962, that sounds bad in Criss!”
And Chénier also explains about the radicalized young people: “They had a search for identity, a desire to defend those left behind, a search for justice.” Yes, there is something beautiful behind it. It’s just that the fight is fundamentally poorly channeled.”
And on the subject of radicalization: “Radicalism is not a mistake, it depends on how you see it.” I am a politics teacher. If you challenge authority in politics, you are welcome! It’s not an insult to be radical.”
A professor of police technology to his future police students on the topic of racial profiling: “Aren’t we radicalizing people who feel unwelcome and badly treated?”
The host company is not welcome
In conclusion, if young people from Collège Maisonneuve became radicalized, wanted to wage jihad and join the Islamic State, it is not the fault of the radical imams who brainwashed them! It's not the fault of a deadly ideology!
It's the fault… of the Quebecers who didn't receive them well enough! Oh well!