Richard Séguin is rightly concerned about the future of the song of Quebec, which has been slowly murdered for decades! murder by whom? From the cabochons of the French-speaking Quebecers themselves, of course!
My remarks refer to the long interview that the singer, in love with the Eastern Townships, gave to my colleague Cédric Bélanger from the Journal de Québec.
Richard Séguin, whom I admire a lot, talks about training young people in local music.
But it becomes difficult because the previous generation, the one that teaches, has very often itself denied its own culture or shows a sneaky disgust towards it!
The world is Anglo-American
He says his sister Marie-Claire was amazed to find that in a school where she had to teach singing, the show was all English songs!
My wife also witnessed such a monolingual English spectacle last year in a so-called francophone school.
When she expressed her incomprehension to a teacher, he said contemptuously: “We are citizens of the world, we!”
Because in the cabochon of cabochons of Anglicization, the “world” is limited to the United States and England.
Die without pain
In our schools we don’t know the Stendhals, the Balzacs or the Zolas (except maybe in the case of an exceptional teacher).
We don’t study Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault or Gaston Miron.
“Too old-fashioned,” say many youngsters who have been fed exclusively Anglo music or translated Anglo children’s novels (under the pretense that it’s more fun).
It’s called dying little by little, my dear Richard Séguin.
It is called bitten by the snake, but you can find comfort in the fact that the bite does not hurt.
Could a government culture leap save us?
Let’s not rely on the current CAQ’s faded pale blue “nationals” lifting a finger.
