are proud to be Southern boys.nThey’re not Hitler Youth (the kidnwhose jacket was taken said in anninterview that he thinks “the Klan’s anbunch of jerks”). You might ask whynschools that long ago abandoned dressncodes get to make up new ones on thenspot. Since every Satanist and tabledancernin the South seems to be protectednby the First Amendment, whynnot these lads?nOf course, students’ rights have nevernbeen a big number down here.nRecall those paddling statistics. Butnthere is a wonderful irony in the factnthat one of the teachers enforcingnthose improvised rules was reportedlynwearing a “Black by Popular Demand”nT-shirt.nJohn Shelton Reed is descended fromnBaptists. He lives in Chapel Hill,nNorth Carolina, and grumbles a lot.nBut he’s grateful to the kind folks whonsend him clippings.nLetter FromnCanadanby Neil CameronnThe New Dual MonarchynCanadians often try to explain the fundamentalnnature of Canada, both tonthemselves and to visitors, by comparingnit with other countries. The UnitednStates most obviously comes to mind,nespecially since television has increasinglynobliterated any differences innAmerican and Canadian popular taste.nBut there are other analogies that arenmore instructive. Surface manners andndialect aside, we have much in commonnwith the Australians. In many othernrespects, we resemble the Scandinavians.nMany of us would like to emulatenthe Swiss, but fear we are rather morenlike the Belgians.nBut an even better case can be madenthat we are a 20th-century reincarnationnof the Habsburg Empire. Ontarioncorresponds to German Austria, thenWest and the Atlantic provinces playnthe part of the Slavs, and above all,nQuebec is our Hungary, and like Hungary,nQuebec’s nationalist aspirationsnthreaten fragmentation of the rest of thenpolitical structure. Looking back on thensequence of events that took place innCentral Europe after 1848, this parallelnbecomes more and more alarming. Lawn101, the discriminatory language legislationnintroduced in Quebec by thennationalists in 1977, bears an almostnuncanny resemblance to the HungariannLaw of Nationalities of 1868. Ournattempts at constitutional compromisenover the last decade have largely takennthe form of attempting to create a DualnMonarchy in all but name. Montreal isntraveling down a road taken by Budapestna century earlier.nThere is little current enthusiasmnamong French Canadians for outrightnseparation, or even for rejecting thencapitalist and commercial enticementsnof English-speaking North America.nThe late Rene Levesque’s project tonbring about “sovereignty-association”nwas actually rejected by a majority (60npercent) of the people of Quebec in anreferendum eight years ago, and hisnnationalist Parti Quebecois was defeatednat the polls four years later. But hisnprinciples have been increasingly implementednin practice.nThe process began in the 1960’s,nwhen the central Canadian governmentnalmost casually surrendered much of itsnpower to the provinces, essentially tonplease Quebec. Quebec collects its ownnincome tax from residents, usually morenthan they pay to Ottawa. It finances andnruns its own social services, including anpension plan separate from the CanadanPension Plan. Above all, Robert Bourassa’snLiberal government in Quebec,nwhile taking a conservative policy onneconomic and business issues, kept Lawn101, which makes French the onlynofficial language in the province, andnprohibits even bilingual signs.nThis is to make compulsory a practicenthat is largely followed anywaynthroughout most of the province, but itnis another story in Montreal, wherenmost of Quebec’s one million Englishspeakersnlive. Law 101 compels all newnimmigrants to educate their children innFrench. But this has done little tonchange matters: while fluent bilingualismnis more and more common amongnyoung people of all origins, neither thenchildren of immigrants nor of the longestablishednbecome French Canadians,nnor do they become supporters of nationalism.nLast December, the Supreme Courtnof Canada ruled that Quebec’s totalnnnprohibition of commercial signs in Englishnviolated the right to freedom ofnspeech and expression, supposedlynguaranteed in both the Quebec andnCanadian Charters of Rights. But thenCourt did not endorse total freedom ofnexpression, instead holding that Quebecnwas entitled to pass legislation designednto “protect” French: for example, requiringnthat bilingual signs have Frenchnin bigger letters.nWhile Bourassa’s election platformnhad included a promise to restore bilingualnsigns, the reappearance of nationalistnmobs in the street was making himnnervous. His bright idea was that Englishnbusiness establishments should benallowed to use bilingual signs indoors,nbut only French outside. To evade thenCourt decision, he evoked the “notwithstanding”nclause of the new CanadiannConstitution, which allows provincesnto suspend fundamental rights.nHe called on everybody to be calm.nThey weren’t. Immediately after hisnannouncement, nationalists firebombednthe offices of Alliance Quebec, a meeknand mild lobby group for bilingualism.nThe Anglos, usually a quiet and lawabidingnbunch, began to gather in theirnown wrathful assemblies, calling for civilndisobedience. It is hard to believe thatnwe could manufacture our own versionnof Belfast or Beirut, but if we avoidndoing so, it will not be due to thenintelligence, principles, or courage ofnour current political leadership.nAmericans may be surprised thatnCanada is developing such unpleasantlyninteresting politics. Up until recently,nany dark prophecies they have heardnfrom this side of the border have usuallynbeen about the supposedly dire consequencesnof the Free Trade Agreementnwith the US. The January Harper’s, fornexample, carried an article by RobertsonnDavies, one of our leading novelists,non “Signing Away Canada’snSoul.” This essay, which undoubtedlynexpresses views widely held by ournintellectual and cultural establishment,npurports to be an account of whatnCanada is really all about, yet it doesnnot even mention the issue of Quebecnand the Constitution.nThis curious myopia can be largelynexplained by the fact that, in Canada,nintellectual conservatism, unlike thatnfound in Britain and the United States,nis still heavily influenced by Toryism,nand often by what is called “red”nMAY 1989/47n