Some interesting stats to ponder about Montreal at the time of the October 1970 FLQ crisis.
According to a Senate poverty committee, 37 percent of Montrealers had less than a grade 5 education at that time.
Let me repeat - almost four of ten had virtually no education. What the hell?
About one in three houses in the poor areas of town had no bathtub or shower and welfare had risen 400 percent during a time the city grew only 20 percent.
I'm not sure what the current rates are but if someone has a link to stats let me know.
So when peering through the prism of the past it's important to remember that such factors are pretty important in creating the atmosphere of the times.
My parents used to tell me that "French" kids were often advised to quit school and go to work as soon as they'd become literate. (They usually mentioned this apropos of pointing out how generous they were to let me finish high school, but whatever.) They noted the prevalence of kids doing jobs like grocery delivery on those black bikes, for example.
ReplyDeleteBasically, it was a religious notion: how well you did in this life was not a concern, you just had to stay obedient and religiously observant, and hope for the next life.
It wasn't the 37 % that were violent. It may have been on there behalf but I didn't appreciate the bombings and violence then or now, Violence didn't do a hell of a lot of good and yes I took it very personal as it was directed at me.
ReplyDeleteAs a result I chose to leave in 1969 for greener pastures. Literally I settled in Hawaii. And as news articles on me will confirm I contributed my part to my adopted state. Your loss.
I still love Montreal as the city of my birth but I have never had any contrition about leaving. Quite the contrary! Hawaiians at that time wer poor and uneducated but they never injured anyone or forced children to learn Hawaiian against their will.
It was a vicious circle back then, I heard many times how the elite actually enjoyed having this low-cost poorly educated workforce forming the majority of the population while their chance of climbing up in most corporations were nill. It was all their fault of course, as they were blindly religious . Thing is, the Quiet Revolution took place in the 60s and back in the 90s, I was still hearing the stereotypes about poorly educated, low IQ, religious "French" kids that shouldn't be hired. I'm happy we live in a much more egalitarian society nowadays even if it caused some elite to flee and some rightwingers to scream bloody hell in today's Quebec media.
ReplyDeleteJean Naimard's edited comment:
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to go back 40 years for that. There are still people who do not value education at all.
Myself, I did not graduate high school, for I was expelled 2 days after I turn 16. So I had to get a job.
I managed to get a job working with computers, and nearly 35 years later, I still work in computers as a consultant.
But some time ago, my mother's family found it totally awful that I did not have a degree, so after enough bickering, I got to go to university.
But circumstance being what they were, the only reasonable program was not in Montréal, so I had to go stay at an uncle's whose wife was of that "get a job" school, which clashed with her offspring's desire to become engineers (as well as their father's).
So when a thirtysomething guy gets in the house to go to university while she did not approve of her teen's doing the same set the stage for some epic sparks, and after a few months of this, it became unbearable and I had to precipitously drop out.
Fortunately, she on't show up at the family reunions (and the kids both graduated from Poly).