Quebec’s Symbolic Catch-22
Quebec’s approach to religious freedom has raised more than a few eyebrows. Religious neutrality of the state, the laicity of the State (loi sur la laïcité de l'État), seems directed at religious minorities, with the culture of the religious majority immune to the harsher consequences. It’s as if every religious symbol that the religious majority want is excluded from being termed a religious symbol.
Of Quebec’s nine statutory holidays, three are distinctly Christian – Easter Monday, Good Friday and Christmas Day. I’m sure you will appreciate the coincidence. And another, that no other Quebec holiday is tied to any other religious identity. With this as background context, things can easily go from the absurd to the ridiculous. You really can have fun with the intellectual bankruptcy emanating from Quebec City.
Take for instance, the Assemblée nationale du Québec, the province’s national legislative assembly, home to 125 elected representatives. The late nineteenth century building in which they sit is serenaded by a pantheon of statues of old, white Christian men… and two white Christian ladies. Many of them owed their fame to working in the Catholic Church – missionaries, bishops, nuns. We still live in a COVID world, so such freaky coincidences are still game. The main building is anchored by a large, central tower with Quebec’s flag.
As much as the representatives want to detach state from religion, the tower’s origins lie in the 8th century Great Mosque of Damascus, and specifically its minarets. These were built with a strong base, rising in sections and increasingly decorative at the upper level with a symbol hoisted at the high point. Minarets, from the Arabic word for ‘watchtower’, spread across Europe as Crusaders returning from Palestine, educated their countryfolk on the efficacy of this technology.
It doesn’t end there. The heraldry used in the parliament, especially the coat of arms, originates from the world of Islam – specifically Baibars, the 13th century Sultan of Egypt. Lest the Quebecois want to know, his full name was Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari. He helped kick the Crusaders out of Egypt. The early Quebecois quite literally copied and pasted his red walking lion, with its right paw raised, into the Quebec’s coat of arms. They didn’t even change the paw from right to left.
Finally, the Fleur-de-Lis, slap bang in the middle of both Quebec’s flag and coat of arms also originates in the Muslim world. It first appeared as a blazon for Nur al-Din ibn Zanki, in 12th century Damascus. The symbol was in fact placed above the mihrab, the indentation within a prayer hall which signifies the direction to pray, within his madrassa. Zanki, famous for fighting against the Christian Crusaders, might soon become famous for designing Quebec and France’s symbolic identity.
There’s always a danger in zealously stressing the state’s religious pseudo-neutrality, preventing people from wearing religious symbols or religiously mandated clothing. Perps pursuing stupid agendas tend to dig bigger holes for themselves. The government of Quebec now might explain why so much of its own national symbolic identity comes from the armies of the overtly Muslim world. After all, if we’re going to shut shop on religious symbols, should we not start at the top?