By Caennech Ó Sullibhain

The recent rash of house fires in Val-David, Quebec beginning June 2, 2007, was aimed at the Hasidic Jewish community. I don’t think that in this case it was anti-Israeli, or if the word anti-Semitic will do, or that it was the work of someone from the Middle East.

There has been a longstanding hidden agenda in Quebec that has been aimed at the Jewish community by radical Quebecois. This attitude still prevails in Quebec. The era of groups that were pro-Nazi did not die out after World War II, it just went underground. Those fires which destroyed the cottages of Hasidic Jews were not an accident, but rather done purposely. The aim was to intimidate and cause people to leave the area. In an ethnocentric society like Quebec, there are no accidents; there are only reasons or purposes. These actions are the work of those who believe that Quebecois society should not include ‘les autres’ (non-Quebecois). Just below the surface of every attack on the property of ‘les autres’ is hatred that has been boiling-over for centuries, aimed at people who were not Quebecois. The very Quebecois leaders that came out of the Quiet Revolution were indeed those that had opposed the war in Europe and were in full support of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini at that time. When the war ended in 1945, these people took on a political role and now came out of the shadows, as revolutionaries. Whereas they are still the rabble that supported fascism in the past, they now have added a new twist to camouflage their ethnocentric hatreds.

Can things like this continue unabated? Certainly not! There will come a time when action will have to be taken but, since some radical Quebecois politicians secretly support these actions, this will not be any day soon.