Dedicated to those who should remember
Quebec contemplates secession from Canada, anchored in memories of a history darkened by autocratic abuse of power.
I reflect in shame of my ancestry, while finding language for an anger that has been with me for more than a decade.
Je me souviens.
Memory 1: Advent of colonization
Ashen faced bureaucrats enter a hallway.
Excited anticipation of a promise unfulfilled.
Welcoming signs ignored on a march to predetermined conclusions.
Inquiry complete before its time.
Signs of decision in faces of stone.
No insurmountable cliffs, no fortuitous winter.
Done deal.
Autonomy lost.
A triumphant march.
Complete victory, no resistance.
A price to be paid forever.
Je me souviens.
Memory 2: Signs of triumph.
A bulging travesty of justification, a legitimation of power, the advent of reform.
A politically appointed leader describes a watershed.
Delusion.
Secession but a cherished hope.
No rebuttal.
Signs of doubt, dissension, and manifest silence.
A leader relishes golden glory.
Autocracy.
Oppression.
Hypocrisy.
Suppression.
Je me souviens.
Memory 3: Imprisonment.
Only one year.
Identity lost.
Facades of scholarship.
Destruction of a proud past.
A breath of freedom delayed by vindictive might.
Trapped in a facade of shimmer and glitter.
Powerbrokers strut through mighty halls of a palace of delusion, lusting an ever elusive vision.
Absent scholarship, integrity, purpose.
Present illusion.
Pharisees abound.
Imprisoned without purpose.
A destructive act.
An abuse of power.
Je me souviens.
Memory 4: Secession.
A lonely man in a land of darkness.
A stern emperor trapped in a house of mirrors.
Respeldent in self image, blinded by mindless infatuation.
A lion without teeth.
King of cloned servants and jesters at court.
Once trapped, now free.
Je me souviens.
Afterword
An emporer now fallen.
Lust for power ever present.
A kingdom ordained assumes trappings of respectability.
Cloth and gown resplendent.
University in name not deed.
Shame of past, squalor of present.
Questions of survival grounded in moral bankruptcy.
Travesty begets grandeur but who reaps the harvest?
Je me souviens.