Sugar-coated fascism

I haven’t had a good rant in a while so here goes.

The Quebec govt is currently running radio ads that tell us to greet one another by using the word “Bonjour”. This offends me to my core. There are many ways to greet each other, the ad says, but the best way is to say “Bonjour”. The fucking govt is telling us how to speak to each other. There’s a word for that.

I’m proud and happy to have been born into a bilingual, two-culture family. In this country, I consider that hitting the jackpot. But don’t tell me how to talk to other people. Don’t tell me what to think. Don’t tell me how to act. How dare you.

I was ranting about this to Kumar yesterday. (Yep, he’s already being subject to my rants. Lucky thing.) and when I used the word “fascist”, his eyebrows leapt up in a very cartoonish fashion.

The voice of the woman (of course it’s a woman’s voice!) in the ad is soft, gentle and has a lovely, not heavy, not harsh, Quebecois accent. The best way to deliver an intolerant, racist message is smoothly and gently, right? This pisses me off so much. Just be honest, put out ads where a strong, loud male voice says “Parlez francais or else get lost”. Grrr.