John Ralston Saul to open Faculté lecture series
September 21, 2001 - Despite international turmoil and persistent pessimism in certain quarters towards the idea of local autonomy, Canadians are moving into a new era of citizen empowerment, says His Excellency John Ralston Saul.
“In spite of all that is happening at the moment, I do believe that we are moving into a new era of greater opportunity for citizens to participate,” says the acclaimed essayist, novelist and husband to Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada. “We have to stop listening to the discourse that decision-making is out of our hands.”
“If we believe in democracy you have to believe in the power of the citizen--there is no such thing as an abstract democracy. Economists are making a profoundly anti-democratic statement when they suggest citizens have no power over the reigns of the economy.”
Saul, who will be in Edmonton Monday in the Myer Horowitz Theatre to deliver the inaugural address in the U of A’s Faculté St. Jean Louis Desrochers Lecture Series on the topic of Citizen Engagement in a Complex Society believes people should always have the last word. “Whenever I speak out about this issue I find the vast majority of people agree with me--regardless of political or philosophical leanings.”
Saul is particularly excited to be invited to speak in this lecture series hosted by the U of A’s French-language faculty because of his long-standing interest in bicultural issues and his personal support on behalf of Francophones outside of Quebec and French-language immersion programs nationwide.
For example, Saul believes that the Canadian Anglophone majority can learn a lot about citizen empowerment by looking at how the French, and other minority groups, have maximized their public participation and visibility. In particular, he notes how minorities have embraced the power of the local and have learned to make themselves heard. This he says, goes totally against the grain of current dogma that tells us that there is “nothing locals can do and that international bodies or economic theories are deciding everything.”
He's also pleased to participate because of his long-standing support for French-language education. “I’ve spoken for a very long time about the importance of the French language, the Francophone minorities outside of Quebec and the immersion schools communities,” says the author of the best-selling Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.
Saul goes further and states he’d like to see an alliance between Francophones and immersion students, envisioning the creating a larger linguistic group with double the size that “would be able to speak out about Francophone culture and concerns.”
“Before Rideau Hall I started a program called “Le Français pour l'Avenir / French for the Future” a national program for high school Francophone and immersion school kids, with the aim of bringing them together once a year with adults who’ve created lives by being bicultural, a role model meeting in effect, to answer the questions of kids who may be wondering what they’re going to do with this skill and this culture they are learning.
“We also link up the students across the country by satellite so they no longer feel isolated and start to see themselves as part of a national movement and build a critical mass of bicultural Anglophones,” he explains, adding that there are a half million kids in French and immersion studies outside of Quebec in Canada.
While Saul underlines that Canada is no mono-culture, the knowledge of French allows bilingual speakers a valuable insight into our culture as well as a powerful business and intellectual tool that doesn’t stop with the two official languages of the nation.
“When I go to immersion schools I find that 60% are talking a third language,” he concludes. “This is a good thing given we live in a complicated world where you needed more than one or two languages.”
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The Faculté Saint-Jean Web site:
www.fsj.ualberta.ca/
