Since August 10, Télé-Québec has been offering a documentary webseries that it has deemed advisable to call… “Decolonizing history”.
Watching season one allows me to see that once again, we are trying to disguise – against our will – historical practice as an exercise within everyone’s reach, a maneuver that would be carried out without too many antecedents. Undoubtedly inspired by the phenomenal success of the concept of historical capsules, the architects of this brand new web series opt for a punchy staging, sometimes crass reasoning and a humor much closer to meager compensation than to phony. . I note that this humor at least has the merit of reminding us that Entertainment slips more and more easily under the dress of Reflection.
In addition, watching the episodes authorizes me to officially question this title (“Decolonize history”). If the creators of this program are intended to “decolonize” history, that would mean that the discourse on the past is partly “colonized”, isn’t it? Over the course of the episodes, it seems that one of the methods used to accomplish this highly saving mission would consist quite simply in handing the host’s microphone to young Quebecers from the ethnic communities justly presented on the screen. Would production then attempt to present them to us as the long-awaited regulators who came to “decolonize” all the work of the past – and still under construction – relating to the history of Quebec and necessarily inhabited by a colonizing spirit? If ever this were the case, I would invite the producers of the series to dive into the work of the many Quebec historians who have devoted decades of work to retracing the footsteps of the different communities of belonging present in the territory ( Anctil, Jews / Helly, Chinese / Linteau, French / Pâquet, Belgians / Beaulieu, Natives, etc.) The activists, who are increasingly flooding the airwaves, could then discover that long before them, academics have accomplished colossal work , a job that consisted precisely in documenting exactly what they present as a premiere on Télé-Québec! They could then offer us for once the spectacle of their modest silence.
History in Quebec is a science which bears fruit, which questions itself and which is practiced in an extremely rigorous manner. It is obvious that it is much easier in today’s world to ascribe to it bad intentions, such as being “colonized”.
Only one can, before propagating falsehoods of the sort, simply take an interest in it. Perhaps there to meet, like me, the patient promise of a country.
It makes less noise, that’s obvious. But it relaxes.
Remi Villemure
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