felquistes.

still of aquin from gordan sheppards documentary "ha! self-murder mystery"

           i've only lived the way that grass lives. if i were to make a quick tally of kisses given, of my powerful emotions, of my nights of wonder, of my luminous days, of my privileged hours and the great discoveries i have yet to make; and if i were to add up over an infinity of perforated postcards to cities i've passed through, the hotels where i've had a good meal or a night of love, the number of friends and of women i've betrayed, to what sombre inventory would these irregular operations lead me? the sine curve of real-life experience doesn't translate the ancient hope. 

                                                                    -aquin, 1965

yesterday i finished reading hubert aquin's novel prochaine episode and i was left astounded. it was one of those works that can't help but break something open in the reader upon completion. published in 1965, prochaine episode is part political manifesto, part internal dialogue, part spy novel written in first person by an unnamed narrator who is confined to a psychiatric hospital awaiting sentencing for an unmentioned revolutionary act. aquin expertly weaves a complex plot concerning the politics of québec in the 1960's overlaid with the tragic inner demons of a man who is ruminating over the consequences and disappointments of his life as a failed revolutionary. long considered a french-canadian literary classic, aquin's work deeply reflects the great tumult of mid-century québecois political history. for those of you who aren't familiar with this period it signified a marked change in québecois social thought; no longer content to be a french island within a sea of anglophones, many french canadians dusted off their edition of capital and rallied for the separation of québec from english canada as a nation unto itself. out of this movement came a plethora of "terrorist" groups (i quote terrorist to signify my innate distrust of the word as an accurate descriptor), most notably the front de libération du québec, made up of those calling themselves felquistes. the flq took a distinctly militant stance on separatism, arming themselves and, in climax to their presence on the political arena, kidnapping two government officials in protest of their believed english oppressors.

demonstration of jeunes communistes, 1970

 not to suggest that one should support militaristic and armed forms of protest, i, ever the aspiring historian, could not help that the concepts of change and continuity cross my mind. as i said in a conversation with a someone last week; where have all the stokely carmicheals gone? times are revolutionary, positively passionate, in the middle east and even in some fashion in wisconsin, at the moment. scanning the contemporary canadian socio-political landscape one cannot help but find the results bleak, to say the least. i simply wonder where our, our, frenzied and politically consumed men and women have gone? are their voices silenced and their rises to notoriety stifled by our drastic preference of mediums of media from those used by the carmicheals and hanischs of bygone times? or is it that today there are too many screaming at once, and we can't hear the worthy ones but for the noise? i leave you with another quote from aquin, a man who can articulate the pure truth of political obsession more beautifully than i ever could. 

a pirate set free in a misty pond, covered by a colt 38 and injected with intoxicating syringes, i'm a prisoner, a terrorist, an anarchist, and an undeniably washed-up revolutionary! with my gun at my hip, always ready for a lightening shot at ghosts, never pulling any punches and with a heavy heart, i'm a hero, the former addict! national leader of an unknown people! i am the fragmented symbol of quebec's revolution, its fractured reflection and its suicidal incarnation.