I’m Voting PQ. Our Community Should. Here’s Why
By N Oji Mzilikazi
Originally appeared in the Montreal Community Contact Volume 24, Number 07 April 3, 2014
Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny
And in this judgement there is no partiality
Brother, you’re right, you’re right
You’re right, you’re right, you’re so right!
— Zimbabwe
— Bob Marley
Even amidst anti-immigrant and anti-Black sentiments, I voted Yes, for the Parti Québécois (PQ) in the 1980 referendum. My rational was simple: Every man/every country has a right to determine its own destiny, and like in a healthy organization and healthy democracy, the majority vote wins the day.
Therefore, if the French Québécois majority want Sovereignty; separation from Canada, the establishment and maintenance of a linguistic majority population, a true francophone province where the French language, French culture, French-Canadian history and its French speaking citizens would never again be subjected to second class status and discriminated against, why should I, a member of a race with a shared history and collective memory of racial hatred and their attendant evils by white skin persons, irrespective of language, and one that is mindful of the effects of colonialism and oppression, oppose their desire for self-determination?…