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"My encounters with Spain"
Notes for an address
by the Honourable Stéphane Dion
President of the Privy Council and
Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs
At the Honorary Doctorate Conferral Ceremony
Carlos III University of Madrid
Madrid, Spain
November 13, 2002
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In receiving this honorary doctorate from Carlos III University of Madrid, my
thoughts turn to my parents, who raised me to respect academia and knowledge, to
my wife Janine, a fellow academic who has helped me more in my career than I
will ever help her in hers, to our daughter Jeanne, who is already of an age to
share her parents’ passion for learning, to all my nearest and dearest, and
all my friends. I also think of my professors and fellow students at Université
Laval in Quebec City, where I studied political science, and the sociology
program at the Institut d’études politiques in Paris, where I completed my
doctorate. Nor can I overlook the Université de Moncton, in our province of New
Brunswick, which gave me, in January 1984, my first opportunity to teach
political science, and especially the Université de Montréal, where I was
a professor of political science from September 1984 to January 1996.
I fully believed I would remain at the Université de Montréal throughout my
entire career, until the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Jean
Chrétien, convinced me to come defend my ideas in the political arena. Although
he lured me from academia, which I believed was my only professional universe, I
thank him for having associated me with what he has accomplished in politics,
from solidifying Canadian unity to improving Canadians’ quality of life.
Another thought comes to mind: I find it extraordinary to be receiving this
honorary doctorate from a prestigious Spanish university at the invitation of
its Rector, Mr. Gregorio Peces-Barba Martínez, one of the "Fathers"of
the Spanish Constitution. On my intellectual journey, there have been meeting
points with Spain that today’s ceremony invites me to elaborate on.
Let me take you back to the mid-1970s. I was then twenty years old and was
studying political science at Université Laval. The prevailing sociological
trends at that time were very fatalistic. They were teaching what I would call a
deterministic conception of human societies. Both structuralist Marxist
sociology and Parsonian functionalist sociology tended to define the individual
as a pure product of the conditioning he had received since childhood. He was
for all practical purposes, no more than the result of his environment, his
national culture and his class origins. Very little was made of his free will.
Human societies were described as being paralysed by the weight of
conditioning, incapable of true change. Or, if they did change, it was owing to
the inevitable impulse of major societal determinisms, such as the evolution of
modes of production, in the face of which the free choice of individuals counted
for almost nothing.
This fatalistic conception of human societies tended to devalue liberal
democracy, which in effect makes individual freedom not the only, but the
primary value. So, why base political society on the free individual if that
freedom is but an illusion? As a student, I often heard liberal political
institutions described as a democracy, formal or artificial, behind which the
real societal determinisms were played out. Collectivist theories were in vogue.
Some trends of political sociology saw a determinism in national cultures such
that, for example, they reasoned there was an almost insurmountable
incompatibility between Catholic and Latin countries and so-called
Anglo-Saxon-style democracy. The Marxist trend, for its part, announced the
inevitable advent of communist collectivism.
It is noteworthy that the international situation did not seem at all
promising for democracies. Latin America, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and a
part of Mediterranean Europe were all under the yoke of authoritarian or
totalitarian regimes. In countries such as France and Italy, about one quarter
of voters supported parties openly hostile to pluralistic democracy. Such ideas
penetrated labour and university campuses in all Western democracies. American
democracy, for its part, was discredited by the aftermath of the war in Vietnam
and the Watergate crisis.
However, what happened in the years that followed was the very opposite of a
contraction of democratic space and individual freedom. Humanity experienced one
of the most positive phenomena in its entire history: the dazzling advance of
democracy on all continents. And where did that global disturbance come from?
From Greece, from Portugal, from Spain, in short from the Mediterranean, eternal
cradle of civilization.
I have long thought that one of the heroes of the 20th century is your king,
His Majesty Juan Carlos I. Rather than listening to the fatalistic voices
claiming that the Latin peoples were not made for democracy, he believed in
the democratic destiny of a Spain ready to assume its pluralism. Through that
belief, it was not only the destiny of Spain that was played out, but perhaps,
that of humanity as well. For it is hardly simplistic to say that when it became
clear that Spain would not go backwards and would become democratic,
Latin Americans said to themselves: We are as capable as the Spanish!
And so the great democratic wave swept over every continent, even bringing
down the Berlin Wall. There was nothing inevitable in that fortunate event,
which was not the result of any historical determinism. It was rather the result
of courageous choices, resembling those of your king. And so today, knowing that
nothing is inevitable, we must not take that progress for granted. We should
instead further solidify democracy and the values on which it is based.
But, let me return to the young political science student I was in the
mid-70s. As far as I remember, I have always had a rather wilful
temperament. This led me to be somewhat sceptical of the theories I was being
taught on the fatalism of social determinisms. It was not that I denied how each
of us is influenced by our social environment and the political culture of the
society to which we belong. It seemed to me, however, that these collective
forces exert an influence on the free will of each of us without destroying its
decisive nature. Some excellent professors reinforced that opinion. In
particular, I wish to mention my father, Léon Dion, a respected academic of
liberal thought. I think also of the supervisor of my masters thesis at
Université Laval, Vincent Lemieux, one of Canada’s most renowned political
scientists. I must also acknowledge the great French sociologist Michel Crozier,
who supervised my doctoral thesis.
Michel Crozier taught me that the essence of human societies is the margin of
freedom enjoyed by each of their members. The behaviour of every human being
retains a margin of unpredictability, what Crozier calls the blur zone. Every
human being seeks to reduce that unpredictability in the behaviour of others.
Hence the power struggles inherent in human societies. It is pointless to deny
the reality of those power struggles and hide behind the false security of
determinist theories. We must instead try to gain a better understanding of that
part of indetermination in individual behaviour which gives human societies
their true vitality. No social behaviour can be understood without referring to
individual behaviour.
That methodological individualism has inspired my work as a researcher and
marked my teaching with my students. It has also helped me develop my own
political thought about what is right and desirable within society. I believe in
a balanced liberalism, based on individual freedom, but which seeks to guide it
toward the solidarity of citizens. In my research and my writings on public
administration, I have always taken pains to place at the core of my thought,
public service, that wonderful humanistic value. Public service fosters both the
primacy of the individual over the public administration and the necessary role
of the state to better encourage mutual assistance.
This balanced liberalism has also inspired my position on nationalism. As a
Francophone Quebecer, I have always been surrounded by a very nationalistic
society. Quebec is the only majority Francophone province in Canada. The
proximity of the United States gives the English language an enormous force of
assimilation. Under such circumstances, it is easy to imagine that Francophone
Quebec will always be nationalistic. But having observed nationalism in my
society, Quebec, and having seen its effects elsewhere in the world, I have come
to the conclusion that, while nationalism can be a good thing, it can also
degenerate into a dangerous and harmful force. Nationalism plays a positive role
when it bolsters the desire for mutual assistance that inspires the members of a
given society. It is harmful and potentially dangerous when it becomes the only
ideological lens through which life in society is perceived.
Nationalism can bolster a human group’s desire for mutual assistance. The
ultimate value must remain the human being, rather than the nation. The reason
is simple: only flesh-and-blood individuals have a tangible existence; they
alone are capable of feelings, freedom, happiness.
How to ensure that nationalism remains a principle of mutual assistance, and
not an incitement to turn inwards, or even to hate others? I believe the answer
lies in consistently promoting pluralism of identities. In a liberal society, it
must be accepted that citizens have different ways of defining themselves in
relation to the community. The important thing is that this pluralism of
collective identities creates a dynamic conducive to mutual assistance and
understanding.
That is why I have come to the conclusion that collective identities can be
added to but not taken away from. I am both a Quebecer and a Canadian, and I
have no desire to choose between those two identities. There is a Canadian
dimension to my Quebec identity which the latter could not deprive itself of
without being poorer for doing so. In the same way, my special attachment to
Quebec does not make me any less open to other Canadians. On the contrary, it
makes me want to put my individual talents and my Quebec culture at the service
of all my fellow Canadians, in the same way that I willingly accept their
contribution.
Individual freedom, public service, solidarity of citizens, pluralism of
identities, these are the values that have forged my thinking and that led me
into politics. They inspire me as Canada’s Intergovernmental Affairs Minister,
in the efforts I have been making for almost seven years to improve the capacity
of the Canadian federation to always serve Canadians better.
These values have not come to me solely from my experience in academia and in
government. A number of experiences in my life have marked me as well. I would
like to mention one in particular. In May and June 1976, at the age of 20, I
hitchhiked the length and breadth of the Iberian peninsula. I experienced some
moments of unforgettable intensity by talking with Spaniards of all ages. As you
can imagine, I had some passionate political discussions. My knowledge of your
language was much better at the end of those two months than it is today. I
dream of finding the time to relive such a Spanish experience some day.
I felt clearly at the time that a major upheaval was in the making in the
Spain which had barely emerged from Francoism, but I could not have predicted
how it would turn out.
I returned to Madrid as a young professor on the occasion of the World
Congress of Sociology in June 1990. I found a Spanish capital so brimming with
freedom as to be almost unrecognizable. In just over a decade, your country had
experienced a political and social liberation which reminded me of the somewhat
analogous evolution that my society, Quebec, experienced from the early 1960s.
In a single decade, Quebec shook off its conservative and clerical traditions
and indeed transformed itself into one of the most dynamic and effervescent
societies in North America.
In September 1991, I participated in an international seminar on linguistic
planning organized by the "Consello da Cultura Galega" in Santiago de
Compostela. I vividly recall attending an animated debate among linguists
seriously discussing the possibility that Portuguese was, after all, only a
Galician dialect! That high level seminar helped me better gauge the full
richness that the diversity of spoken languages represents in democracies like
Spain and Canada.
When I next returned to your country, it was as a guest lecturer in Madrid
and Barcelona, in December 1995. At that time, I was reflecting intensely on my
future, as the Prime Minister of Canada had just privately
informed me that he wanted me to join his government to help him strengthen
Canadian unity. Two months earlier, a referendum had been held in Quebec, in
which the secessionist government had asked Quebecers to approve a confused
proposal of sovereignty accompanied by an offer of political and economic
partnership between Quebec and Canada. By a slim majority, Quebecers had
rejected that proposal.
I will not hide the fact that my stay in Spain in December 1995 contributed
to my decision to enter politics to promote my ideas. I recall, in particular,
the exchanges I had in Barcelona with professors who were convinced that the
future of that magnificent city would never be as promising unless it agreed to
be profoundly Catalonian, Spanish and European at the same time. My
interlocutors believed, as I do, in the force of plural identities in society.
They also believed that identities can be added to, but never subtracted from.
This stay in Spain helped me realize just how much the debate we have in
Quebec, as to whether we ought to accept or reject our Canadian belonging, is a
universal debate. I told myself that Canada could do better, at the dawn of a
new century, than offering the world the spectacle of its break-up. On the
contrary, it had to show the rest of the world that it was both possible and
desirable to have populations of different languages and cultures living
together in mutual assistance, tolerance and harmony within a single state.
I am convinced that democracy urges us to accept all our fellow citizens,
without distinction of race, religion or regional belonging. Secession, for its
part, is equivalent to choosing from among our fellow citizens those we accept
and those we want to transform into foreigners. So, there is a contradiction
between secession and democracy which makes these two notions difficult to
reconcile. It is not the vocation of citizens in a democracy to transform
themselves into foreigners in relation to one another. I owe that conviction, in
part, to the exchanges I have had with citizens of your country.
In fact, a country gives itself the best chances of improving when all its
citizens feel a strong solidarity to one another and when they see their
differences of language, culture or religion as complementary, never as a threat
or a source of division. I know this is the ideal you are pursuing in Spain,
encouraged by your success, and without backing away from a terrorism that the
government I belong to firmly condemns on behalf of all Canadians.
The contexts are different, but the quest of both Spaniards and Canadians is
the same. Know that you are not alone in your efforts to build a society ever
more tolerant and open to its own diversity. Canadians, as well, clearly see
that their country will not progress toward greater well-being and prosperity
except through unity in diversity.
That, at least, is what a life filled with travel, study and action has
taught me. The significance of the honorary doctorate you are awarding me today
is above all an encouragement to me to continue this quest for the ideal of
freedom and human solidarity.
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