Le pluralisme culturel canadien : un modèle de tolérance pour l'Europe

Abstract

In Canada, there is a gap between the extremely rich reflection on multiculturalism and the implementation of this theory, which sometimes causes serious issues. Like the entire North-American continent, Canada is a land of immigration now forced to find the balance between two contradictory trends: « identity tension », namely the exacerbating differences, and « postmodern burst », i.e. erasing differences. In Quebec there are two ways of thinking and writing about the cultural identity of this French speaking island. The first is the modern perspective consisting of a radical identity quest which states that the inhabitants belong in America and not in France as it stated before that the inhabitants belonged in France and not in England. The second is a tolerant postmodern perspective expressed in literature by the substitution of the great theme of exploring the open and unlimited space by the description of a closed space, a house, picture en abyme of Canada, where people manage to live surrounded by others.