[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 194 (Thursday, December 7, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            ONE COMMON LANGUAGE WILL KEEP AMERICA ONE NATION

                                 ______


                             HON. TOBY ROTH

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, December 7, 1995

  Mr. ROTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call the attention of my 
colleagues to the excellent essay that appeared in Time magazine in 
November, ``Quebec and the Death of Diversity.'' The author, Charles 
Krauthammer, makes the powerful observation that nations can perish by 
the sword of cultural diversity. Mr. Krauthammer points to Canada's 
near divorce with its province of Quebec a month ago as a dire warning 
for what could happen here in America. Mr. Krauthammer is absolutely 
right.
  Canada's experience is a cautionary tale for our country, the most 
diverse nation in the history of the world. Their narrow brush with 
breakup should sound a clarion call to all Americans who dismiss the 
importance of a common language and culture to a nation.
  I do not want to watch the United States unravel the way Canada 
almost did. I have introduced legislation that seeks to reinforce the 
common bond that holds our country together: the English language. I 
hope you will heed Canada's silent warning and join me today in the 
effort to keep America one nation, one people. Cosponsor H.R. 739, the 
Declaration of Official Language Act. I ask that the full text of 
Charles Krauthammer's essay appear in the Record at this point.

                  [From Time magazine, Nov. 13, 1995]

                   Quebec and the Death of Diversity

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

       Just hours after the Quebec referendum on separation that 
     came within a whisker of breaking up Canada--and may yet do 
     so--President Clinton pronounced. ``Ethnic diversity can be 
     the hallmark of a strong and prosperous society,'' said his 
     spokesman. ``The President has often said that our ethnic 
     diversity here in America is one source of our greatest 
     strength . . . and hopefully it will be for the people of 
     Canada as well.''
       Now, when commenting on an explosive marital spat occurring 
     next door, it is incumbent on a neighbor to be diplomatic and 
     sympathetic. But must one be fatuous too? Here is Canada, a 
     great neighboring country, choking on cultural diversity, 
     very nearly dying of cultural diversity--and the spokesman 
     for the President of the U.S. offers a mindless, mantra-like 
     homily in praise of the very source of Canada's ongoing 
     agony.
       Yes, diversity can contribute to a country's strength by 
     producing a kind of hearty, hybrid culture and provoking new 
     ways of thought and new avenues to genius. But for every such 
     cultural synergy there are 10 cases--from the Balkans to the 
     former Soviet Union, from Africa to Asia and now to North 
     America--of cultural explosion, where the clash of 
     ethnicities yields weakness, conflict, division, even war. 
     Indeed, the bitterness of French Canada's drive to amputate 
     its century-old confederation with English Canada tells us 
     much about the unexamined belief in the strength and beauty 
     of the multicultural mosaic.
       In their Oct. 30 referendum, half of Quebeckers--and a 
     solid 60% of French speakers--said they want out of their 
     partnership in a culturally diverse Canada. Why? For the 
     answer, Americans might look no farther than Louisiana.
       ``Cajun'' is a corruption of ``Acadian,'' a region of Nova 
     Scotia that was home to many French Canadians until they were 
     expelled by the British in the 1750s and '60s. Many emigrated 
     to Louisiana, then a French possession, where their language 
     and culture withered, evolving into a kind of folk curiosity. 
     Quebeckers do not want to go the way of the Cajun. They do 
     not want to end up as some colorful ethnic subculture known 
     for its music or cooking or the odd linguistic twist. 
     Quebeckers are driven by a terror of being crushed by an 
     English-speaking continent of 300 million into a mere 
     cultural curiosity. Hence their hunger for political 
     independence.
       Oddly, and sadly, the solution does not answer the fear. 
     Politics is no cure for cultural assimilation. A flag and an 
     anthem do not assure cultural vitality.The faith that they 
     will is as desperate as it is sentimental.
       The real problem of Quebec is the problem of all small 
     peoples in a world of irresistibly globalized commerce and 
     culture. That separatism may not solve the problem is beside 
     the point. Separatism is a fact, the single greatest 
     political fact of the post-cold war world. With external 
     enemies removed, with hybrid states no longer held 
     together by hegemonic superpowers, the petty annoyances 
     and existential difficulties of living in mixed-ethnic 
     marriages within nation-states has become increasingly 
     intolerable. From the former Yugoslavia to the former 
     Czechoslovakia to the former Soviet Union, from Sri Lanka 
     to Quebec, the tendency to separation is inexorable.
       Nor is the U.S. immune to the attraction of separatism. 
     Look, for example, at the rise of Louis Farrakhan, the 
     leading black separatist in America. Look at the ethnic 
     social policies, the school curriculums, the racially 
     gerrymandered electoral districts that give an official 
     imprimatur to the notion of the primacy of group over nation.
       Which is why Quebec's referendum is not the provincial 
     story it seems. The 60% of French-speaking Quebeckers who 
     voted to sever their political union with bicultural Canada 
     are a herald of the death of diversity. They are a living 
     refutation of the warm and cozy notion, based more on hope 
     that on history, of multicultural harmony and strength. They 
     are a warning.
       After all, as former Toronto Sun editor Barbara Amiel 
     points out, if multi- culturalism cannot work in Canada, 
     where can it work? If it cannot work in a country as civil, 
     decent and tolerant as Canada--a country where the majority 
     English speakers have been extraordinarily generous in 
     granting all kinds of cultural protections, subsidies, 
     special rights and privileges to the linguistic minority of 
     French Canada--then where?
       And if it cannot work in Canada, where the issue is the co-
     existence of just two (quite similar, one might note) 
     cultures, how will it work in, say, Bosnia, where three, or 
     India or America, with dozens? One looks at Canada and 
     wonders whether the current naive and confident American 
     celebration of cultural diversity--with its insistence on 
     group rights over individual rights, sectarian history over 
     American history, ethnic culture over a common culture--is 
     leading us down a path from which there is no escape.
       Canada has an escape. By accident of geography, separation 
     is a real option because the different culture inhabit 
     different territories. For a country like America, where the 
     different cultures are thoroughly intermixed, there is no 
     such answer. Canada can break up cleanly; the U.S. cannot.
       America is proceeding blithely down the path of diversity 
     and ethnic separatism. America's destination, however, is not 
     Canada, which will find some civil way out of its dilemma. 
     America's destination is the Balkans.

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