The main thing about the present world development is that it is
the people who have the sovereign right to rule and govern. In
actual fact, in reality, they do neither. The reason they are not
able to rule or govern is because their sovereignty has been
usurped by the capitalist class. Most significantly, their
sovereignty is usurped by placing the interests of the capitalist
system over and above everything else, specifically over and above
the general interests of the nation and people. The capitalist
class itself claims to be the nation and it has put all the
resources of the nation at its service.
One of the main features of the struggle against medievalism
was the struggle against the "divine right of kings." If kings do
not have a divine right to rule then who has this right? This
question was answered by the capitalist class in various ways, but
the form and content of the new bourgeois nation states kept the
sovereignty of the people at bay. By the 1960s, people were
introduced to universal franchise as in Canada, but universal
franchise, by itself does not guarantee anything. They still did
not enjoy their sovereignty.
Recently, the federal government appointed a new
Lieutenant-Governor for Quebec. The first thing he did was to state
that if perchance the people of Quebec exercise their sovereign
right to independence, to establish their own sovereign state, he
would interfere with this decision. Who gives him the power to do
such a thing? According to various federal government sources and
the Chretien Liberals, the Constitution Act of Canada (1982) gives
him the right to interfere with the sovereign right of the people
of Quebec. Who gave this right to the Constitution Act of Canada
(1982)? The king-in-parliament of Britain! And who gave this right
to the king-in-parliament in Britain? It derives from the original
"royal prerogative," the "divine right of kings!"
It does not matter how much the Chretien Liberals try to fool
and divert public opinion, the question of the "sovereignty of the
people" remains the main one in Canada. The people have the right,
by dint of being the people of the country, to reject the
nineteenth century constitution and to promulgate a modern one. The
people of Quebec are sovereign people as are the people of Canada.
But, they have yet to affirm their sovereignty as a fact of life.
They can and will do so only by rejecting the Chretien Liberals and
their spurious efforts to incite a reactionary civil war. The
Liberals are opposed to progress, obstinately stuck in the
nineteenth century, instead of behaving like modern leaders uniting
the country to prepare for the twenty-first century, with a modern
constitution solemnly proclaimed by the sovereign people.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
