The September 11 attacks as viewed from Quebec: the small-nation code in geopolitical discourse

Public opinion polls from before and after 2001 in Quebec (Canada) reveal a marked shift during that year in attitudes about the US. Québécois opinions of the US fell to the least favorable rating they had had in 15 years. A “fair weather friend” phenomenon based on fear of association with a target state does not fully explain Quebec’s reaction. Consideration of Quebec’s historical geographical situation as a small nation without a sovereign state suggests deeper reasons for the shift in perspective, which are confirmed by quantitative and qualitative analysis of letters to the editor of daily newspapers. Québécois letters about the attacks of September 11 were inclined to frame these attacks in terms of a battle between a large and powerful state and various small and weak nations, and subsequently to find common cause with the small nations. This particular framing of the 9-11 events according to a “small-nation” code reflected fundamental elements of the historical–geographical situation of Quebec as constructed in Québécois discourses. The activation of a set of key associations from the national past to understand international relations in the present is an example of what Gertjan Dijkink calls the “national reflex”. The activation of the reflex by an attack on the US points out how a hegemonic state can be vulnerable, paradoxically, as a result of its own supremacy.