<論説>第一次・第二次世界大戦期のカナダにおける徴兵制論争 : 「移動」としての総力戦と文化的マイノリティー (特集 : 移動)

Abstract

本稿は、第一次・第二次世界大戦期のカナダにおける徴兵制論争を題材として、後年のカナダが多文化主義の導入に至る起源の一つを考察する。二つの世界大戦において数多くの人員を動員したカナダでは、「帝国の総力戦」を遂行するための方策をめぐって、イギリス帝国との連帯感をアイデンティティの核とするイギリス系と、帝国ではなくカナダそのものに対する帰属意識を重視するフランス系との間で、深刻な軋礫が生じた。徴兵制の導入が焦点となった一九一七年一二月総選挙と一九四二年徴兵制国民投票では、マイノリティであるフランス系の声が数の圧力の前に敗北し、徴兵制反対派が圧倒的多数を占めるケベックとその他の地域との社会的分断が、決定的となった。こうした文化的マイノリティに対する抑圧の経験は、逆説的なかたちで、フランス系知識人にマジョリティとの対話の重要性を認識させ、後年の多文化主義の背景をなすことになった。

Canada is known as the first country to officially adopt multiculturalism as its national policy. This essay aims to explore an aspect of the origin of Canadian multiculturalism by tracing the debate on military conscription during the First and Second World Wars. Canada mobilized 630, 000 soldiers during the First World War (out of the total population of 8 million) and 720, 000 soldiers during the Second World War (out of the total population of 11.5 million). The large scale of the mobilization brought about confrontation between English Canadians, who justified the defense of the British Empire as their national duty, and French Canadians, who were less sympathetic to the war for the British cause. Imperialistic sentiment at its height divided the two ethnic groups not only over the means to fight a total war, conscription in this case, but also over the bases of their national identities. While English Canadians, representing the overwhelming majority of the population, identified themselves 'British' as well as 'Canadian', French Canadians, increasingly becoming ever more a minority among diverse ethnicities, thought they should be exclusively 'Canadian' and their loyalty should be to Canada itself rather than the British Empire. Canada entered the First World War under the voluntary recruitment system. As the war effort demanded more military reinforcements, the Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden planned the introduction of conscription. In October 1917, Borden formed the Unionist Party with the Liberals who supported conscription and left the party led by anti-conscriptionist Wilfrid Laurier. Borden exercised his authority in order to win the general election held in December 1917, for example, promoting the Wartime Elections Act, which granted voting rights to the female relatives of serving soldiers, who became a group supporting conscription, and disenfranchised some minority groups such as conscientious objectors and 'enemy aliens' who were regarded as anti-conscriptionists. The election ended in a landslide for the Unionist government, except in Quebec where French 'nationalists' like Henri Bourassa were strongly opposed to conscription. Bourassa criticized Borden's wartime policy in Le Devoir and his articles were translated into English. The polarization of public opinions between Quebec and the other provinces caused resentment among Quebecers. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King refused re-introduction of conscription to avoid conflict with French Canadians in Quebec. But, with the increasing pressure from English Canadians, King decided to call a national plebiscite in August 1942 over the amendment of the National Resources Mobilization Act, which would remove the restriction on compulsory military service overseas. In Quebec, anti-conscriptionists from different political backgrounds, most notably a leading journalist Andre Laurendeau, formed the Ligue pour la Defense du Canada and campaigned for the 'No' side. Whereas the national result was 64 percent voting in favour of conscription, Quebec voted 73 percent against conscription. Considering the clear opposition in Quebec, King hesitated to introduce conscription for overseas service as late as November 1944. The defeat based on the force of numbers, however, left an indelible mark on French Canadian sensibilities. Through their wartime experience, French Canadian intellectuals like Laurendeau and future-prime-minister Pierre Trudeau recognized the limit of their position as cultural minorities and the need for negotiation with the dominant majority group. To remedy the situation and to express the voices of French (and eventually other non-English) Canadians, Laurendeau became the do-chairman of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963 and Trudeau enacted the 1982 Constitution, which proclaims multiculturalism as Canada's official policy. This essay concludes that the oppression of cultural minorities during the conscription crises was, in a paradoxical way, a turning point in the rise of Canadian multiculturalism.