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Trudeaumania revisited

Ramesh Thakur

For Indians, the most revealing part of Pierre Trudeau's just-published biography might be just how much he aspired to the prime ministership not for the sake of capturing power but for harnessing it to fashion a just society.

— THE HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES

Pierre Trudeau with Indira Gandhi.

DURING THE dark days of Indira Gandhi's Emergency rule (1975-77), having already fulfilled the necessary residency requirements, I applied for Canadian citizenship. On the day of the citizenship test, another candidate was an elderly Chinese lady with a limited command of English who had been sponsored by her daughter. When the judge tested her knowledge of the Prime Minister, she stared blankly at him in silence.

"Madam," he persisted, "can you tell me the name of Canada's Prime Minister?" Silence.

"Is Pierre Trudeau the Prime Minister?"

"Trudeau?"

"Congratulations, Madam, you have passed the test."

Trudeau would surely have approved of the judge's Solomon-like wisdom. The prize-winner of the contest to name the world's most boring headline is unkindly said to be "Yet another worthy Canadian initiative." The experience of visiting Canada is so memorable that apparently some Americans cannot recall if they have ever been there.

Trudeau was a glittering exception. In him, Canada discovered a leader for the times who was also a man ahead of his time. Just how uniquely gifted he was is brought out in the first of a two-volume biography that has just been published.* It is a brilliantly executed authorised biography that seamlessly weaves together three separate narrative threads: the story of Trudeau until he captures the leadership of the ruling Liberal Party in 1968 to become Prime Minister until 1984 (with a short break); the story of Quebec in Canada; and the story of Canada in the world during a tumultuous period of discovering national identity.

Contemporary relevance

The themes will bear a remarkable contemporary relevance for many countries today and some of the debates are being echoed still in Canada as the Liberal Party gathers to elect a new leader in Montreal on December 2.

Contradictions abound, and John English makes a valiant effort to explain them. A devout Catholic who conscientiously sought permission from priests in order to read academic books that were on the Church's restricted list, he was blacklisted from employment in Quebec universities because of his public insistence that the church stay out of the affairs of state. A latecomer to the pleasures of female companionship, Trudeau loved widely though not wisely with some celebrity escapades that became legendary. A devoted son who maintained a rich correspondence with his mother in a bantering style that speaks of a true friendship of minds, he could not forge lasting relationships with other women. Stylishly attired in elegantly tailored clothes, his impish sense of mischief saw him slide down banisters in the presence and to the delight of press photographers.

A millionaire playboy fond of his Mercedes-Benz and Harley-Davidson, Trudeau made his political mark as a young lawyer defending miners without charging fees during the great Asbestos strike of 1949 in Quebec. A brilliant debater, he could put down opponents with withering sarcasm yet win over the audience with a boyishly diffident and engaging smile. Impressed by American energy, dynamism, and vibrancy in the period after the Second World War, he could yet give the impression of being seduced by communist propaganda. The internationalist role he helped define for Canada was in part a reaction to excesses of U.S.-style patriotism. Educated at the best of American, British, Canadian, and French institutions and a brilliant scholar, he flirted but briefly with academia before becoming one of Canada's most successful politicians. But that is the story of the next volume.

There are echoes of Trudeau in the current campaign to choose the Liberal Party's next leader. The frontrunner is the former Harvard don, Michael Ignatieff, who campaigned for Trudeau in 1968. His supporters see another Trudeau and hope for similar magic and success in leading the party back into government for a prolonged spell. Fluently bilingual like Trudeau, Mr. Ignatieff has just as dazzling a mind and is an equally active public intellectual.

Significant differences

Their differences may be more significant. Trudeau's home base was Montreal, from where he embarked on long foreign adventures to exotic, distant, and sometimes dangerous destinations. Mr. Ignatieff has spent most of his adult life in Britain and the U.S. with short visits to Canada. Trudeau was anti-militaristic and on the right side of history in opposing Vietnam; Mr. Ignatieff has been among the most prominent humanitarian warriors and on the wrong side of history in championing the Iraq war for which he provided intellectual and moral warrant. While Mr. Ignatieff is a complete neophyte to politics, Trudeau launched his bid for the party leadership after an astonishingly distinguished and productive stint as Justice Minister during which he legalised homosexuality between consenting adults and abortion for women whose health was endangered, and broadened the grounds for divorce. Trudeau famously declared that the state has no place in the nation's bedrooms.

Most crucially, Trudeau fought against the notion of Quebec as a separate nation, believing that nation cannot be defined by ethnicity and Quebec nationalism was a threat to its democracy. Quebec's proper place lay in a Canada that defined individual rights and guaranteed cultural rights. Mr. Ignatieff has endorsed the idea of Quebec as a distinct nation, to the dismay of many Canadians who see nothing but a reprise of intense divisiveness and bitterness.

Indians will find much in the biography to relate to and much in Trudeau to admire. The most revealing might be just how much he aspired to the prime ministership not for the sake of capturing political power, but for harnessing and using power to fashion a just society. His views on separation from an existing body politic relative to a clear demarcation of federal-provincial jurisdiction, enunciation of the rights of man and woman, and protection of the cultural rights of minorities will resonate powerfully with most Indians. His sense of impulsive fun in public is a refreshing contrast to the sanctimonious stuffiness of many Indian political leaders who, it would appear, are never permitted to be real human beings with foibles, idiosyncrasies, and weaknesses.

Shortly after the Second World War, a young Pierre Trudeau set out on a backpacking adventure across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He found overseas Canadian diplomats to be aloof, disdainful, and condescending — an experience he never forgot and an attitude he reciprocated as Prime Minister two decades later. This is a cautionary tale for young consular officials: the ragged and bearded young backpacker seeking your assistance today could be your Minister in years' time. One of the few exceptions for Trudeau was the helpful reception from the staff of the Canadian mission in New Delhi.

Trudeau seems to have been fond of India, which he first toured as a young man during the Partition riots, which in turn coloured his views on Partition in general. And Indians took a liking to him, even in the backwoods of Bihar, where a friend once informed me while on family holiday that "Your Prime Minister Two-door has just had a son." Whoever said Biharis are not well-read and well versed about world events.

(*John English, Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Volume One: 1919-1968. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2006.)

(Ramesh Thakur is the senior vice-rector of the U.N. University in Tokyo and the author of The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press). These are his personal views.)

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