From the first scurry of red squares into Dufferin Grove, Montreal’s spirit was felt in Toronto. As the park filled it became evident; Quebec’s struggle is our struggle. We are united.
Yesterday, I joined Toronto – pot and wooden spoon in hand – to participate in Casseroles Night in Canada. I donned my red apparel and arrived at Dufferin Grove, where a camera crew asked: “Why Toronto? Why participate?”
I thought of all the connections:
Ontario suffers the highest tuition rates in the country. Canadians, deserve affordable accessible education. A threat to freedom of speech and the right to assembly is a threat to us all.
But, as the sun set over our march, on Bloor St., I glanced back over the crowd of thousands and my answer was simple – I march because I am inspired.
Montreal has shown us it is possible.
In the last glimmer of sunlight, I watched the students hand out flyers while I reading the messages carried overhead. There were Occupy banners, signs rejecting Bill 78, posters against C-38, flags in support of railway workers. We are a crucible of intersecting movements.
What began as student strike against tuition hikes is transitioning into a united fight for social economic justice and a struggle against austerity.
In theatre, we often explore what it means to be human and what it means to be Canadian. For me compassion, equality and being a citizen are at the route of both. We have an opportunity to fight for fairness and democracy.
This is the beginning.
Crystal Skinner is a CAEA stage manager, arts activist and rabble rouser. She is currently in her fourth season with The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, as assistant stage manager, on Much Ado About Nothing.
Every evening at 8pm in Montreal, and recently in other parts of the province, Quebecers gather to bang pots and pans in support of the student movement and against Bill 78, which limits the right to freedom of assembly and association as protected in the Charter.
A Great Thunder. An open letter to striking students.
CHRISTIAN NADEAU, May 17, 2012
Christian Nadeau is a professor in the Philosophy Department of Université de Montréal.
This letter was originally published in French here and distributed in the above video.
Dear students,
Please allow me firstly to address you as a group in its entirety and not solely to your spokespeople, nor to those the media label as your “leaders”, an expression that reflects the moronic servility of our current era. I wish to speak to the student movement’s activists.
I am writing you this letter in order to salute you and to humbly ask that you help us follow through with your endeavor. Your struggle is becoming the rebirth of of the left in Quebec, asleep for years thanks to the privilege of the few and dizzied by its own prefabricated rhetoric. You are liberty’s workers. You have denounced the sugary splendor of our artificial paradise. You have reminded us of what a nation is when it is at its best: a great act of confidence. You spoke to us, you offered us your hand even when we did not answer. But it is not too late. We will first be a few hundred, then thousands who will work alongside you. The question of violence remains, which is the wall between us. But what violence do we speak of precisely?
Violence and contestation
It is comfortable to condemn when we are not faced with it daily. It is convenient to judge without understanding, to judge the striking body as a whole for highlighted actions, ones that were perhaps even cynically hoped for by our elected officials. Of course, some of you would deem the present not suitable for festive events where imagination confronts power. But you also know that might does not equal right.
For my part, I will always be opposed to power that is at gunpoint, no matter who holds the gun. But I have never seen a club in the hands of a student. On the other hand, I have never seen such a display of violence against a social group in Quebec. I have never witnessed such contempt on behalf of the government towards its own citizens. I have never witnessed such an arrogance on behalf of such a vast number of journalists and columnists in the face of those who could even teach them to write and express themselves decently.
The student movement is rising up against the beatings by the bullies who are gripping their clubs, these weapons held as though they were rattles. They spit Cayenne pepper and degrade their entire profession. Maybe I’m a tad naive, but I remain absolutely convinced that the police force remains divided with regards to the impression made by their militaristic repression. The martial charges by rows of armed and armored officers against peaceful protesters are not intended primarily to frighten you. They are actually intended to humiliate you until reason gives into anger, setting off hostilities against which the forces of order will be victorious. This is what you are fighting against: might equalling right, you are opposing the force of reason. By denouncing violence against individuals, you have brought us back to the real meaning of this moral debate. You have done what you’ve been doing for months now: you are providing us with edifying words.
This strike is about learning…
There is a famous passage in Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des hommes), where the author condemns the will to put an end to what is best in the hearts of men. “What torments me, says Saint-Exupery, the soup kitchen cannot heal. What torments me is not the humps nor hollows nor the ugliness. It is the sight, a little bit in all these men, of Mozart murdered”. This sentence, often tarnished, still resonates within the current context, as it expresses disgust in the face of the dishonorable. The government insists on looking down upon you, in the process looking down on its own reason to be. It was counting on a public humiliation and it did so with its club, but also and perhaps especially with the insults of a guard dog to the well-off, the profiteers, and those who sabotage the common wealth. To the worst sycophants, you respond with dignity. You offer a lesson in public morality to a government that stopped being preoccupied with honor long ago.
But the struggle is for everyone
It is surprising to see commentators being stunned at the political turn taken by this student strike. However, since the beginning, you have clearly expressed why this struggle is concerned with a fundamental issue for our society. Since the beginning, you have refused any form of corporatism. You have proposed options and you have accepted all societal debates, including ones undertaken with those who would rather see you dragged through the mud than being granted the slightest credit. However this plays out, you have already generously shared with us a daily victory since the beginning of this strike.
If a segment of our society has wanted to humiliate you, it’s because it fears the return of a social-democratic tide. If this segment reacts with such violence to your movement, it’s because they are afraid of those who wish to stand up straight and are ready to defend the common good. Why would you wish to cage freedom and destroy the hopes for a more just society? Is it really Mozart who we are murdering by wishing to destroy your movement? Should we not seek to understand why it is that they wish to kill Jaurès?
Great thunder
I will end by thanking you once again and by inviting all those who, like me, feel at their very core this infinite gratitude towards you for having accomplished so much. We will salute your courage and your refusal to abdicate. And together, we shall rebuild a civil society and a state that the corporate eulogists would like to see destroyed.
Dear students, you have shown us the way. It has been said that you are expecting the impossible. On the contrary, you are opening doors to the possible. That is the reason why we will be so numerous in accompanying you at the large demonstration on May 22, walking with you or forming a hedge of honor around you to salute your determination, waving down to you from all the windows. We will create together the greatest thunder, yes, a very great clamor of applause, an ovation the echo of which will be heard again and again, in order to sustain the struggle and the hope.
*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English.
These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at translatingtheprintempsderable@gmail.com.
Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.
The movement to work outside strictly partisan lines to take Parliament back from a Harper Conservative Party supported by a minority of Canadians has been bolstered recently by some incredibly persuasive data.
95% of the 8000 people who responded to Leadnow support cross-party cooperation to form a progressive government that represents the majority of Canadians.
Last Friday, Leadnow, an “independent advocacy organization that brings generations of Canadians together to achieve progress through democracy” sent an email to their over 80,000 supporters titled, “Maybe the most important question we’ll ever ask you“. The email asked for a response to the strategy of PRE-election cooperation to defeat Harper, followed by electoral reform.
The response: 95% agreed.
This sort of decisive message will necessarily impact the NDP leadership race, with some pundits already referring to it as a game changer.
Thus far, Nathan Cullen has been the only candidate to support this idea and is routinely under fire for promoting what is considered heresy by hardcore New Democrats, many of whom have spent careers battling the Liberal Party.
Yet, it’s hard to imagine an organization more representative of who the opposition parties will need to join them moving forward than Leadnow. These results indicate that what was once a disadvantage for Cullen – promoting cooperation to a heavily partisan audience – may put him on the key side of a decisive issue.
Political observers of all stripes agree electoral success for opposition parties will come from engaging and expanding youth-led groups that have been present in grassroots movements like Occupy, but have been seriously under-represented in recent elections. The Leadnow response makes it clear that a ‘Single Party or Bust’ strategy will appeal to only 5% of this key cohort, or 1 out of 20 potential recruits to the cause.
The almost unanimous response from Leadnow members indicates candidates who promote cooperation with other parties as best presenting ideas and solutions that have the potential to expand party membership and excite voters.
Nathan Cullen talks to poet Shane Koyczan on the lack of youth engagement in Canadian politics and its relationship to political parties.
None of this will come as a surprise to EKOS pollster Frank Graves who recently released ‘Beyond The Horse Race’ a 7-part series on iPolitics investigating trends and issues that are informing the Canadian electorate. Amongst the conclusions reached in Part 5 ‘How Do We Cure Democratic Malaise?’:
Canadian views of political parties have declined even more steeply than trust in other portions of government including parliamentary democracy, bureaucracy, or even elected representatives.
When presented with the statement, “Political parties have outlived their usefulness and it is time for a new type of political institution.” only 44% disagreed.
“NDP supporters are less convinced of the continued relevance of political parties” than Liberal or Conservative supporters.
“In younger, non-voting Canada … there is massive mistrust and disagreement with key national decisions. We see that trust in democracy and government is declining to areas which cause one to think about issues of fundamental legitimacy.”
Considered in tandem, the Leadnow response and the EKOS data combine to make a powerful statement:
The younger generation of Canadians, even those who are politically engaged, are opting out of participating in the current form of democracy. The #1 factor that is informing this lack of engagement is the rigid party system that currently exists in Canada. While New Democrats voting in a leadership race should take this information to heart immediately, so should the other opposition parties – the echo chamber of partisan politics is severely limiting growth for all of them.
Moving beyond their own self-interest to that of the country may ironically be their best chance for electoral success. Increasingly, progressive Canadians seem to be demanding cooperation from their political opposition that will allow them to vote FOR and not AGAINST something, through a serious and credible movement to form a government that represents the majority of Canadians.
You might remember Koyczan from such hits as The Opening Ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic Games.
Here’s some Saturday morning videos that hint humanity may not be doomed after all.
1 Brigitte dePape Ted Talk
Yesterday Brigitte dePape was the top news story across Canada as “the rogue page” who silently interrupted the Throne Speech that kicked off the first day of the new Parliament.
Wouldn’t you know it – she’s also a theatre artist, performer and articulate advocate for the value culture can contribute to society. (Spoiler alert – she’s not talking the economic value artists bring low-income neighbourhoods, or tourist dollars mega-musicals bring in.) Check out this dramatic monologue/Ted Talk combo she performed as part of last year’s TEDxYouthOttawa. 1/2 way through the clip she finishes the monologue, throws on a dress and starts the Ted Talk part. Wow.
2 The Grand Rapids LipDub
Move over Thriller – there is a new “Greatest Music Video Ever“. Really, what’s not to love about this video? It is a major achievement both for a community and artistically. Now it is being credited with turning around the fortunes of Grand Rapids. Which, after you watch the video, makes total sense.
Trust me – take the full 10 minutes. Make a tea, or whatever it is you need to do to get comfortable and enjoy. Be careful around 6:22 – that’s when my beverage almost came out my nose.
“After the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations, we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.”
Yesterday, I joined Toronto – pot and wooden spoon in hand – to participate in Casseroles Night in Canada. I donned my red apparel and arrived at Dufferin Grove, where a camera crew asked: “Why Toronto? Why participate?”
What began as student strike against tuition hikes is transitioning into a united fight for social economic justice and a struggle against austerity.
Crystal Skinner is a CAEA stage manager, arts activist and rabble rouser. She is currently in her fourth season with The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, as assistant stage manager, on Much Ado About Nothing. 
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