Quebec student strike celebrates its 100th day
by Michelle Lovegrove Thomson on May 22, 20123 comments
Happening approximately now, in downtown Montreal:
Montreal 100th day of Greve Generale / Credit: "philmphoto" on Instagram
As my Quebecoise friend Genvieve would say, “Malade!!”
Check out this great article by Malav Kanuga at OccupyTheory documenting 100 days of the student-led general strike (grève générale) in Quebec. Deliciously titled “We didn’t know it was impossible, so we did it!”, the piece provides some choice quotes, context, and background information for those just catching up.
The politics of austerity and the increased policing of everyday life reveal themselves in these instances to be inseparably linked. We can see the direct link between tuition hikes and the criminalization of assembly in Quebec, just as we can see Bloomberg’s management through “free speech zones” of political protest, the silencing of media, and the increased police aggression in suppressing the Occupy Wall Street movement. Thus, solidarity with Quebec students is also important work in defense of our right to demonstrate here and everywhere.
Read full article here.
While we’re at it, let’s take a look at some of the latest viral offerings on what will be Canada’s May ’68:
- Montreal Media Co-op’s Tim McSorley on calls for mass disobedience of new protest laws
- Student group CLASSE announces it will defy Bill 78, and promises a summer of civil disobedience.
- For those who speak French, CLASSE has launched an “Arretez-moi qulequ’un” (Someone arrest me) page
- Last night, people in neighborhoods all over Montreal brought rough music into the 21st century with the delightfully named “manifestation de casseroles”
- 36 arrested last night in Sherbrooke under new Bill 78 law
Montage of street scenes in Quebec since April, featuring the now requisite sequences of police over-reaction and violence against unarmed citizens.
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3 comments
Matt on May 22, 2012 at 8:08 pm. #
Thank you for sharing this Michelle. I should not be, but I am still shocked to see such gross violence against peaceful protesters. The beatings and chemical attacks and shootings are horrific and all too redolent of what is going on in the states, in Greece, in Spain, in Egypt. It seems the whole world is burning . ..
Andrew Loewen on May 23, 2012 at 9:55 am. #
Great post. I was out in the streets and it was glorious. So much solidarity and communal spirit in this city among young and old. The only word for it is INSPIRING.
This is a good list of talking points to share around:
Ten Points Everyone Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement
1) The issue is debt, not tuition
2) Striking students in Quebec are setting an example for youth across the continent
3) The student strike was organized through democratic means and with democratic aims
4) This is not an exclusively Quebecois phenomenon
5) Government officials and the media have been openly calling for violence and “fascist” tactics to be used against the students
6) Excessive state violence has been used against the students
7) The government supports organized crime and opposes organized students
8) Canada’s elites punish the people and oppose the students
9) The student strike is being subjected to a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to discredit, dismiss, and demonize the students
10) The student movement is part of a much larger emerging global movement of resistance against austerity, neoliberalism, and corrupt power
http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/story/ten-points-everyone-should-know-about-quebec-student-movement/10896
Andrew Loewen on May 23, 2012 at 6:53 pm. #
Btw, Natasha Lennard — who was fired from the New York Times for appearing on an Occupy Wall Street discussion panel hosted by Jacobin magazine — has a post up at Salon on students in New York taking up the red squares and flags of the Quebec student movement.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/23/dissent_a_la_quebecoise/
Meanwhile, Montreal’s transit employees’ union is asking all drivers to avoid any transport of police officers near protest events, citing police brutality, danger to drivers, opposition to Bill 78, and noting that many employees have children in the streets participating in the protests (and thus subject to police brutality).
“The union of bus drivers, subway operators and related services (CA-OM-SC) of the Société de transport de Montreal (STM) is asking its members to avoid transporting police officers at the scene of events.
The union’s executive committee CA-OM-SC, the FTQ, wants to highlight its opposition to the law 78. The union encourages its members to see video footage of police intervention of Police of the City of Montreal (SPVM) to convince them of the merits of its position.
The union denounces “savage” interventions of MTL police against peaceful demonstrators.
The president of the union bus drivers of the STM, Denis Vaillancourt, stresses that many of the 5,000 drivers have children in the street.”
http://www.radio-canada.ca/regions/Montreal/2012/05/23/003-stm-syndicat-policiers.shtml (French)