More than 300 arrests, bad video scenes
There were more than 300 arrests Sunday night during the 27th consecutive march. CBC is headlining the story tuition protesters but the technicalities of school fees seems to be left behind in the general swell of anger against Bill 78. The Journal makes an estimate of 4000 people involved but the numbers in these night marches, with groups splitting up and merging, are harder to estimate than most crowds. La Presse’s Gabrielle Duchaine, herself arrested last night, gives her account of the scene.
Some ugly scenes have come out in video: a brief clip from CUTV showing a police car running over a person and fleeing the scene, another clip showing police constable 728 coldly pepper-spraying someone in the face at point-blank range.
The Globe and Mail talks about celebrity support for the protest and a brief article about the mayor merely suggests him wringing his hands helplessly.
People have started a blog called Translating the printemps érable to put some texts and statements into English with the explicit intent to “balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Quebec.”
Bill Binns 10:25 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
I love the term “printemps érable”. It neatly sums up how fake and empty this whole “movement” is. Paying university tuition thats cheap but not quite cheap enough is being compared to people who risked (or lost) their lives ousting dictators in the Middle East. Why not “Quebec Student Holocaust”, or “The Great Quebecois Genocide”?
I wonder what the people who are living in bombed out cities in Syria and eating their pets would think of the problems of the students of Quebec?
Adam Hooper 10:59 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
The video you linked to does not show a police car running over a person, and the police announced hours ago that they did not run a person over.
ant6n 11:14 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
Looks like a hit and run to me.
Kate 11:14 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
Bill Binns, it’s a false dichotomy to say “things are much worse elsewhere, so nothing can be going wrong here.” One doesn’t have to be a radical to see that Bill 78 is the kind of move a politician makes when he’s completely failed at what politics is fundamentally about: convincing people you have the authority to lead a country (or subsection thereof) in a peaceful manner. Charest failed to talk when it was time to talk, he failed to negotiate when it was time to negotiate, and now he’s pulled out the truncheons and peace is breaking down.
I find Charest depressing, but it’s even more depressing that no one has appeared on the scene capable of commanding enough respect to bring some kind of truce to this situation.
There are a lot of quotes around about how if you don’t look after your freedoms they will be taken away from you. Thomas Jefferson has a nifty about democracy having to be watered with the blood of martyrs every generation. I repeat: comparing our situation to Syria or Libya is a red herring.
Raoul 11:17 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@Bill
So because 3/4 of the world have it worse, we should lower our standards?
ant6n 11:21 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@Bill
Here are some definitions from wikipedia/wikitionary:
Spring (political terminology) – “The term spring is often used to name periods of political liberalization.”
Holocaust – “The annihilation or near-annihilation of a group of animals or people, whether by natural or deliberate agency; The state-sponsored mass murder of an ethnic group.”
Genocide – “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”
Bill Binns 11:31 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@ant6n – Seriously? You do not think the use of the term “Maple Spring” is an attempt by the students to draw parrallels between their anti tuition hike protests and the over throw of various dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen that have collectivly been reffered to as the “Arab Spring” ever since?
Really? This is just a coincidence?
Raoul 11:34 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
Sometimes a name is just a name. and maple spring seems fitting with everything else going on around the world.
I hope this isn’t your only beef with the protest movement, cuz’ its pretty weak.
Phil 11:37 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@Bill: So your stance is, ‘well, other people elsewhere have it bad, so we should be OK with losing some of our rights and freedoms and social values.’ So because Egypt and Yemen are clearly suffering worse, we should be willing to allow a government to indebt us by billions via corruption, cost overruns and mafia involvement. And then allow them to try to ameliorate the deficit by squeezing money out of the ONLY fraction of the population that had NOTHING to do with the election of these groups or ANY of the problems facing the province?
I’ll go ask an Egyptian protestor whether I should be OK with my government doing the things they’re doing.
Raoul 11:41 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
I think the whole point is to protest before things get as bad as other countries, not wait until we’re on par and then hit the streets with a much emboldened government and paramilitary “police” units.
Bill Binns 11:47 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@Phil – “So your stance is, ‘well, other people elsewhere have it bad, so we should be OK with losing some of our rights and freedoms and social values.’ ”
That is not what I said and I suspect you know it. What if I were to start reffering to the boycotting students as the “Quebec al-Qaeda”? I imagine that I would be (correctly) criticized for comparing a bunch of protesting students to a worldwide terrorist organazation responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.
Whatever this is thats going on in Quebec at the moment, it’s not comparable to the events collectivley reffered to as the “Arab Spring”. Not even close.
Raoul 11:50 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
So whats your point exactly, or do you just want to argue semantics?
ant6n 11:51 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@Bill
The term “spring” is used to refer to many movements, some of which can safely desribed as revolutions. The term spring is broad enough to that it may be applied in this case, even if you use a more narrow comparison to the arab spring – it’s a movement, mostly by young people to get more participation in government decisions, which they attempt to bring about by prolonged protesting and utilizing social media. The “spring” phenomenon is not exclusive to the Arab world, it’s global, just like the depression of the youth is a global phenomenon.
The point about genocide and holocaust is that there exact definitions, that involve the words state sponsored/deliberate/systematic klilling/annhiliation/destruction ethnic/national/racial group – and that is meant to be literal! The definition for ‘spring’, if there is any concise one at this point, doesn’t have anything like that at all.
Adam Hooper 12:58 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
It’s not just Charest. The CAQ voted for Bill 78, too.
Politicians aren’t idiots: they’re smart, and they want to be re-elected. That means they’ll do what they believe their constituents want them to do. They won’t enact a repressive law without checking their facts first; they’ve probably pored over more poll results than are public.
This is where Bill’s argument makes sense: the Arab Spring did not fight democratically-elected governments.
Arguments about history, corruption, distant lands and individuals’ alleged ineptitude are all, in my view, red herrings. Someone could try to argue that our elections are rigged, but I believe that would fall flat. The entire tuition debate boils down to a simple question: what share of education costs do we want our students to pay? The majority answer to that question is more in line with Charest’s vision than with students’, judging by public polls, and it hasn’t changed in the past three months. Polls also suggest most people approve of Bill 78.
When protesters criticize Charest, they’re criticizing the majority of Quebeckers. Rather than say “Charest increased tuition too much and passed a repressive law,” let’s see how this sounds: “A democratic majority of Quebeckers encouraged Charest to increase tuition too much and pass a repressive law.”
Raoul 13:40 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
Just because 25% of people were stupid enough to vote for him, doesn’t mean they approve of each and every piece of legislation that he passes.
mdblog 16:10 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
The way that all of the supporters of the Student Uprising on this site are attacking Bill Binns, you’d think that they’re the one’s who are against the right to free speech and political liberalization in general. The man has an opinion, so just let him express it. It’s not like he’s out in the streets pepper spraying and running over protesters, ok?
If I understand my friends ant6n, Kate, and Raoul, I suppose that the gravity of the situation can only be assessed by those who support the uprising – because according to you three, these are the only people who are capable of objective. Got those blinders on good and tight? Applying the term “spring” to what’s going on here in Montreal does seem a tad bit pretentious but god forbid we try to put things in context.
@Kate: So now this whole things isn’t about tuition, and is instead about Bill 78, which was crafted in response to the tuition protests? What a mess!
Bill Binns 16:33 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
I don’t feel like I’m being attacked. As an Obama supporting, anti-war, pro gay rights, pro abortion rights, pro gun control American I find it interesting to be in the Arch-Conservative roll here. I think the discussion is pretty civil here and rarely gets worse than snarky. I appreciate having access to people who are on the opposite side of the fence from me on some of these things.
mdblog 18:38 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
Bill, I hope I’m not being called an arch-conservative! If I am, I have been grossly misunderstood. I like debate too.
Kevin 21:00 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
@Kate
That’s the second time in as many days you’ve dismissed parallels with other movements. I don’t know why you find this protest action so unique that it defies all comparison.
As for a leader, the only way one could arise is if the protesters recognized the elected government as being legitimate.
We don’t live in a dictatorship, our province is not going to hell in a hand basket, and to be honest, I think the people who started this mess walked into it with far more passion than they did reason.
ant6n 21:29 on 2012/05/21 Permalink
What a lot of you people who have an exaggerated sense of the mandate that Charest has don’t realize is that you don’t lead in a democracy by taking your majority (whatever that is – 28%), and decide that in order to not inconvenience that majority you are going to make decisions and enact laws that are opposed vehemently by a large minority. The division that we see right now in Quebec is a result of lack of leadership that says “I have a mandate, I have a majority, and fuck you everybody else.”
Spock 07:32 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
Maple Spring… That is a severe insult to the memory of the thousands that were murdered trying to free the Middle East of American imposted tyranny.
Shameful to associate a “student” strike to the murdered martyrs and symbols of freedom. Shame, shame, shame.
Not to mention pathetic.
Josh 10:51 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
@ant6n: He should govern as though he has just a minority then?
ant6n 11:44 on 2012/05/22 Permalink
He should try to build the minimal consensus that results in the large minority not going out on the barricades – despite popular belief, the students are not completely unreasonable.