charestyoohoo

[charestyoohoo]

Excerpt: 1 «Que faire face à la révolution de Jean Charest ?» Décider collectivement de s’opposer à la hausse des frais de scolarité n’est que le premier pas. Mais pour concrétiser cette décision, il faut se battre, et la lutte ne sera pas facile. En effet, la hausse à laquelle nous faisons face aujourd’hui est sans précédent : non seulement cette hausse est-elle la plus élevée de l’histoire du Québec, mais elle s’inscrit aussi dans un tsunami mondial de mesures d’austérité radicales. Pour n’en nommer que quelques/unes, rappelons-nous de la réforme des retraites françaises en octobre 2010 et de l’augmentation massive des frais de scolarité au RoyaumeUni en décembre de la même année. Dans les deux cas, la population a réagi à ces mesures de manière très combative en prenant massivement la rue. En France, le pays entier a entrepris une grève générale de plusieurs semaines, accompagnée de manifestations populeuses et de blocages économiques stratégiques — notamment au niveau des raffineries de pétrole, ce qui a privé le pays de carburant durant plusieurs jours. Or, malgré l’ampleur de la mobilisation populaire, les mesures contestées ont été adoptées par les gouvernements en place, tant au Royaume-Uni qu’en France. Ces exemples — avec ceux de la Grèce, de l’Espagne et du Portugal — nous démontrent que les gouvernements occidentaux sont déterminés à appliquer leurs programmes de privatisation et d’augmentation des tarifs. Le gouvernement de Jean Charest a démontré à maintes reprises qu’il est tout aussi déterminé à défendre envers et contre tous sa dernière hausse des frais de scolarité. Dans ce contexte, les étudiant-e-s du Québec doivent adopter la stratégie adéquate pour stopper cette hausse. Et, au point où nous en sommes, la seule stratégie réaliste pour faire reculer le gouvernement est une grève générale illimitée. “Document écrit par Martin Robert pour le compte de la Concordia Students Union. Traduit et mis en page pour le compte de l’Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ) en collaboration avec la Société Générale des Étudiantes Étudiants du Collège de Maisonneuve (SOGÉÉCOM).” This was a brochure published by ASSÉ in 2011 providing students with a summary of why exactly they were protesting and to what end. Source: https://nouveau.asse-solidarite.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/brochure-qetr-gg1-2012.pdf

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Hands down, some of the best student graphic designers worked on this campaign. Posters that were shared across social media platforms, and on lampposts around the city, these pieces of media educated, engaged, and pushed fellow students and the general public into being active participants of the struggle.

Source: https://bloquonslahausse.asse-solidarite.qc.ca/page/6/index.html

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la méprise totales des etudiants. et ça continue. This clip perfectly summarizes what we were fighting against - Jean Charest, Premier of Quebec, and his (along with his cabinet’s) absolute contempt for students and young people protesting for their rights and the rights of other marginalized Quebecers.  This video was widely shared on Twitter and Facebook amongst students and youth and it helped propel the grassroots student protest movement in a larger endeavour.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcVMe5HLF_Q&ab_channel=Radio-CanadaInfo

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This is what protest is meant to be. A disruption. And often it is the disruption on the part of the youth. We don’t want to live in this world you have so fucked up for us. These protests were anti-capitalist in nature and quickly morphed into anti-police brutality. Mathieu Murphy-Perron was a youth during this time and his work consisted of actively protesting and documenting (in both photography and writing), the movement, its impact on the youth of Quebec and its impact on Canadian society more broadly.

Source: http://instagram.com/matness/

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Protest art is incredible. It is creative. It is powerful. For those of us who are young and voiceless politically, this is how you get heard. This is but a small selection of a personal collection of photographs and videos taken during the student protests of 2012, as both a photographer and active participant. 

Source: Viki Bristowe

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Walking through Westmount on our way to Jean Charest’s house. What I remember most is that this march was angry but also joyful. There were horns. Musicians. Every mansion in this affluent neighbourhood had purposefully shut off all their lights in an attempt to dissuade us from protest because apparently “no one was home”. But we were there making noise anyway. You can’t not hear us now even in your darkened living rooms. Videos of peaceful protests like these were widely shared on social media and helped cement broader public support for the movement. Source: ‘CHAREST, YOOOHOOO” - Viki Bristowe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgoq2EmAcQ&ab_channel=VikiBristowe

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“Cacerolazo“ - a form of protest popularized in South America. When you can’t safely protest in the street, you bang pots and pans from windows and balconies. It is a voice, a cacophony of instruments that INSISTS on being heard and acknowledged.  ”La loi spéciale, on s'en câlisse !” During the month of May, 2012, at 6pm every night, those who couldn’t be in the streets (or otherwise waiting for a night manif to start) the sound of pots and pans rang from houses and apartments all across Montreal. What you don’t see in this video, is the MANY people who came out of their apartments, their balconies and their windows, pushing their bodies through tiny window frames, and made noise with us as we passed by.

Source: Montréal 25 mai 2012 20h58 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWFja_n6xN0&ab_channel=blogocramTrioFerdydurkE

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Detention on St-Denis

May 27, 2012

The night I am arrested is a warm spring night, the thirtieth night of continuous protests to be exact. It’s the day after the May 22 rally that inspired over 200,000 people to walk through the streets of Montreal. My friend Paul and I are riding our bikes in the demo. We talk about the people around us, their families, their children; about how happy we are, how incredible it is to be marching here, and how much we love the city. The crowd moves fast. Unlike the other nights we’ve marched, which felt tense and uncomfortable, tonight is jovial and vibrant.

We get off our bikes at Rue St-Denis. Boom! We hear a blast, and a cloud of smoke hovers over the intersection. I’m not sure where we are. People start running toward me.

“Get your fucking bike out of the way!”

I try to run north on St-Denis in the direction of the crowd, but they start to head toward me, pushing me back. I yell for Paul. “Please don’t leave,” I say, as we both try to maneuver our bikes northwest, but there’s no getting them above the high curb and through the throng of bodies. North of us are two rows of Montreal police (Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal, or SVPM). We’re turning around to go back down when the tear gas grips the back of my throat. I wrap my shawl around my nose and mouth, scrambling and anxious, wondering what the fuck is going on. I feel like I’m going in a circle. Suddenly the police are charging us, and I try to run the other way, but the bike is unwieldy and I’m nervous I will lose Paul. The cops start shoving from the other side, and every time I turn my head there are more cops with masks and shields lunging toward us, smoke hanging overhead, until there’s no way out. Then it starts again: “MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, MARCHE, MARCHE.” So we move, but more cops on the other side are shouting the same thing from the other direction. I hold onto Paul’s arm, unable to think, dizzy from tear gas and anxiety, my heart pounding through my rib cage. Every time I move one way, I am pushed back the other way. I tighten my shawl for fear of more tear gas and can hardly stand. We ask the cops if we can lock our bikes to a stand. We beg enough that they concede, and then promptly shove us back into the streets. I imagine this may be the last time I see my bicycle.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“I think we were just kettled,” Paul says.

“What? No, after the G20, they’re not allowed to do that.”

“Oh, I think they just did.”

I don’t believe him.

We stand around for a while. I tweet uncertainties. Everyone is milling about in a circle. People start shouting chants about freedom and civil liberties. Eventually most of us sit down.

I sit in silence, staring at everyone around me. Their faces are at ease, comfortable.

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know—they’ll probably arrest us.”

“They can’t arrest us all . . . there’s so many of us.”

“Sure they can,” Paul says, and walks off.

I let him go and stay on the curb, hugging my knees to my chest, waiting. When Paul comes back, I tell him to sit beside me. We watch a makeshift football game with a ball made out of a plastic bottle.

Paul notes that several public buses have arrived.

“Why?” I ask.

“To transport us.”

People start getting up, and I hear a police officer announcing something.

“ . . . anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. . .”

“The cats!” I suddenly remember.

“Yes?”

“I left them without food because I’m trying to put them on a diet!”

“Can you call any friends to feed them?”

“I will call my superintendent, but it’s so late, and what will I say? I got arrested, will you please feed my cats?”

“We should line up,” Paul says to me. “Imagine how long it’s going to take to process everyone. If we line up now, we’ll get out earlier.”

I grab his shoulder as he leads me up to the front, where some elderly people are already in line. I am nervous. There’s so much misinformation about where we’re going, where we will be held, what we are getting arrested for, and whether Bill 78 will be enacted. No one seems to know and the cops say something different every time.

I walk up.

“Do you have ID?”

“Yes,” I reply as one of the cops searches my bag.

“What a mess in there,” he mutters in French to his colleague.

They find my ID, search me, grab my shoulders to turn me around, and handcuff my wrists together.

Two policemen walk me to the line by the bus, holding my purse, and wait until it’s my turn to get on. They write down my identification information and give me a wristband with a number to claim my purse later. I sit down and wait. The bus fills up with people younger than me. Then we wait. Eventually, the bus starts moving and we drive, and drive, and drive. Once in northeast Montreal, we wait some more. The buses become holding cells. I feel sick—tear gas, nausea, and my bladder kicking in. Lightheaded, I ask a cop if I can go to the bathroom. She rolls her eyes and tells me to sit down. I ask again. I wait. I ask the other cops. Each insists that everyone on the bus has to urinate and that, like them, I have to wait.

“What if I pee my pants?”

“Then you have to live with it.”

“So then if I pee on the bus I won’t get in trouble?”

“Go away, you won’t do that.”

I return to my seat but the pain is unbearable.

I crouch down in the middle of the bus and a few women stand around me creating a human shield, while I pull down my leggings with my handcuffed hands — I piss, and I piss, and I keep pissing until the stream of urine rolls around the bus under everyone’s feet.

“You are brave. Be glad you did that. Fuck ’em.”

I smile sheepishly and appreciate the camaraderie, as the rest of the bus erupts in anger at the police.

“How can you let a woman pee on the bus? How can you treat us like animals?”

“Because you are. Shut up and stay put,” the police shout back, which only causes more yelling.

“A woman peed on the bus! A woman peed on the bus! You should be ashamed!” some of them chant in unison, but the police don’t even turn around to look at us. I watch my piss run back and forth. By now, another man is doing the same thing: flooding the bus with urine. Somehow this makes time pass more quickly. An hour later our bus pulls up to the processing table and a smiling policeman hands me a ticket as the morning sun hits my face.

That night over 400 people were arrested at Sherbrooke Avenue and Rue St-Denis. Most of us were given $634 tickets for breaking the newly revised municipal bylaw P-6, which, among other things, does not allow face coverings, such as the shawl I used, and requires that protest organizers submit exact march routes to the police. Free speech is now only free when the police grant us permission.

—Magdalena Olszanowski

At the time of writing, Magda was PhD student in Comms at Concordia. It is really hard read and a first hand testimonial to the police brutality and inhumane circumstances students faced when protesting. Police were (and still very much are) a violent arm of the government and the only violence we experienced was at the direction of Jean Charest and his government. Similar testimonials were shared on smaller publication websites (it was very rare that mainstream media published similar interviews, rarer still in English media publications). They were then shared widely amongst the student community.

Source: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/montreal-diaries/

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CUTV - Concordia’s volunteer student journalism organization, followed the protests daily and nightly. Unlike mainstream Quebec media, they live streamed their broadcasts and they were widely watched and shared on social media. They followed almost all of the night manifs, interviewing student protesters and providing broader context to an anglo audience. They also captured the police brutality we suffered at the hands of the SPVM and were often victims themselves despite clearly visible press passes. They were instrumental in engaging and galvanizing the broader (older/professional) Quebec population and educating those who didn’t understand the motives of protesters. 

Source: CUTV, live stream. May 21, 2012 -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mVfrtUUnag&ab_channel=CUTV

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From 2011 to 2013, this is what we encountered on the streets of Montreal. Riot police and their tactical gear. The aim? to scare us into submission at the behest of Jean Charest and the Liberal government. Did it work? Hell no. At the time of writing David Rankin was a political science major at UQAM. He was both a citizen journalist and active participant.

Source: https://twitter.com/davidrankin

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Les manif nues. Youth putting using their naked and vulnerable bodies on the line as a form of protest. This was despite a heavy riot police presence. Imagine walking the streets of downtown Montreal, mostly naked, surrounded by police in riot gear and shields. Brave doesn’t do it justice.

At time time of writing, Beatrice Flynn was a sociology student at UQAM.

Source: https://twitter.com/beatriceflynn

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Hard to find a lot of examples eight years on, but poetry authored by youth was yet another means of sharing their outrage and solidarity.

Source: http://indignesduquebec.e-monsite.com/pages/poesie-du-printemps-erable.html

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Charest was the epitome of ‘old person contempt of youth’. Daily briefings made that very, very clear. We had no voice according to his government, nor did we have any place in politics or public policy development. He was wrong.

Memes were an important part of the movement and were shared widely on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. They were most often authored in French. This is just one example.

Source: https://uqammemes.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/les-slogans-de-campagnes-de-jean-charest-prophetiques/

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March 22nd, 2012. A people united, will never be defeated. “crions! plus fort ! pour que personne ne nous ignore !” Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQZJrO4zpG8&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=MontrealManif

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Here’s an example of banner art created by students that were ever present during protests. This one had a particularly anarchist bent to it.

Source: https://montreal.mediacoop.ca/audio/ckuts-hour-students-and-activists-gather-internati/14615

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The amount of creativity in this movement was overwhelming. Body art, print art, songs, slogans, full on drums and horns and dancing. And you know what I remember most? The love and the hope. Photos shared on Twitter and Instagram were most often accompanied by the hashtags: #ggi #carresrouge #nonalahausse #manifencours

Source: https://www.instagram.com/matness/