Translating the printemps érable

Kim Lizotte, L’Axe du Mad    June 11, 2012

Original French Text: http://laxedumad.com/2012/06/11/on-nest-pas-assez-beaux/

I don’t see any other explanation.  Didn’t we laugh at China during the Olympics for hiding poverty, human rights abuses, and political prisoners? What a band of weirdos.  To hide the truth, to embellish their reality because the spotlight is on them: what a band of hypocrites.  Oh look, they even dared to ask a cute little girl to lipsynch over the voice of a not-so-cute girl. How strange!

Yet, during the Grand Prix, it would have been been better to hide the thousands of protesters, to quiet the sound of casseroles, to stop shouting about injustice, corruption, and police brutality.  It would have been better to shut up, dress up, and go out to drink champagne with Jacques Villeneuve, and to dream of meeting a Pussycat Doll.  It would have been better for us to quiet down and get out of the streets, or even better, to go home and watch the Grand Prix on TV.


How come?  Because we’re not good-looking enough. 

We don’t have the big tits or the tight asses of the F1 chickies, we’re don’t have rich boy Ferraris, and we don’t have $1000 do blow on a bill on St-Laurent for a round of shooters and a bottle of champagne to get girls drunk as they throw themselves at playboys.

It would have been better for us to hide away, like they’ve wished since the beginning of the conflict, but there we were entertaining rich people.  Pretty rich people who come for a weekend fling in our city which has been swirling with anger for four months.  It would have been better for us to quiet down, to better hear the car races.  To better hear the bubbles in the champagne glasses.  And maybe, too, so we could better hear the scorn of the likes of Villeneuve. 

This Grand Prix cost $75 million.  We gave sponsorships to “save” it.  We bent down, we begged, we took out our wallets, and they came back.  Restaurant owners on Crescent said, “God be praised.”

As for us, we’ve been there, for four months now.  We have shouted, marched, sung and begged to have our millions of dollars, for us.  We would bring so much more economically and culturally than just a Grand Prix, and to more people than just a few filthy rich restauranteurs on a few filthy rich streets.  No one listens.  No one is taking out their wallet.  No one is genuinely coming out to speak with us, genuinely trying to understand us and solve the problem.

We understand, Mr. Charest.  We are not rich enough, nor are we pretty enough.  We brought shame to our city.  We deserved the beatings, the insults and the profiling.  We sought it out, and we deserved it. 

I say we, and I’m not even a student.  But I would rather be in their camp than in yours, because I know they’re going to go far.  I know that one day it’ll be them that is drinking the champagne.  Not everyday, but at least once a year: maybe in June.

And on that day, maybe we will laugh about all this in a castle as big as Sagard’s.  And we’ll think back to the time we were ugly and unwanted.  And we will think back to that magical moment of lifting off your crown, bringing you down from your throne, and putting the heart of Quebec back into its rightful place.