Translating the printemps érable

Manifeste en noir (Facebook)  

Original French Text: https://www.facebook.com/events/156286851172470/

Jointly organized by Mères en colère et solidaires [Angry and united mothers], Parents contre la hausse [Parents against the hike], Parents d’enfant blessé dans une manif [Parents of an injured child at a demonstration], Profs contre la hausse [Teachers against the hike], Profs féministes et en colère [Feminist and angry teachers] and Têtes blanches carré rouge [White heads red square]. 

SLOW AND SILENT FUNERAL MARCH

This is not a student protest…but a march in support of the students. A SLOW AND SILENT MARCH at which we suggest you wear your mourning. Your mourning of democracy following the adoption of law 78, of the right to education for all, of our fundamental rights, of the right to demonstrate “in security” and of all rights you wish to underline. 

“A rest from the noise, where only banners and placards carried by the breeze emanating from our river would have their flapping heard. A slow and silent march made up of the elderly, the youth, the handicapped, the depressed, the fragile…And then, all of a sudden, we sit, on a small chair, a cushion, a blanket, our legs crossed, arms crossed. We will have planned for a shawl or a scarf, anything black to put on our head. This will be the sit-in. The street will then be blocked and the silence more eloquent, more devastating to those who will hear it. It will be a living and noiseless barricade. A shield against the king’s horsemen, the rumbling of the police’s Hell’s Angels motors. It will be the mute sign of our disapproval. A deaf and dumb threat. And the whole world will be watching how Quebec treats its children and elderly. If we are taken by our shoulders and our legs to be brought, cuffed, to a bus, we will not be afraid. This silence will cry above and beyond fear.” - An angry and supportive grandmother. 

Black will be compulsory (scarf, shawl, etc…) as well as bold and creative placards (illustrations of police repression, slogans evoking our anger, our words, our cries…)

We invite all people who, like us, have the impression that they’re screaming without being heard, to join us on this march. 

Meeting place at Place Jean-Paul Riopelle, Place d’armes metro, on the corner of St-Pierre and St-Antoine, 1:30PM (Saturday, June 30). 

We also invite students to come join us at 3PM on rue de La Commune south of Place Jacques Cartier for the final sit-in, a symbol of our disobedience. 

Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

*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.