Translating the printemps érable

Samuel Auger                      June 30, 2012

Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/education/201206/29/01-4539662-des-etudiants-des-quatre-coins-du-globe-preparent-une-greve-mondiale.php

Photo caption: The global strike that has been stirred, seeking to denounce the commodification of education, is notably inspired by the Quebec conflict. 

Inspired by Quebec’s protest movement, amongst other things, thousands of students from across the world are planning a worldwide strike week in November to denounce the commodification of education. 

The sound of the casseroles might carry farther than Quebec between October 18th and November 21st. The Global Education Strike is planning a day of action in October, whereas the strikes will be taking place during a week in November. Some student associations are proposing day-long strikes, while others could be lasting a whole week.

The global movement underlines that the fight for accessible education goes beyond all borders and that the majority of countries are dealing with budget cuts in education systems all while drastically increasing tuition fees. The collective also denounces an ever greater pressure on students to perform and a more important role of the private sector in teaching activities and research. 

Until now, the idea of shunning classes across the four corners of the planet has garnered the support of activists from Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, Marburg, Vienna, Zurich, and from certain cities in Italy and Spain. 

Moreover, collaborative action between students is taking place today, as nearly 200 internet users have organized a meeting online for an international chat in order to specify the protests and the slogans. The discussion is in English and Spanish is casting the net wide, and students from Canada, the United States, and Australia will notably take part, as well as representatives from Africa and Asia. 

Engaged Quebec Activists

The global strike is led by the International Student Movement, an independent platform of communication between all the world’s education activists, students as well as workers. 

Several quebeckers are part of the engaged activists for the movement, counting amongst them CEGEP and university students from the Quebec City region. No national student association in Quebec has supported November’s strike week to date. 

The portal to the global strike is directly inspired by the strike movement that set Quebec aflame this past spring. A video - in English - of the president of the Federation of Quebec University Students, Martine Desjardins, is displayed next to images of demonstrations in Italy and Spain. 

A promotional video for the global strike also features the red square prominently, which has become a symbol of the student struggle beyond Quebec’s borders. 

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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.