Translating the printemps érable

Anarchopanda        September 12, 2012

Original French text: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RGLbK7VAusvl8ZzXIkJXTmUi8eF_ymXKrqYWAyWR1ao/edit?pli=1

Dear students and their allies,

The panda outings were above all an intervention tactic against police brutality, and the context of these interventions, despite the welcome return of cooler weather, are becoming very limited following the end of the strike. It is time for Anarchopanda to tell you, without much hope, “Until next time.” (Because he doesn’t really hope the brutality will continue, right? :D)

Thank you for having been there at the moment when history needed you, and for having risen to the occasion when many remained seated. It was a real honour for me to have been able to stand beside you, in my own way (a bit strange indeed), to suffer (a bit) with you, and to have very much enjoyed a frankly undeserved level of attention and affection from you.

A few specific thanks:

- Above all, to the students of SOGÉÉCOM, who with their strike allowed me to join you in a more vigorous manner than I would otherwise have been able to.

- To friends (Hello plural Davids, Julie-Andrée, Anne, Eric, etc.) who accompanied me on nights cold and hot (too hot) and kept me from falling in a hole or getting hit in the head with a placard. (Or to put on my skin, or to remove it. :D)

- To Amère à Boire (and their incredible team of bartender-server/activists), which proved to be an indispensable pre- and post- night demo headquarters. (Anarchopanda looks forward to returning, once he’s kicked bronchitis to the curb.)

- To CUTV (Concordia University Television), who did more than anyone could humanely demand of anyone to document police repression of which students were victims.

- To all those who offered me water (or stronger drinks) during the course of our long marches. :)

The Facebook page will remain open for the archives (or a return from hibernation, who knows?), though it will soon be impossible to post there so that it does not become the target of spambots.

Never doubt that Anarchopanda, well-disguised as a human, will continue to stand beside you. The priorities, for him, are clear: defending students judicialized during the course of the movement, along with the immense task of popular education concerning all of what happened (given that an immense majority of the population of Quebec could only perceive it through the distorting prism of the mass-media, and thus never, properly speaking, understood it at all) as well as with the multiple advantages of free education as a societal choice.

It is only in the measure by which we demobilize that our opponents will have real chances to triumph over us. Until then, nothing is guaranteed, but everything remains possible.

A universal hug,
Anarchopanda

***

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.