Translating the printemps érable
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For more useful English-language sources on the conflict, see:
CUTV - broadcasting live from the protests nightly
Rouge Squad - Tactical Translation Team
Rabble.ca's Maple Spring Coverage
Alexandre Champagne June 11, 2012
Original French Text: http://urbania.ca/blog/3150/labsurdite-du-conflit-en-6-points
I am a big fan of absurd things. Humor, moments, people, places, stories. My first reaction facing the things raised by this phenomenon is to laugh. However, for some time the absurdity that rages in the social crisis we are presently experiencing doesn’t make me want to laugh at all. It’s boring, I like to laugh. Here are six examples of things that make me smile.
Christine St-Pierre
Madame St-Pierre, you dared to say loud and clear that the red square is a symbol that signifies violence and intimidation. Unfortunately, you are mistaken. It saddens me to see that the person who represents my fellow artists and myself should be caught in a passing, yet easily avoided, moment of stupidity. Open your eyes, patron of the arts, and observe to what extent the majority of people who wear the red square are peaceful. Come take a look around Montreal too and you will discover without a doubt that, more often than not, the unnecessary force doesn’t come from the side of the people who, in a legitimate way, display the symbol that signifies compassion, social awakening and union against the current trouble: your government.
Étienne Côté-Paluck June 11, 2012
Original French Text: http://urbania.ca/blog/3152/la-democratie-n-est-pas-foutue
While thousands of people are being arrested because they are protesting peacefully, ordinary writers with good sense find it outrageous to pretend that truncheons, political profiling, and mass arrests don’t suggest intimidation.*
The students’ cause (a near doubling of tuition fees over 7 years, an offer rejected by nearly all student associations) really seems to have created a free for all for everyone to say anything they want.
The Finance minister, Raymond Bachand, shamelessly affirmed that he wants nothing to do with a Quebec where elected officials can’t “walk around in the street without being assaulted.”
Oh really? So does this rule also apply to regular people?
Because in terms of abuse of power, there’s always the Sarkozy or Bush model. Cute.
If we want to be part of a Quebec in which police arrest young ‘vandals,’ we must also want to arrest those officers of the peace who dishonour their badges and colleagues for the good cause. Even if the majority of police officers have all the goodwill in the world, why do some of them engage with people who provoke them? We don’t pay them to attack citizens.
Étienne Côté-Paluck June 4, 2012
Original French Text: http://urbania.ca/blog/3125/l-ego-de-gilbert-rozon
There are large protests in the streets. You disagree with their claims, and you are the director of a festival held in the same streets in a few days.
You address the media to say that the people in the streets are spoiled babies and, after that, you in all seriousness argue that you aren’t seeking confrontation? That’s a bit like shooting yourself in the foot and then blaming the gun.
Alain Simard understood it well. It’s not a question of freedom of expression. It is rather a question of the duty of self-restraint that is required of a director of a festival that occurs on a street that must now be shared with protesters.
