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
Gabrielle Duchaine August 1, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201208/01/01-4561497-des-milliers-de-marcheurs-pour-une-100e-manifestation.php
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE
(Montreal) Summer vacation hasn’t taken the drive out of the student movement. One hundred days after the first night demonstration against tuition hikes, and 12 hours after the official launch of an electoral campaign, thousands of casseroles and demonstrators took to the streets of Montreal Wednesday night. A warning to disperse was given by the SPVM at 10:30pm.
Even the famous Anarchopanda came to the head of the demonstration. He received a veritable ovation on his arrival, which galvanized the crowd, already feverish under a stormy sky.
Masks, a giant red square, mascots, flags, fireworks, whistles, scarves…there was everything, and there was a lot of it.
Pierre Foglia May 28, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/pierre-foglia/201205/27/01-4529050-la-violence-des-casseroles.php
When you throw stones, it reassures them, they say, look, we have to pass special laws.
But when you play the pots and pans, they are afraid.
There’s this friend and colleague from Rosemont, not particularly against the tuition increase, who went out and joined 2000 people on the corner of his street with his 4 year-old little girl and his two-and-a-half year-old son, bang, bang the casserole (saucepan). There’s this girl on the front page of Le Devoir Friday morning, the one with the frying pan in her hand, wait, but I know her! Hi Christine! Me who knows no one, if I start to recognize people on the front page of Devoir, it’s because everyone is in the street or will be there soon.
I called one of my two granddaughters, grand-papa, I don’t have time to talk, we’re going out to play our casseroles on the corner of the street.
Reynald Robinson May 29, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/351075/entendez-vous-ce-bruit
Tonight, I took a casserole [saucepan] and I came timidly out into the street. There were people out. I wondered who had a casserole. I was shy. I didn’t want to be out on the sidewalk alone. Disturbing people.
Then, I saw a young boy, also alone, a teenager, with his mother and grandmother. His grandfather was there too, walking behind them, slowly. He was limping. But in his hand, he had a casserole like the others. I joined them. We met up with another girl. As she was wearing a red square, we asked her where the demonstration was. ”On Hochelaga,” she said, “at Charles-Valois square.” There we went with casseroles in hand. On the way, I checked my phone. It was 8:00 PM. And we were still just a small group.
Jean-Félix Chénier May 27, 2012
Original French Text: http://voir.ca/jean-felix-chenier/2012/05/27/anarchopanda-et-casseroles/
Anarchopanda is probably an enigma to those not following the student strike closely. But he has become a powerful symbol against police violence over the course of this historic strike by offering affectionate hugs to police officers and protesters alike. In the global media coverage of protests that have raged here for over the past 100 days, the mascot is often seen intervening between protesters and police in an attempt to ease tensions. One could say that through his actions and images—highlighting the absurdity of the Charest government’s response to the students’ demands—Anarchopanda is contributing to an “aesthetics of political action.”
Lio Kiefer May 25, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/blogues/voyager-avec-lio-kiefer/350918/manifs-et-casseroles-au-quebec-un-hit-a-l-etranger
When you hear mayor Tremblay worry, invoke the specter of declining tourism in a city and province that are so dangerous, it’s hard not to smile. Either we’ve never travelled. Or we’re misinformed…
For two days, since the 100th day of student protests, the world’s newspapers are talking about Québec.
Isabelle Hacher May 25, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201205/25/01-4528845-le-mouvement-des-casseroles-samplifie-encore.php
In spite of stormy weather, the “casserole” (pots and pans) protest movement was stronger than ever on Friday evening. Thousands of demonstrators all over Quebec came out on their sidewalks at 8:00 pm to protest against Law 78 by banging on pots and pans, causing a deafening racket.
One week after the birth of this popular protest movement in Montreal, the nightly event has spread well past city limits. And it doesn’t have much to do with tuition hikes.
We’ve had reports of “casseroles” in Montréal suburbs, in Mauricie, Outaouais, Sagenay, and Gasspésie. Many neighbourhoods in Québec City also sounded the rhythm of banging pots and pans.
“I think it’s great, what’s happening in Quebec right now”, said deputy Bernard Drainville, whilst banging on a pot himself, at a protest on St. Charles street. “It’s a sign of a healthy democracy. I hope the government will get the message”.
Among the protesters, Emily Koehler presented herself as an “American in debt and in solidarty”. Hailing from Maine, she has accumulated a student debt of $100 000.
“This is normal in the U.S. Most of my friends aren’t able to buy a house or a car because they’re up to their eyeballs in debt. I don’t want that to happen here. I’ve chosen to live in Quebec so that I can offer something better to my children”, she explained.
But for many, it’s not just about the student crisis. “The pots and pans, it goes further than the red squares. No one has the right to fly in the face of democracy in this way”, said Fred Pellerin, who organized the first “chaudronée” (potful) protest in Saint-Élie-de-Caxton.
For Pellerin, it’s always best when demonstrators are still smiling. “I can’t stand clenched teeth. Getting together to make a racket, that’s magnificent. It’s a great way to express ourselves and show our discontent with the government’s cowboy-style management of the crisis.”
Michael Moore also commented on the movement, inviting Americans to follow Quebecers’ example on Friday via his Facebook page.
“The people of Quebec are taking a page from protests in Chile and Argentina, banging pots and pans every night from their windows or in a march through the streets. It’s spreading from Montreal all over the province. And why not to south of the border…?”
Bitter memories from Chile
The “casseroles” movement, which was started a week ago by a teacher at cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe, is based upon similar actions in South America, where protesters most often bang pots and pans to protest high cost of living and neo-liberal policy decisions.
But for Chileans who came to Québec after fleeing the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the racket can bring back bad memories.
Ironically, the practice was started in 1971 by supporters of Chile’s far-right, who used it to bring down Salvador Allende’s socialist government.
“These women came out in the street covered in jewels to protest Allende’s shortages, while their refrigerators were filled to the brim”, recounts Ximena, who fled Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1974.
These “cacerolazo” protests started up again after the death of Allende, this time to denounce Pinochet, but had to be conducted very carefully, from the safety of high balconies, and could only last a few short minutes.
“If someone on the street were to say a single word against the dictatorship, he would have been beaten,” recalled Ximena. “Do you think that pots and pans would have been tolerated?”
Today, this naturalized Quebecer finds it “difficult to see people copying this act, especially since we saw and knew so many who suffered because of it”.
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.
An Open Letter to the Mainstream English Media:
Thank you; you are a little late to the party, and you are still missing the mark a lot of the time, but in the past few days, you have published some not entirely terrible articles and op-eds about what’s happening in Quebec right now. Welcome to our movement.
Some of you have even started mentioning that when people are rounded up and arrested each night, they aren’t all criminals or rioters. Some of you have admitted that perhaps limiting our freedom of speech and assembly is going a little bit too far. Some of you are no longer publishing lies about the popular support that you seemed to think our government had. Not all of you, mind you, but some of you are waking up.
That said, here is what I have not seen you publish yet: stories about joy; about togetherness; about collaboration; about solidarity. You write about our anger, and yes, we are angry. We are angry at our government, at our police and at you. But none of you are succeeding in conveying what it feels like when you walk down the streets of Montreal right now, which is, for me at least, an overwhelming sense of joy and togetherness.
News coverage of Quebec almost always focuses on division: English vs. French; Quebec-born vs. immigrant; etc. This is the narrative that has shaped how people see us as a province, whether or not it is fair. But this is not what I feel right now when I walk down the street. At 8pm, I rush out of the house with a saucepan and a ladle, and as I walk to meet my fellow protesters, I hear people emerge from their balconies and the music starts. If you do not live here, I wish I could properly convey to you what it feels like; the above video is a start. It is magic. It starts quietly, a suggestion here and there, and it builds. Everybody on the street begins to smile. I get there, and we all—young and old, children and students and couples and retirees and workers and weird misfits and dogs and, well, neighbours—we all grin the widest grins you have ever seen while dancing around and making as much noise as possible. We are almost ecstatic with the joy of letting loose like this, of voicing our resistance to a government that seeks to silence us, and of being together like this.
I have lived in my neighbourhood for five years now, and this is the most I have ever felt a part of the community; the lasting impact that these protests will have on how people relate to each other in the city is deep and incredible. I was born and raised in Montreal, and I have always loved this city, I have always told people that it is the best city in the world, but I have truly never loved it as much as I do right now.
The first night that I went to a casseroles (pots and pans) demonstration, at the centre of the action—little children ecstatically blowing whistles, a young couple handing out extra pots and pans to passers-by, a yoga teacher who paused his class to have everyone join—I saw a bemused couple, banging away, but seemingly confused about something. When we finished, they asked me, “how did you find us?” I replied that I had checked the map that had been posted online of rendez-vous spots, and theirs was the nearest to my house. “Last night we were all alone,” they told me. They had no idea it had been advertized online. This is what our revolution looks like: someone had clearly ridden around our neighbourhood, figured out where people were protesting, and marked them for the rest of us. This is a revolution of collaboration. Of solidarity.
The next night the crowd had doubled. Tonight we will be even more.
I come home from these protests euphoric. The first night I returned, I sat down on my couch and I burst into tears, as the act of resisting, loudly, with my neighbours, so joyfully, had released so much tension that I had been carrying around with me, fearing our government, fearing arrest, fearing for the future. I felt lighter. Every night, I exchange stories with friends online and find out what happened in their neighbourhoods. These are the kinds of things we say to each other: “if I loved my city any more right now, my heart would burst.” We use the word “love” a whole lot. We feel empowered. We feel connected. We feel like we are going to win.
Why don’t you write about this? This incredible feeling? Another example I can give you is this very blog. Myself and a few friends began it as a way of disseminating information in English about what was happening here in Quebec, and within hours, literally hours, volunteers were writing me offering to help. Every day, people submit translations to me anonymously; I have no idea who they are, they just want to do something. They come from everywhere. They translate what they think is important to get out there into the world. People email me corrections, too. They email me advice. They email me encouragement. This blog runs on solidarity and utter human kindness.
This is what Quebec looks like right now. Every night is teargas and riot cops, but it is also joy, laughter, kindness, togetherness, and beautiful music. Our hearts are bursting. We are so proud of each other; of the spirit of Quebec and its people; of our ability to resist, and our ability to collaborate.
Why aren’t you writing about this? Does joy not sell as well as violence? Does collaboration not sell as well as confrontation? You can have your cynicism; our revolution is sincere.
Sincerely,
The Administrator of Translating the printemps érable.
Photo Credit: Monica Eileen Patterson
Addendum:
As a perfect illustration of the incredible collaborative and generous spirit that is emblematic of this movement, within two hours of posting the above letter, I received, unsolicited, the following translation of the song that is features in the video. This is who we are.
Lyrics:
You tell them
You tell them
That it was instinct that
Drove you up to here.
You tell them
You tell them
That your senses were screaming
Deeply driven
By a strange force
Let it be your base camp.
Let it be your base camp.
You tell them
You tell them
That it was intuition that
Drove you up to here
A carelessness
So necessary every now and then
Let it be your base camp.
Let it be your base camp.
*Translated by Ian Truman, submitted by Mary Lee Maynard.
Patrick Levesque May 25, 2012
Original French Text: http://leglobe.ca/blog/2012/05/m-charest-ne-cedez-pas-tout-de-suite/
Dear Jean Charest,
Pardon this entry into personal matters. After all, we hardly know each other, as they say. But as you are spoken of a bit all over, you have become a bit of a sort of super hero, a figure never caught sight of, unreal, who’s existence is would be somewhat doubtable if not for the omnipresence demonstrated night after night.
In short, coming to the subject of interest. For more than 100 days have been firm, incomparably rigid. You refuse to budge an inch, and have brought out the whole arsenal at your disposal, including an internationally criticized special law, to come through the other side of the student crisis.
But strangely, this playful protest makes smaller ones. Here there are people protesting by the thousands in Montreal, but also a larger and larger group in Longueuil, Québec, Sherbrooke, Jonquière, Mont-St-Hilaire, Saint-Césaire, etc, etc.
The population is coming outside of their homes: each individual leaves behind their splendid isolation to find itself in society.
Dear Mr. Charest, do you know what this kind of interaction is called? Social capital. People find themselves within new norms, together building trust woven by all these new interpersonal relations. It’s also a question of determination the public health. This trust, this comfort, will be an excellent support when the time comes to face new challenges.
This is why I beg of you, Mr. Charest, not to give in. Well, don’t give in immediately. What is currently happening in the provinces cities and villages is too beautiful to end it immediately. The population is learning to join together in collective action, to fulfill its potential through activities that transcend individualism and call on the most widespread social values.
This solidarity doesn’t have a price. Let us weave these bonds even tighter. They’ll only make it easier to show you the door when the time comes.
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.
Nathalie Ragheb May 23, 2012
Original French Text: http://nragheb.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/monsieur-charest-je-vous-aime/
Today, everything became obvious. I can’t pretend any longer.
On my way home from work earlier, I came across all these groups of people making this terrible racket with pots. It put a really big smile on my face. Young people, not-so-young people, children, all armed with their pots all the way over to the church square next to my place. The pleasure in hearing this clamour and in witnessing such heartwarming community spirit, I owe it all to you.
I love you because I find you very strong in standing up to the students without flinching, in keeping your cool as if it ain’t no thing. It’s good for them. As minister of Youth, you succeeded in mobilizing them and getting them interested in politics. Really, that’s so impressive. They deplored it for so long, but you’ve shaken off their apathy and proven that a politician can reach the youth. You are brilliant.
I love you because thanks to you, my city has launched its festival season much earlier than usual. We’ve been fortunate enough to witness waves of humans, joyful and united crowds, full of colours and sounds, bringing together people of all ages, of all origins, of all socio-economic backgrounds. Drivers are even smiling at pedestrians and vice versa. You are really rallying the people.
I love you because you have known to give really plum roles to women in your cabinet, and to prove that there’s a place for women in the highest positions of power. You’ve even gone so far as to eclipse yourself so that they might shine with all their might. Your way of fighting discrimination, for example, is admirable. You are gender equality incarnate.
I love you for all you are doing for culture. Not only are you stimulating the economy with your Plan Nord, you are stimulating artists, actors, musicians, writers, to take a stance and to sign their names to a cause. Moreover, you are inspiring songs, poems, illustrations, montages, the ingenuity of which is so delightful that one could spend hours indulging in them. You are so many talented people’s muse that I’m blushing at even daring to tell you of my love.
I love you because you’ve succeeded in this tour de force of helping us get out of the debate over the tuition hike by broadening the question to encompass the very meaning of democracy. You have opened exchanges on subjects as varied as the relevance of our police force, our academic, judicial, governmental institutions, the quality of our media outlets, and the real value of an opinion survey. It’s been a while since we’ve read so many intelligent, well structured and opinionated texts. We’d even forgotten about the merit of critical thinking in our society. You’ve placed it front and center and have given back the noble cause to university and salon intellectuals. You are a great debater and your courage knows no bounds.
I love you because the movement that you’ve instigated has echoed across the world. It’s the envy of all those whose hearts beat for fairness, justice, democracy, and the common good. You’ve succeeded in attracting global attention to Quebec and have contributed towards giving hope to all the movements contesting neoliberal ideology that are stirring up in the West. You are a great builder.
I love you because you have remained humble, despite all these accomplishments. Not once have you tried to hog the cameras so as to take the credit for all that you’ve done. You never attempt to steal the spotlight from your ministers. This humility is so touching that I’m still blushing at my boldness.
On the news, I’d seen you striving to rebuild the Progressive Conservative party, all alone after a major disappointment – one that no pollster at the time had predicted. I then saw you arrive with great pomp at the National Assembly to fight with titans such as Lucien Bouchard. After having witnessed the failure of the 1995 referendum, I couldn’t even stomach watching the news as I was trying so hard to avoid reports about you. Since you ascension to power in 2003, I avoided all media outlets.
I now understand that it’s due to the emotions I was afraid to feel when seeing images of you. I could never thank you enough, Mr Charest, for having insisted on bringing you back to my attention. As Michel Rivard said at the massive protest on May 22, I’d fallen asleep on my dreams. You awoke me.
Incidentally, I was interrupted my writing in order to drop by the pots protest that was going down the street next to mine. I said hi to all my neighbors, waved at the hundred-odd protesters; it really made me feel good, you know, all that you’re doing. It’s creating a feeling of belonging, it gives us the urge to believe in something better.
Pardon my insolence, Mr Charest. I’ve lost the habit of holding back, of thinking about reasonable questions, of writing. I perhaps appear to you to be awkward or inconvenient, but I had to tell you. I love you.
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.
Guillaume Bourgault-Côté – May 24, 5:40 p.m.
Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/350789/manifestations-etudiantes-pres-de-650-arrestations
[Caption: In Montreal, the 30th night protest of the student conflict ended at around 1 a.m. with the mass arrest of 475 individuals. Photo: Annik MH De Carufel - Le Devoir]
Nearly 700 people were arrested last night in Montreal (518) and Quebec City (176) as protests –declared illegal by police– drew to a close.
In Montreal, the police carried out 518 arrests during the 30th consecutive night march. This included a mass arrest of 506 individuals, plus 12 isolated arrests (one for wearing a mask). The majority of the arrests referred to a violation of a municipal bylaw regarding unlawful assemblies.
This despite general agreement that yesterday’s protests went well. Participants in two different types of protest were caught up in the mass arrests. On the one hand, the daily night march from Émilie-Gamelin Park was declared illegal before it began around 8:30 p.m., because the SPVM (Montreal Police Service) had not received advance notice of the planned route. An order to disperse was announced.
Nonetheless, police officers tolerated the 3000-strong march for several hours, because it was running smoothly (much like the huge protest on Tuesday, which was illegal but tolerated from beginning to end). At the same time, every night since Friday, hundreds of Montrealers have been taking part in raucous, spontaneous pot-banging protests in neighbourhoods throughout Montreal.
Though the precise story is not yet clear, it has been confirmed that a contingent (several hundred individuals) of pot-bangers left Masson St. and headed south, most of them heading down Iberville St. According to one photographer who was present throughout evening, these protesters paraded joyously through the streets of Montreal. Other “pot-holders” from Villeray or Little Italy also migrated south over the course of the evening.
Then, around 1 a.m. these two or three protests partially merged at the corner of Sherbrooke and St. Denis. Some claim that it is the police who directed people to converge at the central point. According to the police, “objects [rocks, pyrotechnic devices] were thrown at the officers. Once again, we announced a call to disperse, after which we proceeded with a group arrest,” spokesperson Raphaël Bergeron says.
Gathered in 17 city buses, the protesters were transported to a detention centre, where they are currently being identified. Fines of $634 will be awarded. These may be contested.
Contested methods
This morning, many are criticizing the methods deployed by police. Online media and social networks are abuzz with first-hand accounts of being trapped by police with no possibility of responding to the order to disperse. Though some projectiles were thrown, accounts agree that the general atmosphere of the protests was peaceful.
One participant told the Devoir this morning that “the ‘pot-holders’ from Rosemont, Villeray, Little Italy and the Plateau were never informed that the Émilie-Gamelin protest was illegal. They were arrested on one of the few blocks where there are no alleys [to disperse],” affirms Julien Lacoste. This account, similar to many others, suggests that the SPVM laid a trap to surprise the protesters.
Except that the SPVM says warnings were announced and people knew (especially those who began at Gamelin Park) that the protest was illegal, and that police reacted after projectiles were thrown.
Protest in Quebec City
In Quebec, it was under Law 78 and a road safety bylaw that 176 people were arrested just before midnight. Declared illegal from the beginning (no route was provided) the protest was nonetheless calm. But a little before midnight, police cracked down and arrested all the participants, who had started a sit-in on St. Jean St. They will be fined close to $500 for impeding traffic.
[See original article for a video and photo gallery of the events.]
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.
