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
Véronique Robert June 28, 2012
Original French Text: http://voir.ca/veronique-robert/2012/06/28/%C2%ABau-nom-de-larticle-31-je-vous-arrete%C2%BB/
It should come as a surprise to no one that police officers are accorded the power to detain and arrest people [1]. These powers, however, are bounded by the criminal code and by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
These days, in the tumultuous times we are living in, anyone who complains of an arbitrary detention or arrest is confronted with article 31 of the Canadian criminal code.
Like magicians pulling a rabbit out of a hat, supporters of the forces of law and order believe that they have found irrefutable support for the behavior of police officers that seems at face value to be unjustified. (Unjustified, not unjustifiable – every case must be considered on its own.) I am referring in particular of the arrests made at Ile Ste-Helene during the weekend of the Grand Prix F1 and of the mass arrests made on the bus coming back from Victoriaville.
June 8, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2012/06/07/004-villeneuve-manifestation-etudiants.shtml
The student protests are in the sights of a new, high-profile detractor— and he weighs into them like a freight train.
Jacques Villeneuve, ex-champion of the Formula 1, is fed up with the protest movement that has dragged on for months and now threatens the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend in Montreal.
In a five-minute interview with journalists on Thursday [June 7, 2012],Villeneuve told the protesters to, “go back to school.”
June 11, 2012 Original French Text: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/hpnscq
I experienced my first political profiling today.
I had to go out to the Grand Prix as a volunteer to pick up garbage from Scouts who were running an ecological consortium at the request of the Grand Prix. I went by bike. A police officer approaches me, and tells me up front I have no business here.
I explain to him why I was there and he retorts that that was the most original excuse he’d hear all day for needing to enter the site and stir up shit. At this moment I was not trying to access the site: rather, I was waiting for others at our meeting point next to metro Jean-Drapeau. They search my bag, take my ID and call their superior to see if I am on any lists, and they read all my personal papers. They find only a lunch and sunscreen.
Julie Théorêt June 12, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/justice/352188/pourquoi-m-a-t-on-arretee
Sunday, I took the subway with a friend to Île Sainte-Hélène. We arrived around 10:40AM. There were a lot of police at the Berri-UQAM station, but we told ourselves that because of the F1, that was normal.
We wanted to picnic near Place de la Fontaine or go to La Ronde, we weren’t yet decided. We were thinking about what we were going to do when I saw a group of red square wearing young people sitting on the steps near the fountain, facing the subway exit. I leaned in to ask if there was a protest planned. A policeman on a bicycle stopped behind me, almost causing me to fall face-first down the steps. He told the group that they were suspected of wanting to vandalize or cause trouble.
I tried to explain to the policeman that I was asking the young girl a question and that I did not know them, but he didn’t want to listen. Another policeman asked us for our ID and to search our bags. I gave my driver’s license and opened my purse and picnic basket. There was obviously nothing signalling that I was there to cause trouble, but since I was close to the group and was talking to them, I was supposedly with them.
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.
Vincent Marissal 14 June 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/vincent-marissal/201206/14/01-4534743-politique-police-et-manifs.php
I was talking to Carl Vallée, press attaché for Stephen Harper, in the hall of the Hilton Bonaventure, where Harper had just given a speech, when an officer of the Montreal City Police (Service de police de la ville de Montréal, SPVM) swept in, huge sunglasses covering half his face, chewing gum in his mouth, a day-glo green bib over his back and his baton almost dragging on the floor because of his diminutive stature.
We’ve almost become accustomed, in Montreal, to seeing cops everywhere, but the scene, with business folk in suits in the hall and hotel guests in swimsuits lounging beside the pool seemed, nonetheless, a bit surreal.
A few minutes later, I heard the same officer say to a hotel guest, in front of the elevator: “There aren’t many of them [the protestors in front of the hotel] but they are there, stuck to the asphalt, and there is no way of getting them off.”
Michèle Ouimet 9 June 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/michele-ouimet/201206/08/01-4533303-le-derapage-verbal.php
Jacques Villeneuve, former Formula 1 Champion, thinks the students are loafers who scare tourists and make Quebec look bad in the eyes of others.
They were also poorly raised by parents who never learned to say no.
“They spend all their time complaining”, he explained Thursday at a press conference where the clichés came faster than an F1 race car. “It’s becoming a bit ridiculous […] It’s time to go back to school!”
Boy-kings, spoiled children, incompetent parents. Contempt and paternalism.
June 11, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/hpq5u1
This Sunday, June 10, 2012, I attempted to take part in a protest-action: over the course of a few hours, I would take the metro back and forth from Berri to Jean-Drapeau station to peacefully protest my disagreement with the Formula 1 Grand Prix, which in my opinion promotes sexism.
Dressed in a flowered dress and with a bag full of dangerous objects such as an apple, a bottle of water and three books, I wanted to draw attention to the heightened police presence and the actions of the SPVM [Montreal police] who have themselves been like terrorists from the start of this conflict. I would read George Orwell’s 1984, a novel describing a society overtaken by a police state.
Kim Lizotte, L’Axe du Mad June 11, 2012
Original French Text: http://laxedumad.com/2012/06/11/on-nest-pas-assez-beaux/
I don’t see any other explanation. Didn’t we laugh at China during the Olympics for hiding poverty, human rights abuses, and political prisoners? What a band of weirdos. To hide the truth, to embellish their reality because the spotlight is on them: what a band of hypocrites. Oh look, they even dared to ask a cute little girl to lipsynch over the voice of a not-so-cute girl. How strange!
Yet, during the Grand Prix, it would have been been better to hide the thousands of protesters, to quiet the sound of casseroles, to stop shouting about injustice, corruption, and police brutality. It would have been better to shut up, dress up, and go out to drink champagne with Jacques Villeneuve, and to dream of meeting a Pussycat Doll. It would have been better for us to quiet down and get out of the streets, or even better, to go home and watch the Grand Prix on TV.
Martin Ouellet et Sylvain Larocque June 11th 2012
Original french text: http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/politique-quebecoise/201206/11/01-4533862-charest-defend-les-interventions-contre-les-groupes-dextreme-gauche.php
On Monday, Premier Jean Charest defended the police officers who worked security for the Grand Prix Formula 1, maintaining that “extreme left-wing groups” posed a threat to the most important tourist event in Canada.
From their side, members of the opposition party, the Parti Québecois, demanded explanations from the Minister of public security, Robert Dutil, of the allegations of political profiling of citizens wearing red squares to the event.
Upon leaving a speech at the Conférence de Montréal, Mr. Charest said that police officers“did their work very well” under the circumstances.
