Quebec Tuition Fee Rise: Student Strike: Letter to My Son
Hello my son. You are only 2 years old and already politics concerns you.
Look at these young people taking to the streets to make their voices heard. Do you know they do it for you? One day, like them, you will be asked to pay. When you earn less than $15,000 per year, you will be asked to pay $4,000 for your studies. You will be asked more than $500 per month for your rent, $50 per month for transportation, $100 for your electricity and communications. And when you wonder how much you have left to eat, you will be told that you are complaining with a full stomach. But that would only be fair, you have to do your part, it's your duty.
I hope that day, you will be able to look at the rich in their BMWs, those who enjoy tax cuts and tax evasion. That you will understand what it means that the richest 1% of the population controls about 90% of the wealth. That you will be able to see behind their smile when you will hear them on all the platforms affirming that what is required of you is only justice, that you must do your part, that it is your duty.
Look, my son. Look at the headlines in the newspapers. These young people are accused of causing mayhem, of provoking clashes with the police, and soon of being violent. This is an attempt to steal their voice, to assimilate them to criminals. Now look at the pictures on television. Who is armed to the teeth? Who strikes with sticks? Who pepper? Who imprisons? While we are scandalized by some broken furniture, we seem to rejoice in the criminalization of our youth.
asks does anyone have suggestions on how to relieve the pain from a pinched nerve in your neck?? http://t.co/9mnlmYtvhE
— Kory Ann Sun Feb 24 23:59:04 +0000 2013
A simple allegory could compare the state and its police to a father. Seeing how the state treats its youth, I wonder what the DPJ is waiting for to intervene in the face of such brutality. Faced with the hypocrisy of these aggressors, be they politicians, policemen or rich, words fail me. It is disgusting to see these people who have profited from a system attacking with impunity those who today are trying to defend it. These people who have profited and still profit, who demand with a stick that their own children pay more than they ever did themselves, do they not know shame?
When the day comes, I hope you will remember your father's letter. When I watch these young people stand up today, pride fills me. Me, I see these young people armed with their only voice shouting the injustice of a sick society. They stand before the police Robocops, listening only to their courage. They are doing it for you, my son, so that you too can enjoy the same rights that those who bludgeon today enjoyed yesterday. Know that there are people like me who hear them despite everything. People who want to shout their rage when they see the demagoguery with which these events are treated. People who, sooner or later, will take to the streets to demand justice.
I hope that when the day comes, you will be able to show the same courage as these young people. It would only be fair. You will have to do your part. It is your duty towards those who fight so that you can experience a truly fairer society. Like them, you risk suffering the opprobrium of a hypocritical society that always demands more from the weakest and poorest for the benefit of the strongest and richest. Like them today, you will enjoy all my support, all my love and all my respect. This is the least I can do for those who are brutalized and smeared because they denounce injustice…– Philippe Gauvin, father, Montreal
