A letter to the parents

Remember when we were kids and you used to tell us to clean our rooms? What if instead of staying seated in front of the television, we jumped up, grabbed our friends and said, “we’ll clean our room, the whole house, and then tackle the yard!” One of two thoughts may have popped into your head. Either “damn, my kid has been taking too many meds/abducted and replaced by an alien species.” Or maybe you have celebrated and said, “that’s great kiddo, I fully support you.” You would have thought to yourselves, “wow, if only all the neighbours could see this, what a great example my kid is setting."

If in the enthusiastic process of cleaning up our rooms, houses and yards, we knocked over a lamp and broke it, would you have yelled at us and told us to stop? Would you have sent us to our rooms without any supper, not letting us finish the chore we had set out to do and forbidding us from trying ever again?

This is to all the parents. A plea, if you will.

Please support your children. Whether they are yours or not. We live in a society that sets itself apart from our neighbours by valuing social programs and these values have been passed on to the current generation. This is a letter not just about the student movement, but about a social movement.

We are working together for a better world. Or at least trying to.

One year ago, an older friend of the family asked me to describe my generation. Without a pause, I said “apathetic”. She asked me why I chose this word and I proceeded to explain how my generation seems to just sit by passively, playing computer games, texting one another, watching mindless television, while the rest of the world around us seems to be taking away our bright future and replacing it with a dark tunnel through which we can’t see.

Now, I see my peers marching night after night for something they want, deserve and have every reason to expect: a bright future. They face ridicule, taunts, and recently, unbiased police brutality. For the most part, the 200+ protests have been peaceful, with a minimum of property damage, done by a minority. Regardless of your opinion on the student’s demands, know this: the game has changed. The government’s new “special law” is an attack on democracy and civil rights. It gives more leeway to the police force to use methods that are excessive and brutal. It takes away the populations voice and power. It is the government using a heavy, metal studded stick instead of any choice of carrots.

If you had seen an older bully hit your child in the playground and throw sand in his face would you have told your flesh and blood: “honey, you deserve it because that kid over there, who is the same age as you, has just broken the swing.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in violence or property destruction. Those who committed those crimes should be brought to justice, but gone are the days where we should accept punishment from corrupt governments. The special law levies fines against dissidents that are larger than the fines for government corruption. (Corruption fines, I would like to point out, that Charest and Courchesne, the new education minister, and other PLQ members should be paying.)

Are the protests inconvenient?

OF COURSE!

That is the point. If everyone just sat at home like the majority of my Anglophone peers and I, discussing politics on facebook, who would notice other than their friends?

When did property become more important than human health? I have read more media coverage of property damage than I have of the two students who have lost eyes, those who have gotten concussions, been terrified, pepper sprayed and beaten at the orders of our cities’ and province’s government. “An eye for an eye” takes on a whole new meaning when youths’ eyes are compared to a broken window or two.

It takes a village to raise a child. Where the hell are all the parents while their children are working to fix their broken village? For the most part, at home criticising the “children”.

Self-entitled. Spoiled. Bratty. Don’t understand the real world. How can we accept these insults being flung around so ubiquitously at an entire generation? A generation that is fighting for something, for a change. Maybe I was wrong, maybe apathy skips a generation. Friends and family that I have spoken to who were around in the 60’s mostly understand where we are coming from. Direct social action is not a dirty word to them. Friends of my parents criticise the students, saying that they should just shut up and grow up. Well, dear parents and friends; that is precisely what we are doing. Growing up. Facing the real world, and I must say… we don’t like what we see and we have the responsibility and the duty to do something.  Something that you could help us with.  

Dissidents and naysayers of the student movement use the following arguments as though they mean something: “Quebec has the lowest tuition in North America, what are they complaining about?” and “I had to get student loans and go into debt, why should they have it any different?” Listen to yourselves! How can you be against making the world a better place for your children and your grand-children?

“Taxes… you kids don’t understand.” To the contrary, I think this whole debate has opened many young people’s eyes to the reality of government and institutional mismanagement of funds.  Realities that affect you as much as it does us.

“Our fair share.” Where is that quote when it comes to corporations paying less in taxes than teachers? Where is that quote when it comes to government and financial institutions being held accountable for corruption?

After Occupy Wall Street, this is the first major North American organized social movement to demand positive change. To me and many supporters, the student movement is not about tuition, it is about debt. It is about the government completely ignoring an entire generation’s request for dialogue. Not only ignoring, but scoffing and mocking. The fact is that the government stonewalled for so long and twisted the debate so much that the students came to be viewed as the bad guys. The government has acted like strict schoolteachers disciplining a rowdy classroom. We are no longer children and we have the right to be heard.

The main divide I have seen is between the English and French communities. For the most part, the main diatribes against the students have come from the English media and from the English community. Though, some of that has trickled over into the French side. The basic difference in bias between the media in French and English is shocking and has not been addressed properly. Possibly it has to do with the fact that the majority of Quebec’s English population is centred in Montreal, where students can remain at home during their University years to save money. Possibly it has to do with the fact that we don’t share French Canadians’ connection to the France model of social action. Perhaps we have just been brainwashed by English media’s bias against the protest and for the tuition hike.

What I would like to say is that whether you are Francophone, Anglophone, Allophone or communicate via iphone, open your minds and realize that this is no longer just a student movement. Charest has just attacked our, your and the collective’s right to peaceful assembly. “It’s only for one year” the supporters have stated. To that, I respond: “it’s for a FULL YEAR!” Using the Harper government as an example, A LOT can happen in one year to dismantle democracy.

I find it unacceptable that the government has done this, but also that people are so willing to give up their rights without a second thought. It was not even close to the only option the government had to quell the uprising. To those who think that this will stop or simmer down the protests I have a story to tell you about the first time I thought pouring gasoline on a fire would make it go out. (Hint: it didn’t…)

I can only hope that this attack on social liberties and civil rights will polarise the debate enough for the general public to realize that our government is corrupt and heading the way of Harper in destroying Canadian democracy. Regardless of how you feel about the student movement, this special law goes beyond students and is an attack on everyone’s right to peaceful assembly and protest.

Charest, is not only the premier, but the youth minister and has consistently treated students like undisciplined children, spanking them, sending them to bed without supper, not listening to them, nor willing to compromise. As the youth minister, one would expect him to at least try to understand the youth that he represents. Instead, he is throwing a tantrum that will only make things worse before they get better.

This is a crisis. There is no doubt about that. But it is not a crisis in the way the government has spun it. We are facing a crisis of corrupt government and broken systems. A crisis in which a new generation of voters is trying to have its voice heard and the older generation is not allowing it to do so fairly. It is like a game of broken telephone where the last person to speak controls the distortion and in this case, it is the government’s agenda that speaks last and loudest. They have the money and the control and we “children” are simply trying to get a fair word in. Listen to us. Help us be understood.

We are the generation that will be faced with the most economically unequal society that we have seen in generations. We will be faced with polluted waters, soil and air because of deregulated restrictions in favour of corporations. We will be faced with an economy that is collapsing around us. We will be faced with a higher overall cost of living and fewer career opportunities. We are faced with our parents’ generation not willing to stand up for us, while our taxes will pay for their retirement and medical bills.

It is not yet time for you to sit back and let us deal with the fallout from your generation’s mistakes. It is time for you to stand with your children and help us be heard. Support us as we clean our rooms, the house and the yard and come with us as we clean up our neighbourhoods. Educate us and future generations and let us educate you. We are no longer little kids in the playground, we are intelligent adults who deserve to be heard, understood and supported.

You may not agree with what we are fighting for, but you should be defending our right to say it. You taught us to talk, now it is time to listen. The special law cannot be an acceptable solution to a problem that the government has been unwilling to negotiate about.

I ask not only that you stop criticising us for working towards a better world, but that you stand up for us. We are not spoiled, self-entitled children, we are the youth and the future that value education, economic equality, and the right to freely assemble. Stand with us and help us work for a more just society.

We are your children, whether you raised us directly or not. Fight for us as we are fighting for our future children. 

Fighting for their grand-children :)
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