Stand Strong
It's getting pretty crazy with what's happening in Montreal right now. The student protest against massive tuition hikes has been going on for months and is only getting stronger. Hundreds of thousands of people gather and there are protests every day. There is an overwhelming message that the people of this province what affordable education to be a priority.
But despite the HUGE amount of support to keep tuition costs low, the government continues to ignore all the requests of its constituants. This last week the government rushed through a law banning the right to assemble. Now, every group of more then ten people has to obtain a license from the city or risk the possibility of arrest and jail-time. Anyone speaking about, writing about, facebooking about, or even wearing a red square are now at risk of arrest for "inciting protest".
I'm not quite sure how we've come to this point, we live in Canada for goodness sakes. We're supposed to be a country that lives by the philosophy that the government is there for the people. I just don't understand how the government can forage ahead with something that their constituants so obviously disagree with.
Photos by Coralie Lemieux-Sabourin
"Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support, are undoubtably its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform...
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and ode them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
…if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn...
There will never really be a free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and ode them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
…if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn...
There will never really be a free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
This afternoon I went to an amazing concert in a little coffeeshop for the Ukeladies, and the opening for them was a woman named Janice Lee who sang some amazing songs that were very pertinent to this issue.
If you want more information about what's going on day-to-day in the Montreal protest scene, you can read more about it
here.