Tsunami in Montreal

(What's up with Mars?)
(It's opposite Neptune and squaring Chiron, for one thing.)

It's day 95 for the student strikers.  In Québec, in case you didn't know, there is a war going on.
We are over 7,900 hundred citizens in this province, 3 millions in the Montréal metropolis.  These days a lot of things are going on as usual.  I'm sure many have families and they go to work everyday, they eat a decent dinner at night, and watch tv in the evening.  Other things are moving at the speed of light, or they are stalled - you could take it either way.
(Hiroko Tamano - a Butoh teacher- used to say that immobility is the fastest speed, because you can feel the earth spinning on herself and in the galaxy.)

Student protests are taking place everyday still.  The minister of Education resigned earlier this week, the government is uncompromising, and the media are in the trenches.  The police is in the spotlight.  Whether on the streets or at home, we are all witnessing a HUGE amount of violence taking place.
How do we react?
Is it true?  Are we truly in a ''police state'' ?
There are thousands of people demonstrating each day.  Creativity and anger are co-existing in a difficult and beautiful mélange...  The status quo is intensifying in self-defense.  The people are coming up with ever more creative ways to protest.  (We've even had two naked demonstrations (!) ... to ask ''for transparence'' on the part of the elite.  That's the symbolic at its best!)

Being naked ''to be playful and creative'', said one participants.  ''To show our vulnerability'' added another.  ''To show that we are a peaceful movement... We're obviously unprotected for batter... we're not going to go fight in our underwear!''

Yet the government keeps sending out his riot-squads.  (Not on the nude ''manifs''... but on the other ones.)

This is not a World Summit of some sort.  There are no congress of presidents or bankers happening. (Or maybe there are.)  This is provincial politics.  The images we see, the beatings, the pepper spray, the batons, the tactics, the blood...  This is not some news from a country halfway around the globe.  This is right here, in our schools and our streets.

On Wednesday a friend of mine went to demonstrate.  Around midnight, somebody at the top (who?) went ahead and declared that the gathering was now illegal.   ''This demonstration is illegal.  Move!    Moooovvve!!''  Hundreds of people, students and supporters, suddenly became... liable.   The police began dispersing the crowds... and charged.
It's been like this everyday.
My friend was walking towards the nearest metro station, along with about 20 other people, when a riot-squad unit of about 50 men showed up and cornered them.  They arrested them and packed 'em up in a ''panier à salade'' (the police wagon).  They brought them to jail, on the premise of ''attending an illegal demonstration.''

What!?
All of this a few thousand dollars of tuition fees?

This violence is becoming something else.  It is obvious now, and it's - I think - this very dynamic (the abuse of power) that the student are [unconsciously?] fighting to highlight.  It's not about tuition fees, it's about principles.  It's about free education as a symbol for democracy.  It's about the corruption, the power games, the selling out.  We are asking the government to acknowledge something: It is not representing our interests.

(And even though I do very much understand the anger of ''the masses'', I'm not sure that it's the smartest, most sustainable way for protesters to fuel the violence either.)

I haven't decided whether I think that the strikers (specifically from the CLASSE association) should accept some kind of compromise.
They talk about making the prime minister resign, make him fall.

And then what?

I can't help but ponder what this means in terms of sovereignty.  This movement is clearly re-affirming the cultural cleavage between Québec and the rest of Canada.  It is very clearly pointing to our difference and to the direction we want to take.  It think this is a great opportunity to refresh the debate about Québec ''souveraineté-association''.  That's why I've been reading René-Lévesque lately.
I also think that the situation is more complex than ever, and that the timing is overwhelming.  The crisis is happening with our provincial government.  If they were to launch elections right now, I wonder what the turn out would be.

Many citizens claim that they're fed up with the strike.  They just wish things were go as usual.
Would they vote for the Liberal party?
Or would the PQ win? or perhaps Québec Solidaire?!

And then what?

I see this as a huge possibility to help our politics take a radical new direction.
And what I'm thinking about, in truth, is what this means for new models of ''resource management''.

and more thoughts...
and more thoughts...

What are yours?