The Quebec Student Protest Movement and the Power of the Radical Imagination

Posted on Aug 28, 2012

Andrew Morrell Photography (CC BY-ND 2.0)

By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout

(Page 5)

Notes:

* I want to thank Grace Pollock, Maya Sabados, Danielle Martak, and David L. Clark for their excellent editing suggestions.
[1] David Harvey, “Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?” CounterPunch (March 13-15, 2009). Online: http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/13/is-this-really-the-end-of-neoliberalism/print
[2] Eric Cazdyn, “Bioeconomics, Culture, and Politics after Globalization,” in Cultural Autonomy: Frictions and Connections, ed. Petra Rethmann, Imre Szeman, and William D. Coleman (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), p. 64.
[3] Alain Badiou, The Rebirth of History, trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 2012), p. 12.
[4] Stuart J. Murray, “The Voice of the We Yet to Come,” Canadian Journal of Communication (in press), p. 2.
[5] Bruce Campbell, “Rising Inequality, Declining Democracy,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (December 12, 2011). Online: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/rising-inequality-declining-democracy
[6] Zygmunt Bauman, This Is Not a Diary (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), p. 103.
[7] Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012).
[8] Some recent and important literature on this issue includes: Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Highjacking of America (New York Random House, 2012); Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011); David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Paul Krugman, End This Depression Now! (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012); Jeff Madrick, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (New York: Vintage, 2012); Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality; and Richard D. Wolff and David Barsamian, Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism (San Francisco: City Lights Open Media, 2012).
[9] Ferguson, Predator Nation, p. 2.
[10] Ferguson, Predator Nation.
[11] Zygmunt Bauman, Living on Borrowed Time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo (Cambridge: Polity, 2010), p. 68.
[12] Zygmunt Bauman, Wasted Lives (London: Polity, 2004), p. 76.
[13] Ibid., p. 76.
[14] I have borrowed the term “zones of social abandonment” from Joäo Biehl, Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); see also Henry A. Giroux, Disposable Youth (New York: Routledge, 2012) and Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York: The Free Press, 2012).
[15] Biehl, Vita, p.14.
[16] Etienne Balibar, We, The People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 128.
[17] Editorial, “Global Youth Jobless Rates Still High,” Hamilton Spectator (May 23, 2012), p. A17.
[18] Jordan Weissmann, “53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or Underemployed–How?” The Atlantic (April 23, 2012). Online: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/53-of-recent-college-grads-are-jobless-or-underemployed-how/256237/
[19] Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 2001).
[20] See Zygmunt Bauman, Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Cambridge: Polity, 2011); Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality; Lynn Parramore, “Exclusive Interview: Joseph Stiglitz Sees Terrifying Future for America If We Don’t Reverse Inequality,” AlterNet (June 24, 2012), online:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/155918/exclusive_interview%3A_joseph_stiglitz_sees_terrifying_future_for_america_if_we_don%27t_reverse_inequality; Paul Buchheit, “Five Facts That Put America to Shame,” CommonDreams (May 14, 2012), online: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/14-0; and Peter Elderman, So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America (New York: New Press, 2012).
[21] Bauman, Living on Borrowed Time, pp. 39-40.
[22] See the brilliant work of Angela Davis on the prison-industrial complex and the emerging punishing state in the United States, especially Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003).
[23] Report by National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA), The Student Loan “Debt Bomb”: America’s Next Mortgage-Style Economic Crisis (February 7, 2012), online: http://nacba.org/Portals/0/Documents/Student%20Loan%20Debt/020712%20NACBA%20student%20loan%20debt%20report.pdf; Andy Kroll, “Shut Out: How the Cost of Higher Education Is Dividing Our Country,” Truthout (April 2, 2012), online: http://archive.truthout.org/040209T; and Collin Harris, “The Student Debt Bubble: Interview with Alan Nasser,” ZSpace (December 18, 2011), online:
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-student-debt-bubble-interview-with-alan-nasser-by-collin-harris
[24] Jonathan Simon, Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). See also Henry A. Giroux, Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
[25] Martin Lukacs, “Quebec Student Protests Mark ‘Maple Spring’ in Canada,” The Guardian (May 2, 2012), online:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/02/quebec-student-protest-canada
[26] David Camfield, “Quebec’s “Red Square” Movement: The Story So Far,” The Socialist Project, No. 680, (August 13, 2012). Online:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/680.php
[27]Mark Cardwell, “Quebec Students Begin Strike Action,” University Affairs (February 21, 2012). Online:
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/quebec-students-begin-strike-action.aspx
[28] Peter Hallward, “The Threat of Quebec’s Good Example,” Socialist Project, e-Bulletin No. 647 (June 6, 2012). Online: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/647.php
[29] Lukacs, “Quebec Student Protests Mark ‘Maple Spring.’”
[30] Andrew Gavin Marshall, “10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement,” CounterPunch (May 23, 2012). Online:  http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/23/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-quebec-student-movement/. For a brilliant commentary on the history of debt and its effect on the economy, see David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2011).
[31] Randy Boyagoda, “For Student Protesters in Quebec, It’s About More Than Tuition,” The Chronicle (June 3, 2012). Online:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Bill+contravenes+charter+lawyer+says/6662877/story.html
[32] Malav Kanuga, “The Quebec Student Strike Celebrates 100th Day,” In These Times (May 23, 2012).  Online:
http://inthesetimes.com/uprising/entry/13252/the_quebec_student_strike_celebrates_its_100th_day/
[33] Badiou cited in John Van Houdt, “The Crisis of Negation: An Interview with Alain Badiou,” Continent 1:4 (2011), p. 234.
[34] Lukacs, “Quebec Student Protests Mark ‘Maple Spring.’”
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Erika Shaker, “Don’t Kid Yourself: We All Pay for the Defunding of Higher Education,” CommonDreams (May 12, 2012).  Online:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/12-3
[38] Ibid.
[39] Pierre Graveline, “The Strange Disappearance of the Canadian State from the Debate on the Student Strike,” Canadian Dimension (June 17, 2012). Online: http://canadiandimension.com/articles/4770/
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Roger Annis, “Update on Quebec Student Strike: Summer of Protest Ahead,” rabble.ca (June 4, 2012). Online:
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/campus-notes/2012/06/update-quebec-student-strike-summer-protest-ahead
[43] J.F. Conway, “Quebec: Making War on Our Children,” Socialist Project, e-Bulletin No. 651, (June 10, 2012). Online: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/651.php
[44] Margaret Wente, “Quebec’s University Students Are in for a Shock,” Globe and Mail (May 1, 2012). Online: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/quebecs-university-students-are-in-for-a-shock/article4104304/
[45] Ibid.
[46] Margaret Wente, “Young Men Without Work,” Globe and Mail (November 11, 2011). Online: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/young-men-without-work/article4183419/
[47] Badiou, The Rebirth of History, pp. 18-19.
[48] Roger Annis, “Quebec Students Mobilize Against Draconian Law Aimed at Breaking Four-Month Strike,” Socialist Project, e-Bulletin No. 637 (May 19, 2012). Online:
http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/637.php. Also see Annis, “Update on Quebec Student Strike.”
[49] Michael Den Tandt, “It’s Time for Tough Treatment of Quebec Student Strikers,” National Post (May 12, 2012), Online: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/11/michael-den-tandt-its-time-for-tough-treatment-of-quebec-student-strikers/
[50] For an account of the Bernard Guay letter, see Marshall, “10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement.” The original letter is no longer posted on Le Soleil’s website, but can be downloaded here: http://jhroy.ca/Article-Bernard-Guay.pdf
[51] Ibid.
[52] Frank Bruni, “Individualism in Overdrive,” New York Times (July 17, 2012), p. A25.
[53] Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (London: Verso, 2006).
[54] For a critique and summary of the bill, see Annis, “Quebec Students Mobilize”; CommonDreams staff, “‘Biggest Act of Civil Disobedience in Canadian History’ ” CommonDreams (May 23, 2012), online: https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/23-5; Linda Gyulai, “Bill 78 Contravenes Charter, Lawyer Says,” The Gazette (May 23, 2012), online: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Bill+contravenes+charter+lawyer+says/6662877/story.html; Laurence Bherer and Pascale Dufour, “Our Not-So-Friendly Northern Neighbor,” New York Times (May 23, 2012), p. A31; and Ian Austen, “Emergency Law Broadens Canada’s Sympathy for Quebec Protests,” New York Times (June 5, 2012), p. A4.
[55] Hallward, “The Threat of Quebec’s Good Example.”
[56] CBC News, “Montreal Police Cagey about Enforcing Bill 78,” CBC News (August 11, 2012). Online: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/08/11/montreal-police-bill-78-12-enforcement.html
[57] See “Manifesto for a Maple Spring,” rabble.ca (April 26, 2012). Online: http://rabble.ca/news/2012/04/quebecs-spring-manifesto-printemps-%C3%A9rable. See also “The CLASSE Manifesto: Share Our Future,” rabble.ca (July 12, 2012). Online: http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/20878
[58] “Manifesto for a Maple Spring.”
[59] “The CLASSE Manifesto: Share Our Future.”
[60] Badiou, The Rebirth of History.
[61] Slavoj Žižek, “Occupy Wall Street: What Is To Be Done Next?” The Guardian (April 24, 2012). Online:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/24/occupy-wall-street-what-is-to-be-done-next
[62] Hallward, “The Threat of Quebec’s Good Example.”
[63] Sarah Jaffe, “Red Squares Everywhere: Will Quebec’s Maple Spring Come South?” In These Times (July 9, 2012). Online:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/13470/red_squares_everywhere
[64] Chris Hedges, “Northern Light,” TruthDig, (June 3, 2012) http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/northern_light_20120603
[65] Badiou, The Rebirth of History, p. 56.

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