Just yesterday I was 20 years old. I caressed time, and enjoyed life.
Gabriel, I hope you will allow me to speak to you directly this week, and on familiar terms. Today you are co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire (QS), and I am a columnist. We have crossed paths several times over the years without really knowing each other. But we are one degree of separation across dozens of people who, just yesterday, were 20 years old, and gave their opinion that they wanted the right one to criticize the world casually.
Gabriel, I wanted to write to you especially because I have the feeling that we are an endangered species. Many millennials who made themselves known in the media space from the social mobilizations of the 2010s have left the public eye. I almost want to say that we are part of a small handful of survivors. Why are we so alone, Gabriel?
Just yesterday, Gabriel, QS co-spokesperson Françoise David, said at a press briefing at the National Assembly that the Quebec government was sexist. I remember it very well, Gabriel, because it was in 2015 and I was then sitting on the board of directors of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, which Françoise David of course chaired.
Just yesterday, we understood Mr.me David, who spoke of the sexism of the Couillard government because decent salary increases were refused to FAE teachers on strike. Just yesterday, it was clear enough that there was no “David affair”. In the feminist movement, we were able to enter the breach opened to advance the understanding of the unequal effects of public policies on women. Even though, a year later, News had published an investigation entitled “The National Assembly is sexist and here is the proof”.
I wonder, Gabriel, if once the dust of the current storm has settled, we will be able to reflect together on the shrinking space for progressive public speech compared to our twenties, when we campaigned without counting our days which were fleeing in time. Do you understand how we got here?
I ask myself the question with new acuteness since the election of Donald Trump. I think that’s why that I remain lost, not knowing where to go, my eyes seeking the sky, but my heart buried in the groundfor a week. I’m hurt, because faced with everything that Trump’s election represents for people, Quebec had an opportunity to shine within America by its difference.
After November 5, many Quebecers had absolutely no need for so many respected public figures to contribute to fueling a media eclipse which, looking back over the years, will seem very likely to us clumsy et exaggerated. I would have liked the Quebec political-media ecosystem to stand out for its sense of calm, of listening mutualrespect mutual. But I wasted my time doing crazy things, which ultimately left me with nothing really specific, only a few wrinkles on my forehead and the fear of boredom.
I have never been part of Québec solidaire. People who read me will not be shocked to learn that I am not a sovereignist. But just yesterday, Gabriel, in 2016, I led a campaign to ask the Couillard government for a commission on systemic racism, with Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Will Prosper, and Haroun Bouazzi. Just yesterday, Amir Khadir opened the doors of his office to us to sponsor our petition and bring our voice to the National Assembly. I ask, Gabriel, with all the current reactionary backlash, what place the solidarity caucus would have made for such a group today. I also wonder, if we had accomplished this collective exercise of truth and reconciliation, what public speaking out would be possible in today’s Quebec. I made so many plans that remained in the air, I had so many hopes that vanished.
Tuesday morning, several media spoke of “group shootings” on Haroun Bouazzi. I had this very strong image in mind while I listened to a conference on the consequences of online violence where Dalila Awada, Maïtée Labrecque-Saganash and Carla Beauvais — three former columnists of Metro who withdrew from the media space after being the subject of “group shootings”, from ordinary people and other columnists. To use the metaphor that I know is very heavy, Gabriel, I wonder if you and I are so alone because part of the next generation that we represented was made shoot.
The price of even the slightest “clumsiness” for the young progressive and “diverse” voices of the 2010s has been so high that I am now surrounded, in my private life, by stillborn talent. You must be too. Those who survived, you, me, the handful of others, had to change, to toughen up. I froze my smiles and froze my tears. The harshness of the ecosystem in which we operate forces us to express ourselves in a way that takes us away from the streets.
I can clearly see how some of the brilliant, talented and progressive people who were interested in QS just yesterday find this formatting of speech increasingly difficult to follow. My friends have left and will not come back, through my fault I have created a void around me. I believe the fault is actually a lot systemicGabriel. The political-media ecosystem too often sorts things out of the best and the worst, throwing away the besteven of ourselves. Getting back there is a constant struggle.
One day, if you want, I’ll get you some Barbancourt rum, and we’ll take the time to think together, without a camera, without a microphone. Simply to listen to each other among survivors and ask each other where are they now, now, our 20 years.
