Students protests in Montreal, Canada, over Quebec’s plans to raise tuition fees. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images
Via The Guardian’s article “Quebec student protests mark ‘Maple spring’ in Canada: A revolt against a government tuition fee hike is growing into Occupy-inspired dissent against austerity and inequality”. The article, unlike many in the Canadian press, actually bothers to analyse what’s happening in Montreal. Even in English Canada many still don’t know that “movement’s main slogan, “Printemps érable,” is a clever play on words that literally means Maple Spring but sounds like Arab Spring.”
The article was followed by this well-written comment:
“For the second half of the 20th century in many countries the ultra rich just quietly got on with it without bothering the rest of us. They’d go to the opera, get inbred, poison each other, and send for someone like Poirot to sort it out.
Now ordinary people are worse off with each generation, in the name of economic growth. And we’ve had enough of being worse off one way or another while the world has sprouted more people than ever before who have more than they could possibly need in a hundred lifetimes. I say good luck to the Canadians.”
Maybe the protest sign will again be, as it was in 2011, 2012’s most newsworthy graphic design object.