We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Quebec: Students mobilise against draconian law aimed at breaking four-month strike

Click here to access article by Roger Annis from International Journal of Socialist Renewal. 
The Quebec government provoked the student strike with its proposal last year, confirmed in its March 2012 budget, to increase tuition fees by 60% over the next five years. That was then modified to a 75% increase over seven years.
There have been massive student protests and strikes in Quebec during the past four months which has been met by brutal police methods. 
Some 160,000 students are on strike, approximately 35% of the post-secondary student population in the province. Of those, 65,000 are CEGEP [essentially all public post-secondary institutions] students, all in Montreal and surrounding regions.
With a recent law passed, it appears now that the government of Quebec has declared all out war on the students.