UQAM’s protest culture marches on
From Quiet Revolution to Maple Spring, students have clashed with authority
MONTREAL— While students gear up for exams, young scholars at what might be Canada’s most radical postsecondary institution are braced for clashes with university officials, Montreal police and fellow Quebecers.
Following a tradition of protest that stretches back to the birth of the university during the heady days of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, students at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) were among tens of thousands to have signed up for a province-wide strike to protest “austerity” — provincial budget cuts — and society’s exploitation of hydrocarbons.
The strikers seemed to have struck out, whether due to the overly broad nature of their cause, or the inability to relive the 2012 Maple Spring, the historic student strike that paralyzed the province and helped bring down a government. But an incident that began Wednesday afternoon with several dozen hooded and masked individuals blocking student access to classes at UQAM on Thursday — essentially imposing a picket-line on their classmates — ended with 22 arrests when the police were called in.
Those who escaped the scene regrouped a few hours later and laid siege to a university building that was reclaimed only by the force of the riot squad.
Quebec Education Minister François Blais, a graduate of the school, said he was disgusted by the turn of events, which violated the fundamental right of students to study in peace.
But just a few blocks away from the scene of Wednesday night’s havoc, students, backed by course instructors and professors, were denouncing a violent turn that seems nevertheless to have breathed a gust of relevancy — or at least new anger — into their movement.
In their view, UQAM’s rector, Robert Proulx, deserves the blame for what has happened. His supposed crime was kicking the hornet’s nest that is UQAM’s student body.
“When you treat peaceful people like criminals, you have to expect angry gestures and that’s what we saw,” said Fannie Poirier, a political science student at UQAM.
Among other things, Proulx’s administration expelled a handful of rowdy student activists in the leadup to last month’s student strike.
The administration followed that up with a court injunction to prevent protesters from blocking access to classes, infringing on what students see as their right to strike.
In the eyes of the protesters, the gravest offence committed by Proulx may be his lack of respect for the radical roots of the institution that he now runs.