layzieone
Legacy Member
One thing the students protesting against tuition-fee hikes could decently spare the rest of us, without giving way on their demands, is the ritual bleating about how democratic they are in the exercise of what they presume is their right to dictate to the province's duly elected government.
There is clearly a lack of understanding on the part of the boycotting students, who are actually a minority of the province's post-secondary students, about the meaning of democracy. Either that or they are deliberately abusing the term to justify actions that are blatantly undemocratic - even the antithesis of democracy.
A blatant example of this occurred on Tuesday. Leaders of the university and CEGEP student federations held a news conference to put forward their counter-proposals to the government's offer to extend the phasing-in of the fee increase. At one point a group of about two dozen students, several of them with faces masked, invaded the room and disrupted the proceedings with jeers and accusations that the leaders were being "antidemocratic."
Then there was Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, head of the most radical of the student groups, CLASSE, suggesting that decisions made "democratically" at student assemblies are legitimate and should outweigh court orders affirming the right of non-boycotting students to attend classes. Whip-smart in some respects, Nadeau-Dubois either seems not to comprehend, or chooses to deny, that democracy cannot function without respect for a system of laws enacted by democratically elected governments.
It should be noted that the votes to boycott classes to which he refers were taken at student meetings by a show of hands, as opposed to the modern democratic norm of a secret ballot. Furthermore, at these meetings people opposed to the boycott faced harassment and intimidation from their pro-boycott fellows, something also far short of the democratic ideal.
On the basis on this, in Nadeau-Dubois's view, the courts should deny the majority of students who are not participating in the boycott their right to proceed with their education. Or, as has been the case in several instances, boycotters should have a right to forcibly block access to classes for those who wish to attend.
In many cases even professors have endorsed this twisted view and stood with the mob in defiance of court injunctions. Typical of this deluded lot was a letter-to-the-editor writer, an assistant prof at the Université de Montréal no less, who deplored The Gazette's protest coverage, calling the court rulings affirming the right to attend classes "authoritarian" and "nothing short of trampling on democracy itself."
She bemoaned that this was taking place on the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet a fundamental aspect of that charter is that it endows Canadians with recourse to the courts for affirmation of their legitimate rights - something those students who have gone to court for access to classes have done. If this is typical of the quality of education dispensed at Quebec universities, the current fees might actually be excessive for the value students are getting.
Sadly, when it comes to real democracy - the election of a legitimate government - the student demographic is prominently disengaged. Election turnout in the 18-to-24 age group has been in decline over the past four decades; in the last provincial election, only two in five turned out to vote.
If the protesting students were really seized with democratic fervour as they purport to be, they would get off the streets and get busy organizing for the approaching provincial election by persuading voters to back the Parti Québécois or Québec solidaire, both of which have pledged to freeze tuition.
Yet when Gazette reporter Monique Muise informally polled some demonstrating students this week on whether they plan to vote in the coming election, the predominant response was tepid. More than a few said they had no plans to take advantage of the democratic opportunity to cast a vote, while others said they plan to waste their vote by spoiling their ballot.
Perhaps they are unfamiliar with the old French saying "Les absents ont toujours tort." (The absent are always in the wrong.) If they extend their boycott to the election and a government they don't like is returned, they will have no legitimate grounds for complaint, democratic or otherwise.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/protesters+care+about+real+democracy/6557115/story.html#ixzz1toYJOlzK
spot on!
There is clearly a lack of understanding on the part of the boycotting students, who are actually a minority of the province's post-secondary students, about the meaning of democracy. Either that or they are deliberately abusing the term to justify actions that are blatantly undemocratic - even the antithesis of democracy.
A blatant example of this occurred on Tuesday. Leaders of the university and CEGEP student federations held a news conference to put forward their counter-proposals to the government's offer to extend the phasing-in of the fee increase. At one point a group of about two dozen students, several of them with faces masked, invaded the room and disrupted the proceedings with jeers and accusations that the leaders were being "antidemocratic."
Then there was Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, head of the most radical of the student groups, CLASSE, suggesting that decisions made "democratically" at student assemblies are legitimate and should outweigh court orders affirming the right of non-boycotting students to attend classes. Whip-smart in some respects, Nadeau-Dubois either seems not to comprehend, or chooses to deny, that democracy cannot function without respect for a system of laws enacted by democratically elected governments.
It should be noted that the votes to boycott classes to which he refers were taken at student meetings by a show of hands, as opposed to the modern democratic norm of a secret ballot. Furthermore, at these meetings people opposed to the boycott faced harassment and intimidation from their pro-boycott fellows, something also far short of the democratic ideal.
On the basis on this, in Nadeau-Dubois's view, the courts should deny the majority of students who are not participating in the boycott their right to proceed with their education. Or, as has been the case in several instances, boycotters should have a right to forcibly block access to classes for those who wish to attend.
In many cases even professors have endorsed this twisted view and stood with the mob in defiance of court injunctions. Typical of this deluded lot was a letter-to-the-editor writer, an assistant prof at the Université de Montréal no less, who deplored The Gazette's protest coverage, calling the court rulings affirming the right to attend classes "authoritarian" and "nothing short of trampling on democracy itself."
She bemoaned that this was taking place on the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet a fundamental aspect of that charter is that it endows Canadians with recourse to the courts for affirmation of their legitimate rights - something those students who have gone to court for access to classes have done. If this is typical of the quality of education dispensed at Quebec universities, the current fees might actually be excessive for the value students are getting.
Sadly, when it comes to real democracy - the election of a legitimate government - the student demographic is prominently disengaged. Election turnout in the 18-to-24 age group has been in decline over the past four decades; in the last provincial election, only two in five turned out to vote.
If the protesting students were really seized with democratic fervour as they purport to be, they would get off the streets and get busy organizing for the approaching provincial election by persuading voters to back the Parti Québécois or Québec solidaire, both of which have pledged to freeze tuition.
Yet when Gazette reporter Monique Muise informally polled some demonstrating students this week on whether they plan to vote in the coming election, the predominant response was tepid. More than a few said they had no plans to take advantage of the democratic opportunity to cast a vote, while others said they plan to waste their vote by spoiling their ballot.
Perhaps they are unfamiliar with the old French saying "Les absents ont toujours tort." (The absent are always in the wrong.) If they extend their boycott to the election and a government they don't like is returned, they will have no legitimate grounds for complaint, democratic or otherwise.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/protesters+care+about+real+democracy/6557115/story.html#ixzz1toYJOlzK
spot on!
