protest
Today was McGill's official strike. It was a long, draining day, exciting and rewarding but disappointing too. I've realized that a lot of people are still incredibly apathetic and refuse to make sacrifices for the benefit of others; people refuse to miss a goddam DAY OF CLASSES to protest the Quebec government's bursary cuts. People are too self-absorbed to take ONE DAY to protest North America's continuing war on the poor. If people think a particular issue doesn't affect them, they do not care. But this attack on accessible education affects us all. I'm sorry, I'm being rambly and preachy, but it's so, so frustrating. The day still had its positive side, though. I met new people who clearly really do care about the world around them; people who's parents are, I'm sure, entirely paying for their education but who still choose to fight for the rights of those who have to pay for their education themselves and rely on the state to help them. As well, on Wednesday, there was a massive student protest of all of Montreal's schools (I heard so many different estimates of the amount of people, from 20 000 to 100 000, I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in the middle, maybe 50 000) and that was incredible. That was a whole lot of people who actually gave a shit. It was inspiring. We took back our streets.