Against austerity, against the savaging of the public-state services, a commons built through decades of popular struggles against Capital, Québec students, workers, the unemployed, have called for an indefinite social strike in the province, beginning on the 21st of March, with the aim of stopping everything: universities, factories, cities, in sum, the circulation of commodities.
“Austerity” is but another word for the violence of primitive accumulation: the disciplining of labour, the commodification of public goods, the dividing (through racisms, sexisms, ethnocentrisms) of those to be exploited. The Québec student movement of 2012, Le printemps érable, resonates anew: some 55,000 students are on strike in 10 university campuses, demonstrations have been almost and a further province-wide day of protest is announced for April 2.
If the students find themselves at the forefront of the movement, it is perhaps due to its recent history and because education is so often the soft target that States begin with in the devouring of the “welfare state”. But as in 2012, the aspirations of the strike/movement today can quickly become more radical, above all since the only response that the State seems capable of is police violence and arrests.
For more information about Printemps 2015, click here.
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