THEGOODMASTERWASSUP.e$S:The Master 12-04-25 10:18 PM Page 19
19 VOL. 40 ISSUE 23 - Thursday, April 26, 2012
EDITOR: Oliver Nacey CONTACT: olivernacey@gmail.com
Montreal, we need to talk. LAURA MARCHAND STAFF WRITER
Montreal, we need to talk. It’s been a while, and I understand things haven’t been great between us as of late. You seem angry, about a lot of things. Occupy movement was a little spat, but then there were brutal anti-brutality marches, harpings about Harper, not to mention the student protests (and protests and protests). If I see any more red squares on historic monuments, I’ll scream. What’s gotten into you, city? You’ve always had a habit of standing up for yourself. It’s one of the things I love about you. Sure, we’d get into little scrapes once in a while, a little hockey riot here and there to keep things interesting, but you’ve hit a whole new level of “crazy” over the past year. It’s not if there was a conflict, it was where. Can’t someone walk down St. Catherine’s without getting tear-gassed now-a-days? Is it so much to ask, that when I get off the metro, I don’t walk into a warzone? “But it’s the police’s fault!” I’ll be the first to admit that Montreal Police can be a bit … strong-willed, to say the very least. They have to be to put up
with you. And yes, they probably pushed it a bit too far. But you guys brought a gun to a knife fight. Throwing rocks at police? Bricks on the metro? Smoke bombs? Setting buildings on fire? How is any of this supposed to help your cause? How can you not expect police to go full-force, when you’re forcing yourself into the Palais? (Besides, it really doesn’t help that one of the “peaceful student organizations” refuses to denounce what’s been going on. Stay classy, CLASSE!) I was watching the news recently, and they were speaking about the uprisings in the Middle East. To paraphrase, they suggested that to win a battle, to change a regime, you have to have the people on your side. Guess what, Montreal. You’ve lost us. Occupy accomplished nothing. We know we hate Harper, we’re Quebec from god’s sake, it’s our job, but we have a couple years of him left to go. The police can be brutal, but when you start flipping cars, they need to be. And if you’re going to throw rocks, metal rods, and try to crash a metro car, then guess what? The police aren’t the enemy. You are. I don’t know what you’ve become, but I don’t like it. To be honest, I’m scared of you, Montreal. You’ve become a violent caricature
This is our purrty city.
of the city I knew. I don’t want to drive down the Ville-Marie waiting for rocks to go through my wind-shield. I don’t want to spend half of my work-shift cleaning red paint. I don’t want to walk out into the street and worry about batons and blood on my way home anymore. Where’s the place I fell in love with? Where is the random music on the street,
I am Français. MJ CROMP STAFF WRITER
I turn red. I feel hot and cold. I have the impression that everybody's targeting me with their eyes. It's like I'm in front of a crowd of 2,000,000 people. I get nervous. Maybe you felt that horrible feeling once in your life, but you must've experience it in a totally different situation than mine. This is how I feel when I have to... speak in English. Being labelled as the Francophone girl is like a slap in your face. It's also pretty insulting when in the middle of an oral presentation, the teacher cuts you and asks you if you would like to do the rest of it “en français”. *slaaaaap*. My high-school English teachers didn't do a great job. "Where is Brian? Brian is in
Bilinguilism. Yay!
the kitchen". WHEN WILL I USE THIS IN LIFE?! Yes, that's the basics, but don't push it. Four or five years of this crap is too much. English teacher doesn't make their students practice their speaking enough. It's always grammar, grammar, grammar. That’s why I have a hard time speaking in English publicly. If I had a choice of deciding to learn English, than French when I was younger, I might have taking the opportunity. But, unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. This annoying accent of mine will stick with me for the rest of my life. It seems I'm always on the wrong team, and I have to tell the 90 per cent of you, it sucks. The other thing is that I’m having an identity crisis: I’m not the same person in the “English world”. If you know me as a French speaker, you must know that I have things to say and I talk ALL the time. But if you know me as an English speaker, I'm as silent as the monk in the wheelchair in
photo credit: speakfrench.ericback.com/
The Hangover: Part II. If I want to say something in English, it has to be worth it, because otherwise, I don't talk. Ever since I'm in Dawson, I'm a GREAAAAT listener and unfortunately, it affects my participation grades in most of my classes. Maybe I’ve been complaining a lot here. I aware I’m in an Anglophone cegep. I know what I signed up for. Every Francophone in this school have their own reason to be here. Mine is that writing in English comes easily to me than in French. There are so many grammar rules to learn that still today I don’t speak always correctly in my maternal language. From my point of view, speaking English is easier, and that’s why I want to improve it. Since Wolfe won his battle against Montcalm, the French language has been in danger of disappearing. I see this danger coming closer and closer. In their March issue, L’actualité magazine released an article about the future of the French language in Montreal. Apparently, the survey proves that the Francophones’ battle to save their language is essentially lost. That being said, this whole "Vive le Québec libre" and the loi 101, I don't believe in it. Francophones have to speak English, even if they have to learn the basics. We will not survive without knowing it. Being served in stores will be complicated, and finding a job will get harder and harder if you don’t speak both English and French. We live, after all, in a non-official bilingual city, which I still don’t get, because wherever I go, I hear people speaking English. Why is Montreal’s official language still French?
photo credit: germainmontreal.com
or the lazy Sundays on Mount Royal? I miss being able to walk to the Palais de Congres, if only to play hop-scotch in the shadows of the coloured window panes. Now, I find only broken glass, red paint and battle cries. We can fix this. I’m fine with you standing your ground, but now you’ve lost the ground to stand on. I can’t, in good con-
science, say that any of this is right. I don’t even know what you’re fighting for anymore. So, let’s take a break, Montreal. See other cities for a couple of weeks. I’ll pop back in in the summer. Maybe some sunny weather and a Sunday on Mount-Royal will cool your head. If not, well … I hear Vancouver is nice.
Musings Throwable Things
Cheeses
Gouda Bricks Feta Smoke Bombs Swiss
Cheese
Parmesan
Human Children
American
Inhuman Children
Emental Parties Monterrey Jack
Folk Music
Kraft Dinner Balls Brie Hats Blue Semi Colons Gorgonzola Morgan Freeman
the plant maricar and steph’s dogs are twins the plant except theyre black and white respectively the plant michael jackson would be proud.....? the plant