On 6 December 1989, at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, fourteen young women were shot to death in the classrooms and halls of their school and thirteen others (including four men) were wounded by a gunman on a rampage who left a suicide note blaming "feminists" for ruining his life.
The massacre began when Marc Lepine, carrying a .223-calibre (5.56mm NATO cartridge) semi-automatic rifle, entered a class of sixty students, ordered the men to leave, and then opened fire on the trapped women. For forty-five minutes Lepine roamed three floors of the school, shooting as he went and reportedly shouting "I want women." Finally, he turned the rifle on himself.
In 1991 the government of Canada established this day as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women.
The anondyne descriptions of this remembrance day for women on the SWC and Wiki sites, however, belie the contention and outright hostility that this memorial has always aroused. From the beginning, many have denied that Lepine's rampage had much to do with women at all, and every year there emerge from the woodwork individuals who seem truly enraged at the thought.
This year, Canada's New Government™ will mark this day by reopening the debate on equal marriage, a cynical exercise of the Harperites in pandering to their so-con base while thumbing their noses at all other Canadian citizens, since the government know that the motion will fail.
That unutterably tone-deaf move on this day has deeper significance, I think.
To the Harper government and their most passionate supporters, democracy is a referendum, a way of reasserting norms and triumphing over those who don't or can't or won't fit those norms. We might call those misfits "special interests" -- well, I won't, but they do.
No matter that the norms many people long so desperately to believe in are illusions or even delusions in the real lives of the vast majority of citizens. And no matter that democracy is much more than just voting, depends on the careful building and eternally vigilant defence of a set of basic, irreducible structures and principles embodied in every bill of rights and declaration and charter born of our best meditations on human history.
Today, as objects of the disrespect of Stephen Harper's government, of that government's disrespect for the equality of all human beings, uppity women stand in solidarity with gays and lesbians, who once again find that a lot of boring men in boring suits believe they have the right to pick and pontificate over the basic humanity of certain other "special" human beings.
Everyone always remembers the names of the killers. On this day, lest we forget:
* Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
* Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
* Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
* Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
* Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
* Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
* Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
* Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
* Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
* Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.
Fourteen candles. Fourteen roses.
Well said.
Stephen Harper has spoken to the day.
Read it, and weep.
As quickly as he can, he diverts attention from the focus of the day, violence against women, to his own government's agenda, aka lawnorder.
And I would appreciate it if anyone could explain to me what he means by the "elemental" characteristics of Canadian society.
Do you think Harper arranged it that way (disgusting) or was he just oblivious (disgusting)?
Mostly, thwap, I think they were oblivious, tone-deaf, as I said, although someone obviously put them on alert in time for Harper's minions to write the disgusting (and in places impenetrable) statement that he delivered today.
It is very hard not to give up, thwap. Things are not looking good.
>To the Harper government and their most passionate supporters, democracy is a referendum
That's a huge axe you're grinding there, and it's ironic to read an objection that "democracy is a referendum" considering how frequently one hears exactly that from the parts of the political spectrum not occupied by Harper and his supporters.
Gee, IrC, I wish I could follow that comment.
In opposing the fallacy that democracy is a referendum, I am just following the great thinkers of the European Enlightenment, all of whom believed that voting was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for democracy. Forgive me, but I don't see where I have been grinding any personal axes in restating the classical position.
I don't quite know how to read the second part of your sentence. I mean, I certainly am somewhere on the political spectrum "not occupied by Harper and his supporters," but for that very reason, I don't see how it is ironic that I should be a straightforward voice of opposition.
Could you try logic next time? Ta very much.
I just dont't think they remembered what day it was. That's why the "Remeberance and action inspire each other" comment in the PM's little phlem-ball was so damn ironic.
>I am just following the great thinkers of the European Enlightenment
I doubt it. When the majority supports your view, it's "the people have spoken". When the majority does not, it's "we can't have tyranny of the majority". As for the equality of all human beings, it's unlikely that thought has ever crossed your mind in a meaningful sense. You're happiest when you're reallocating and assigning rations of "equality".
Doubt all you like, IrC. I spent a lot of years reading the C17 and the C18, and I feel pretty secure in my understanding of where the basic principles and structures of democracy come from in our tradition.
I'm not a great fan of credentialism, however, and I am no egotist. Your last post seems to me devoid of content, except for the palpable scorn of everyone who is not you.
I have no idea how to respond to that, except to say that I have no idea how to respond to it. You must be a very unhappy person.
I think to be unhappy one must have unmet expectations. I meet many unhappy socons and socialists who are that way because they desire to set living conditions for others. If you want to see unhappiness, tell a socon he'll have to live with SSM or a democratic socialist he'll have to live with less redistributionism.
Once one has become sufficiently libertarian in outlook (socially, politically, fiscally) _and_ managed to shed materialistic envy, it's pretty hard to be unhappy.
Once one has become sufficiently libertarian in outlook (socially, politically, fiscally) _and_ managed to shed materialistic envy, it's pretty hard to be unhappy.
Ah, youth.
IrC, you are writing to a woman recently widowed. Trust me: no politics will protect you from that devastation. None.
Unless, of course, you just happen to be a hard-hearted bastard, and I have met a few of those.