Mr. Trudeau,
For three months I have hesitated to throw this bottle into the oceanic immensity of media of all kinds. I am terrified by the consequences of this decision, as much by the possibility that my letter will arrive safely as by the possibility that it will be lost in the infinity of cacophonous undulations populating the speeches of this crazy world.
Honestly, I didn’t think I would find the strength to stand up and speak out loud after everything I’ve had to go through in recent years, as an activist and as an imperfect and paradoxical human. Yet here I am all the same, standing on my desert island, in a last attempt to carry my voice to the shore, while I write these few lines in total disbelief.
My one and only signature
With trembling hands, I put my one and only signature, because I will not hide behind that of 200 public figures. Did I never need this adulation, or did I learn to grow up without it? What does it matter! I will continue to rewind the breadcrumbs of my introspection as I write these lines; it is constant and tedious work.
Since I have been following you on social networks, for about a year, I have seen you hold on and stay the course despite a storm of uncertainty and sometimes cruel hatred towards you. If I admit that I myself felt overwhelmed by intense anger, during the pandemic, I feel that the time has come for great introspection. Where does this anger come from? Is it justified? To whom or what does she turn?
I decided to shut up, listen and read through my emotional and social preconceptions to try to understand the reasons behind this anger. I also wanted to understand the incomprehension into which this divergence plunges me between the man I see you to be and the decisions you make which immediately plunge me back into the agitated waves of my own dismay.
Enantiosema per se
Why is Justin Trudeau an enantiosema in himself?
Then, in mid-March of this year, you courageously declared that you had no intention of leaving office—this job crazy that you are doing, I presume, the best you can — despite polls that would discourage anyone with common sense and despite the hateful messages, sometimes horrible, formulated towards you.
It was at this moment that I understood that this job crazy in a crazy world that you have, you are probably doing it for reasons that are beyond my knowledge and my understanding. I am not walking in your shoes, these reasons escape me, but they do not excuse all your ambiguities.
I will not address the subject of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, because my position is anti-militarist and anti-war. I also believe that you are fully aware of the issues at stake in the situation; At the moment I have neither the courage nor the energy to broach the subject. Instead, I will present here the example of the graphite mining project underway in the MRC of Papineau, in Outaouais (one mining project among many others in the region) and financed by the Pentagon. You know this region well since there is not only your family chalet there, but also the waterways on which your childhood memories were undoubtedly built, such as the Black River and its two Pontiac sisters, Coulonge and Dumoine.
has the crossroads of tortuous paths
However, on June 5, you published a photo of you and — I believe — the youngest of your two sons, accompanied by the following caption: “Canada has some of the most beautiful places in the world. But there is no guarantee that they will always be there. We must fight every day to protect and revitalize our natural environment, and we must never give up,” followed by the hashtag #WorldEnvironmentDay.
What do we have left when even the “not in my backyard” is exhausted like the bitter pulp of a lemon squeezed to excess, then thrown at the top of a pile of rejects generated by excessive exploitation without ever quench our thirst for domination and power over everything and everyone?
How can we detach ourselves so much from ourselves, from what made us?
I see your efforts, yet they speak for themselves, I see who you truly are through them. It kills me, it enrages me, it murders me, it overwhelms me, and it hits me with a sadness that I simply cannot define.
I don’t think I’m telling you anything, we are standing at the crossroads of tortuous paths, plunged into unfathomable darkness, along a complex journey that could quickly lead us to a point of no return. I accept my paradox by declaring that I do not believe I am alone in experiencing such dismay in the face of the titanic challenges that confront us all, and even more so those in whom we place our trust.
While these issues have reduced my operational faculties to almost nothing to the point where fighting for my survival in the current context becomes almost insignificant, what do I have left? What are we left with, collectively, when these efforts prove insufficient? What will we have left tomorrow if we cannot free ourselves from this darkness, from this hatred, from this anger, from this collective pain, without the refraction of our trajectory?
What will happen if we fail to stitch together the social fabric of a divided people?
I think I see it very clearly and it terrifies me.