Journalist Jean-François Nadeau publishes these days Bad weather, a collection of his chronicles of recent years with a meaningful title. The trained historian often has the impression of running out of time when he writes his texts for The duty, and that is why he took the liberty of improving them for this book. “Giving time” is a luxury, however, which depends on where you are on the social scale.
Time is precious for the ultra-rich, but binding for the less well-off, explains the one who had not published a book since 2016. Just think of the big bosses who exhibit Swiss watches as luxurious as they are useless. on their wrist. The same people who, for years, gave modest watches to their workers as a retirement gift, as if to continue to control their schedules well into their old age.
A strong symbol that serves as a premise for Jean-François Nadeau to introduce the dichotomy that runs through almost each of the chronicles: that between the rich and the poor, between the thieves and the victims. “It’s not Manichean to think like that,” he insists vigorously. “Money does not fall from the sky. There is a form of accumulation by the wealthiest and we know statistically that it has gotten worse in recent years. It’s statistically proven that the trickle-down theory doesn’t work, that the money of the rich doesn’t end up benefiting the poorest,” continues the columnist, who is probably not tempted by the greed.
Decolonize Minds
Jean-François Nadeau, who hates capitalism, never wanted to be one of those millionaires who strut about in a yacht off the Côte d’Azur or the Cayman Islands. No question of being part of this 1% of the richest on the planet who alone monopolize half of the resources, according to Oxfam data.
Faced with such injustice, why don’t the remaining 99% do all they can to overthrow the order of the world? No doubt they are not inhabited by the same voluntary simplicity as the star journalist of the To have to. Many, unlike him, still dream of joining the select club of great fortunes.
“It’s normal to want that. They try to make us believe everywhere that everyone can be a millionaire. While that’s not true. It’s not true that everyone can be a millionaire, just as it’s not true that everyone can be president of the United States,” points out Jean-François Nadeau, who probably stopped believing in the American dream in same time as Santa Claus. “Me, I come from the countryside, I am a few generations from the plow. I understand people wanting to improve their lot. But the question is: how to do that? Unfortunately, what we are taught is that it is not by becoming better that we change our condition, but by appropriating the wealth of others. »
In his reworked chronicles, Jean-François Nadeau is vitriolic about the insolence of the wealthy. Those who are too miserly to raise the minimum wage for their employees, to pay their taxes to the country. Those who turn a deaf ear to the threat posed by climate change.
Among his scapegoats: businessman and reality TV star François Lambert, who had the nerve to complain about the inaction of the police following the theft of its sumptuous watches in 2018. All, to add insult to injury, on the front page of a tabloid whose average readership earns less annually than the price of a Rolex.
“Depending on the place we grant ourselves in society, time is lived very differently. That police officers do not see in stolen watches a matter worthy of being treated as an absolute priority will be something shocking for all the François Lamberts of the earth; it refers to a world whose ordinary slowness is unbearable to them as it calls into question the very idea they have of their superiority, in the midst of common life”, writes Jean-François Nadeau in one of the many flights contained in Bad weather against the excesses of a mercantile system devoid of moods.
In defense of the little people
The chronicler is much more tender towards small hands. Those whose time is stolen. His street vendor who is retiring after years of grueling work. But also the destitute condemned for peccadilloes at the Municipal Court.
On reading Bad weather, no one can doubt his sincerity when he pays tribute to these worthless people. But what does he, one of the most publicized historians of Quebec, know about this underclass too poor to be part of the yet very inclusive “middle class”?
“As a journalist, I try to report on reality, and it’s not by remaining in one’s self that we can achieve this. The truth is that there are still a very worrying number of poor people in Quebec. More than a million people live below the poverty line. It’s not true that there is just a so-called middle class and the rich,” argues Jean-François Nadeau.
Whether we agree with him or not, the journalist makes it his duty to popularize historical events, even if it means putting them into perspective with the torments of our time. As if to remind us that not everything is immutable. That it is possible to put an end to this “bad weather”.