Five years ago, the #metoo movement caused real chaos.
Only in Quebec, hundreds of public figures, but also of very ordinary people, saw their names being registered on lists of pariahs. Very often, the names of the “culprits” were coldly associated with degrees of dangerousness as well as rambling stories without the whistleblowers even coming forward in due form.
Within hours, anonymity had become the norm. It would very soon be confused with courage.
Then chaos gave way to dread.
The People’s Court has replaced the law and men – essentially – have lost their jobs, their reputations and their entourage after being labeled as rapists, predators and monsters, without even having been able to defend themselves in front of a true justice system.
The logic of “We believe you” was thus established like a benevolent hymn.
Despite millions of years of evolution, it had become impossible to recall the importance of the presumption of innocence without appearing to be insensitive or worse, an accomplice.
The principle of the presumption of innocence had however proven itself in the past. But precisely, the law and the order constituted the residues of this past and the movement #metoo looked forward.
He was a revolution.
It took five years before Quebec journalists dared to criticize the #metoo movement and decided to dive into the rubble. This week, the remarkable work of two of them shed light on the case of Julien Lacroix.
Militant ideology
While many fell off their chairs, others couldn’t help but see that their intuition was correct: the #metoo movement stems from a militant ideology.
Indeed, how can one deny it when, among the nine whistleblowers in the newspaper’s file The duty published in July 2020, some say today: “I was trying to tell myself: I am a victim. I have to hold my victim’s end”, or else: “There was a pressure not to be silent. “Or” you had to position yourself. To say nothing about that was frowned upon.
To strive to be someone that one is not and to force oneself, under a now admitted pressure, to express an alternative vision of reality, these are the echoes of a period that one believed to be over.
Since the publication of the article by The Press, this militant ideology does not let go. We even read this week that the expression of a semblance of justice in the story of Julien Lacroix was in fact a backlash anti-feminist and that the sorry whistleblowers were now going through the phase of ambivalence and feeling guilty about their abuser.
In other words, these girls would no longer be able to measure what happened to them now that their version challenges the narrative given by the #metoo movement. One cannot fail to notice here the astonishing paternalism of these ideologues who nevertheless like to present themselves as ardent defenders of free speech.
The testimonies of some of the whistleblowers also show that the #metoo movement is based more on an instinct for revenge than on the spirit of justice.
This idea that “we need examples” to legitimize the #metoo movement does not belong to justice. After all, since these examples must strike the imagination, they do not necessarily have to be true. The important thing for these activists is that heads roll for the cause and, in the end, “it fell on him” (Julien Lacroix).
The story is clear: militant ideologies have a soft spot for scapegoats and don’t care about the truth. Despite the lessons of the past, we now know that they can still be expressed in the contemporary era and that, if at the end of a keyboard and anger there are lives – real ones -, that does not will never prevent the ideologues from sacrificing one.