The relatively failed attempt to recover the Cowboys Fringants by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) shocked me. An electoralist government, with populist temptations, which tries to ride a wave of sympathy for the death of a singer, the thing seemed predictable to me, of course. Promise of a state funeral, song pushed by a minister during a press conference… Nothing edifying here, only crass opportunism. I still came to wonder: but what is the CAQ trying to get so close to the Cowboys Fringants, apart from wanting to show that the party shares the same grief with the population?
Have the Caquists forgotten that the Cowboys piss off “all the buffoons who govern us”? There must be something more than just bandwagoning, some symbolic gain to be made somewhere, a deep lack that can only be filled by rubbing shoulders with the Repentigny group. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so shocked.
The answer came to me from afar. Looking at Kaamelott by Alexandre Astier, I came across this magnificent scene from book six. The young Arturus, not yet King Arthur, living in Rome, finds himself before Caesar and questions him to find out what makes a good leader. He explains to him: “Do you know what their secret power is? They only fight for the dignity of the weak. »
The Cowboys Fringants are not leaders, but they have always fought for this dignity of the weak, that of “ordinary” people who experience problems, even poverty, and they have always given them the beautiful role in their songs, that of of dignity. Everything that could be snubbed, ignored, from the 1980s rocker to the abused child, from the queen of Hand to Marcel Galarneau, even the loser has the right to this dignity.
This is what the CAQ is trying to do at the moment by joining forces with the Cowboys Fringants. While this government has given billions to multinationals to manufacture batteries, millions to billionaires so that their millionaire employees can come and play hockey with us, at a time when it is cutting aid programs for the homeless. , at a time when state employees are on strike to obtain salary adjustments repeatedly postponed indefinitely and more dignified working conditions, this government, therefore, feels the urgent need to act as if it could also fight for the dignity of the weak.
Having failed to do so since the start of his mandate, he is trying to do it now by association. The air of saying, like a character from Banquet (175d) of Plato, changing one word: “What happiness would it be if [la dignité] was a thing in such a way that, from what is fuller, it could flow into what is emptier, provided that we were in contact with each other; like when the strand of wool passes the water from the fuller cup into the emptier one! »
A sad spectacle, that one. We can dream of a minister who sings the refrain ofAt half-mast : it would at least have the merit of resembling an episode of Kaamelott.