The character of Véronique rightly underlines it: the most important legacy of this mobilization that has been called Maple Spring is measured more in the political awakening of an entire generation than in the gains that the student strike will have allowed. It is this awakening of which Antonin Marquis traces the portrait in The variety of tactics.
Posted at 7:30 a.m.
A master’s student in sociology at UQAM, PA had no idea what a strike actually represented when hundreds of thousands of his colleagues decided to contest the increase in tuition fees announced by the government of Jean Charest, by deserting the classroom. Little passionate about writing his dissertation, he quickly finds meaning in his daily life by pounding the pavement.
His euphoric apprenticeship in the struggle thus becomes the pretext for several chapters reconstituting the major moments of this walkout: the monster demonstration of March 22 in the streets of Montreal, the clashes between students and police officers on the sidelines of the Salon Plan Nord and the muscular interventions of riot control during the General Council of the Quebec Liberal Party in Victoriaville (during which two strikers lost the sight of one eye).
Antonin Marquis, who himself wore the red square in 2012, picks up where he left off in 2017 with his first novel, Cicadas, in which two longtime friends, as they enter adulthood, watch the gap grow between their worldviews. Beyond its precious documentary value, The variety of tactics therefore reflects on what it means to get involved, on the means it is justified to employ in order to curb the bulldozer of capitalism and on the singular adrenaline that militancy generates.
Realistically crafted, this chronicle of a historical social movement is full of (sometimes superfluous) descriptions, but quickly gives life to complex characters, who transcend the points of view they embody and who all manage to generate a form of support , whether or not you agree with what they stand for. Although it bears witness to a specific era, The variety of tactics asks eternal and inexhaustible questions to whom the status quo seems intolerable.
The variety of tactics
Antonin Marquis
X Y Z
352 pages