A strange year and a strange end to the year. This is my last column before 2023. It is made up of mismatched ankle boots, but I think it forms a quilt whose seasonal patterns respond to each other.
We are emerging from two weeks of parties office and we rush into family reunions and dinners with friends. The holiday season is a suspended time. We are approaching a festive time of which we will have been deprived for two years, but not all in the same state. There will be many of us, the masses of us feeling unbalanced, torn between the joy of coming together, of being back in the world, but at the same time one step behind, admitting that we are lukewarm. Not afraid of COVID-19, no. Just slowed down in our relationship with others, feeling out of step with parties, melancholic, circumspect. The 24/7 festival of jovialism is not mandatory, it bears repeating.
Speaking party, did I miss the turbulent social debate on zero tolerance for alcohol? Have you seen those SAAQ ads featuring a massive, taciturn leprechaun demanding the car keys from any guest who has sniffed the slightest hint of alcohol? Was the .08 drink-driving threshold changed suddenly? I certainly do not promote drunk driving, but what is this sudden infantilization of all Quebecers? “Did you drink? You drank! », it is a bit short as an argument in what deserves a real discussion, or downright a social debate.
The sullen elf does not distract in this year 2022 which was acrimonious.
The tone has risen, and with it the mistrust of each other, of everyone against the “elites”. The occupation of Ottawa by freedom truckers in February was a concentrate of the era: defiance, legitimate protest hijacked by outside forces linked to Trumpists, fed up with the “system”. The image of the trucker, this modern-day adventurer, has turned into a herald of the extreme right which dissociates itself from its society. The event leaves a scar in the social fabric.
It was also the year that Twitter as we knew it died for good. It started with American libertarians, then cohort trolls, then Elon Musk. Twitter was once a public place that transcended divisions. He got stinky. Now, social networks set the tone: aggression and insults have become commonplace in relationships with each other.
We end 2022 with COP27 in Egypt and COP15 in Montreal, between the agonizing climatic disasters that follow one another. Bruised environment, bloodless biodiversity, disrupted climate. Eco-anxiety is tangible and does not only attack teenagers: talk about it to the Madelinots, to the residents of Bas-du-Fleuve. We all see that the noose is tightening.
Something in our consciences has shifted this year. Our world is under threat. It remains to be seen what we will do, individually and collectively, with this new feeling and this already familiar reality.
The all-in-one car, crazy speed, motorists clinging to their steering wheels and their privileges are also contested. SUVs are increasingly singled out. The very recent death of little Maria, killed in a hit and run while she was walking to school, marked the spirits, more than months of virtuous speeches. We will move towards greater accessibility of the physical (and political) transformations of our neighborhoods, towns and villages, in order to make them more livable.
Times are uncertain. Ideas are jostled. Many feel destabilized. You have to find your own reasons for hope. Catch her joy where she lurks. In the warmth of friendship, of loved ones, in the generosity of strangers who smile at us, in the preparations for the Holidays, in a Christmas film dripping with good feelings, but which makes the jobin the gesture of going to see a Christmas concert, let’s say that of the formidable choir of There are people at mass…
I leave you with this song created by Frank Sinatra in 1954, the B side of White Christmas. It is called The Christmas Waltz, and it’s beautifully covered by Laufey, a 23-year-old Chinese-Icelandic jazz singer. It cradles the soul. We all desperately need it. Happy Holidays.