Thursdays are my least favorite days this semester. I have back to back classes from 8am to 3pm, and then tutoring in the evening. I usually don’t get home until 6:30. So when I trudged up to the front of my school today, I was prepared for a long day. I saw the crowd of students standing out front, and I didn’t think anything of it until I heard the fireworks go off.
The chanting began immediately after that. I drew closer and saw that nobody was entering the front door. In fact, it was barricaded with fencing taken from a nearby construction site. Then I saw the placards. “May 1968 begins again,” “Revolution now,” “students against retirement reform,” and so on. The students had organized their own manifestation.
As I stood there, puzzling out what to do, a knot of some of my favorite kids rushed up to me, all smiles. Miss Allison, you came to our revolution! We will win the day! What do you think? You don’t have this in America, we know!
They explained that the leader of the student protesters was currently negotiating with the principal, and that an announcement would be made soon. They pointed to where the talks were happening, right on the front steps. I saw my absolute best student, a short girl with bright red hair, standing on a step above the principal in order to be eye level. She was in charge.
I found my fellow teachers in the crowd and tried to gauge their opinions. Their were all energized, not at all angry, not confused, just talking about plans to reschedule the morning’s lessons. They greeted me with smiles. Welcome to the real France, one of them said to me.
I kept getting mobbed by my kids coming up to ask what I thought of their signs, their chants, their little revolution. I asked them why they cared so much about retirement reform, a prospect so far in their futures. This question puzzled them. Their response was, it is our future.
They told me that the protest was staged to coordinate with the national protest scheduled for today. The main march will go on the boulevard right in front of the school, so the students planned to finish their protest and join the big one right when it came upon them. The principal stepped forward and announced that school would be cancelled for the day. The students went wild for this — it meant that they were free to join the adults in the big march. They started chanting we have won, we win now, we will win. They sang the Marseillaise.
I walked home. It was 8:45am.
I’ve been listening to this new Hozier joint, “Eat Your Young.” Skinning the children for the war drum / putting food on the table selling bombs and guns / it’s quicker and easier to eat your young. The children of France refuse to be eaten.
And here, I think, is another fundamental difference between America and France. The French look out on the devastation of the world, and instead of pining for a return to some imagined comforting past, instead of sinking deeper into individualism and resignation, they understand that a better world is possible. They look to a future and fight together to build it. We do not. We do not.
If you disagree, I would ask you to take another look, and I also kindly ask you to consider where I’m standing. As an American, as an immigrant, as a student, as a teacher, and as an aunt to a little girl who has to bring a bulletproof backpack to school.
I didn’t write anything when Covenant happened. It was simply too raw. I personally know people affected. My best friend called me in a panic, at a loss of what to do, because his neighborhood church had been shot up and his friend had lost his mom. What could I say?
When I did my teacher preparation during my Master’s, one of my professors announced to my cohort — about thirty girls, all doing language arts of some kind — that if we didn’t think we could put ourselves between a gunman and our students, we needed to get up and leave now. I was twenty-two, as were most of us. We were being asked, not unreasonably or without precedent, if we were ready to give up our lives to teach.
Understand this, dear reader: I am incandescent with rage. The anger is a cannonball that sits in the center of my chest and always threatens to explode. Our politicians do nothing or take action to make it worse. We as a nation feed our kids to this grinder. Our very own American Moloch.
I see what the French are capable of, and I have visions of a better world for us in the States. We aren’t so different. What will it take for us to have our revolution? How many little corpses can we stand to pile?
Yours,
Allison
P.S.: Next time, a return to your regularly scheduled upbeat posting. Happy Easter.
Flan in France 