Quebec, Ink – The right word, or the right’s word?

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” — Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass.

A strike (“temporary stoppage of activities in protest against an act or condition”) is a refusal to participate in normal activity as a way to seek redress for a grievance. To boycott, on the other hand, is “to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (as a person, store, or organization) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions.”

Boycotts rarely begin by purchasing the product then refusing to use it.

One definition for patronistic is when someone tells you that you can’t use an expression coined close to eight centuries ago. Quebec Premier Jean Charest and several complicit news media have decided that “strike” is an inappropriate term to describe the student actions that have rocked Quebec for six months now.

The first ever student strike was at the Université de Paris in 1229. It lasted nearly two years and required papal intervention to resolve it. (Too bad Charest wasn’t there at the time to tell the French how to speak French. Or the Pope how to pray.)

Subsequent landmark student strikes included Paris in 1968 and the post-Kent State strike in 1970 that involved four million students at 450 universities, colleges and high schools across the United States.

Current attempts to rebrand student protests as boycotts — as the work of individuals rather than organized collectives — is a ploy to diminish the importance of the actions. Banning the word strike in favour of boycott (as opposed to, say, walkout), as many media have been doing, is ideological and inappropriate for organizations that purport to present news in a fair and balanced manner. It’s a semantic charade played by Charest to denigrate striking students, a game quickly settled with a visit to any decent dictionary.

Oxford, for example. I hear they know a thing or two about English: (an organized refusal to do something expected or required […];  a rent strike).

Media that reject the legitimacy of the term student strike and which substitute the term boycott are partners in the Charest charade.

How would you describe those media? Is quisling the right adjective? Too strong? Maybe acquiescent. Send me your suggestions.

Peter Wheeland is a Montreal journalist and stand-up comic. His satirical observations about the city and province appear at least once a week in this space. Follow the Quebec, Ink blog on Twitter at @quebecink

 

Photo by Tracey Lindeman

For further consideration:

• Actualité columnist Josée Legault on grève vs. boycott (in French)
• Concordia Link news editor Corey Pool on media bias and the strike