But what about the children ?

I feel like we've been on the precipice for years now. Years of sitting on the floor discussing and debating, asking "but when?", "what will it take?". The spectre of fascism looms as the world melts and burns and floods, our children hand-cuffed and mutilated on the streets of Europe, the US, Gaza…

The student (read, children) protests in France this last week incite competing fear and hope within me. I don't know whether I should be terrified for what will come or excited by the possibility of finally reaching the tipping point. The barricades in the streets, gas and smoke electric in the air, these kids have nothing to lose and you can see it in their eyes, face to face with riot police twice their age, armed with nothing but their rage and their youth. And all they ask for is a future, en education, the right to live and breathe the values of this so called republic. "Too young to be listened too, old enough to be gassed." This level of state violence leveraged against children is unprecedented in France, even May '68 wasn't met with this level of repression and brutality.

What will it take? How many children must be maimed and blinded and disabled? Thousands of minors arrested, children having seizures after being tased, losing teeth, heads smashed against the pavement, hands blown off by grenades, sexually assaulted by police. In what world is this acceptable?

Meanwhile the parents, grandparents, professors, old-school militants, union members, train workers, nurses, doctors, and politicians are forming human chains on the front lines- they themselves gassed and attacked and beaten for having the audacity to protect the children. Doctors and medics make instructional videos teaching children how to protect themselves from teargas, how to treat wounds- a guide for battle. Lawyers make flyers desperate to teach these 14 year olds how to manage situations they are supposed to be protected from, according to national and international law. And you know what ? These kids are dangerous. They threaten the very bedrock of these systems because they know that their fight is not fought alone, their struggle is the struggle of the people, of the workers, of the immigrants, of the global underclass. And that gives me hope.