We see the images coming from Europe, and we can’t help but feel a certain envy from Quebec and the rest of Canada. In almost every European city, the demonstrations are massive: thousands of people in the streets, and among them, members of parliament from various progressive groups marching alongside the people, shouting Enough! Palestine has achieved something exceptional — it has united institutional politics with the street. Political parties themselves have become engines of mobilization, calling on their supporters to protest against the genocide and turning this cause into a moral banner of their identity.

And in Quebec? And in Canada? Here, most of those who have filled the streets over the past two years have done so without institutional support. Sometimes ignored, sometimes vilified, and almost always viewed with suspicion. The diversity that defines these mobilizations — women wearing hijabs, entire families, young people with Palestinian keffiyehs demanding justice — seems, paradoxically, to be one of the reasons behind their abandonment. Part of the political class has preferred to look away, out of calculation or cowardice, afraid to unsettle an electorate shaped by fear and misinformation.

Both the NDP and Québec Solidaire — the two parties with institutional representation that, in theory, should have carried and amplified this popular outcry — have acted late, timidly, or not at all. That vacuum has been exploited by reactionary forces, which have intensified their xenophobic and Islamophobic agenda, expanding their cultural war toward openly Trumpist positions.

It is no coincidence that when, from Quebec or Canada, we look for elected representatives leading demonstrations or acts of solidarity with Palestine, we must turn our eyes to Europe: to the Palestinian Rima Hassan of La France Insoumise; to Ione Belarra and Irene Montero of Podemos; to Benedetta Scuderi of Italy’s Social Democratic Party; and to so many other political figures who, without hesitation, have stood at the forefront.

It seems that in Europe, the magnitude of what is happening in Gaza has been understood — not only because of the ongoing genocide, but because of the way that genocide is shaping the future of our societies in the short and medium term. And some have chosen to act, building a radical resistance against the world that the powerful are trying to design.

From the bike lane to the breaking of the board: Palestine has become the cause of humanity. That is how millions of young people around the world perceive it — young people who, through their activism, risk their lives and careers to pressure their governments to take a stand.

Meanwhile, the most committed people are gathering and organizing in activist communities — increasingly distant from political parties that no longer represent them, in Quebec as in Canada — while we witness the triviality with which elected representatives live their lives: distributing prefabricated speeches, rehearsed by advisors who say nothing and inspire nothing.

All this while, here at home, Palestinian refugees are denied access to healthcare; people are persecuted for their faith; family reunification visas for Palestinians from Gaza living in our territory are suspended; and laws are promoted that restrict fundamental freedoms.

In times like these, it is worth remembering — as Peter Weiss warned in The Aesthetics of Resistance — that only by distinguishing between the trivial and the transformative can we preserve the dignity of looking at the world without lowering our heads.