At precisely what point did we pass through the looking glass? Was it when responsible people began blaming the government for “provoking” violence instead of student leaders for enabling it?

Or when respectable citizens started clamouring for a democratically elected government to buy “social peace” – or, more likely, rent it for a while – from a mob of masked anarchists?

Or was it when Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesman for the hard-line CLASSE – and, apparently, for the entire student movement – declared on Wednesday: “I don’t have the power to appeal for calm”?

Really? On Sunday, before the Earth Day march in Montreal, student leaders called for peaceful protest against the Charest government. By remarkable coincidence, peace spontaneously broke out.

For all the loose talk of an Arab-style “Quebec spring,” it’s not as if violent demonstrations, intimidation of other students, vandalism and sabotage are the only means to oppose the fee increases announced by the government.

There are also democratic means. The students have a voice in the National Assembly through the official-opposition Parti Québécois, which has practically become CLASSE’s parliamentary arm, and Québec solidaire.

On the PQ’s home page, the red-square symbol of the student protests now appears to be part of the party logo.

The Charest government faces an election within the next year and a half, and the PQ has promised to cancel the fee increases.

The students on “strike” since mid-February threaten increasingly to sacrifice their semester and create a backlog of repeating students that would throw the affected colleges and universities into chaos.

Student leaders claim they cannot prevent the violence and vandalism during their frequent street protests that have resulted in a loss of public support for their position on the fee increases.

Yet, with all the other – legal, democratic and non-violent – means of expression at the students’ disposal, the protests continue, along with rush-hour disruptions of traffic and public transit targeting the working class whose access to post-secondary education the students claim to be defending.

Why? The most plausible explanation is that as dangerous, destructive and disruptive as these tactics are, the student leaders find them useful.

As the end of the academic year approaches, and the minority of students who are on “strike” hold out and continue their protests, it is the government that has given ground.

It has announced one concession after another in the vain hope that one of them would prove to be a face-saving pretext for the “strikers” to return to class to salvage their semesters.

The popularity of the Liberals’ stand against the students has not transferred to the Liberals themselves. Call it a “Charest discount.” It’s as if voters say to themselves: “Yeah, Charest is right. But he’s still Jean Charest.”

After the violent protest outside the Salon du Plan Nord at the Palais des congrès last week, prominent citizens began to put public pressure on the government to “negotiate” or appoint a mediator in order to restore “social peace.” But to discuss what, and with whom?

The students have refused to make a single concession of their own. The other associations are in “solidarity” with – in effect, led by – the radical CLASSE. And not only does CLASSE have a fuzzy position on violence, but it won’t accept anything less than the abolition of tuition fees entirely.

On Wednesday, Le Devoir reported that CLASSE’s representatives said they had no mandate to negotiate with the government, only to “demand.”

The Charest government might not be much of a government, but contrary to what François Legault said last week, it is still the legitimate, democratically elected government of Quebec.

Any “social peace” it would buy from the students would not be permanent, because every other interest group opposed to future austerity measures would see that not only the present government but the society it represents can be intimidated.

As long as the students continue their violence and disorder, the choice facing Quebec is not between the Charest government’s fee increases and “social peace.”

It’s between democracy and mob rule.

dmacpherson@montrealgazette.com

Twitter:@MacphersonGaz