From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
News from Zmag reporter
From Judy Rebick, a journalist for Z magazine. Picture courtesy of Reuters.
Quebec: Day One
By Judy Rebick
It\'s not easy to upstage the opening of meeting with 34 leaders including U.S. President George Bush. Despite what seemed like endless volleys of tear gas, mostly peaceful protesters came back again and again to Rene Levesque Boulevard in Quebec City to face down the police and in so doing captured the attention of world media.
The battle lasted almost two hours as police chased demonstrators off the plateau with heavy use of tear gas and demonstrators came back after recovering from the stinging pain in their eyes and throats. The most poignant moment was a sit down of about 20 people, flashing peace signs in the midst of a fog of tear gas.
Most media attention is on the perimeter breach and it was an impressive action. First a few then more climbed up the chain-link, surrounded the center of the city to protect the Summit of the Americas, and in a rocking action pushed it down. By my watch it took less than five minutes for the hated fence to come down. The amazing thing was that only about 100 people rushed through the fence. The rest held back. It was the protesters not the police who controlled the crowd. I was astounded at the discipline. There were ten or twenty people out of about 3,000 throwing stones and bottles. In the march that wound its way along 6 miles from Laval University to the perimeter, these were the Black Bloc. While the rest of the protest was noisy and colourful, they were somber, solemn, dressed all in black, several armed with sticks and stones and masked from the beginning of the march.
No doubt there will be debates about the Black Bloc tactics. The creativity of the other demonstrators were lost in the confrontation. One group calling itself the Medieval Bloc had built a 20- foot catapult and managed to maneuver it up to police lines. Then they hurled three stuffed toys into the police. One woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty walked all the way from Laval on stilts. Another group of women calling themselves \"The Dandelions\" wore T-shirts with painted slogans like \"the persistent radical blossom that will always bloom.\" A young man painted his T-shirt with the phrase, \"It\'s hard to hit a movement target.\"
Once the perimeter went down, all attention was on the intensity of the confrontation. And it was intense. This was the red/yellow march. That means there was a high chance of confrontation with the police. As demonstrators approached the perimeter, marshals announced that people wanting a green (safe) zone should turn left. No one did.
Thousands approached the perimeter. They ran when the tear gas exploded but they came back, time after time for two hours.
One of the most extraordinary developments on Friday was the formation of a Canadian Labour Movement affinity group. Affiliates of the Canadian Labour Congress formally decided to join the direct action.
Friday was the direct action day. Today Saturday is to be the mass action day. But more than 5,000 people showed up at Laval University for the march to the perimeter knowing that it would almost certainly lead to confrontation with the police.
There have been long debates about what should happen today when an estimated 40,000 people are expected to join the People\'s March of the Americas. Organizers of today\'s march have decided to march away from the perimeter they say for safety reasons. With so many people involved and the narrow streets of this beautiful old city, people could get trapped against the wall and hurt.
Others have argued that it is politically wrong to avoid the perimeter fence, which has become a hated symbol of the reduction of public space that free trade is inflicted upon us. What likely will happen is once the main march is over a group will split off and march to the wall.
Organizers of the People\'s Summit are upset about Friday\'s action. They feel it brings discredit down on the movement . But it seems to me that it is direct confrontation with the police that has drawn so many youth into the struggle against anti-democratic trade deals.
It is true that there have been many important developments in Quebec City for the movement against free trade. For the first time, civil society across the Americas has agreed on a single political statement and a common strategy (pushing for a continental referendum and referendum in every country ) to fight the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). The importance of this development cannot be overestimated. Up until a few years ago, the Latin American labor movement favoured free trade. But the impact of NAFTA on Mexico, further impoverishing the Mexican working class, has persuaded them to join the anti-free trade forces.
Organizers of the People\'s Summit feel that the violence of the direct action diverts attention from their hard won gains. But as the saying goes, this is what democracy looks like. In a real mass movement, no one can control what happens. There are always differences. The trick, it seems to me, is to debate the differences but not get diverted or divided by them.
By Judy Rebick
It\'s not easy to upstage the opening of meeting with 34 leaders including U.S. President George Bush. Despite what seemed like endless volleys of tear gas, mostly peaceful protesters came back again and again to Rene Levesque Boulevard in Quebec City to face down the police and in so doing captured the attention of world media.
The battle lasted almost two hours as police chased demonstrators off the plateau with heavy use of tear gas and demonstrators came back after recovering from the stinging pain in their eyes and throats. The most poignant moment was a sit down of about 20 people, flashing peace signs in the midst of a fog of tear gas.
Most media attention is on the perimeter breach and it was an impressive action. First a few then more climbed up the chain-link, surrounded the center of the city to protect the Summit of the Americas, and in a rocking action pushed it down. By my watch it took less than five minutes for the hated fence to come down. The amazing thing was that only about 100 people rushed through the fence. The rest held back. It was the protesters not the police who controlled the crowd. I was astounded at the discipline. There were ten or twenty people out of about 3,000 throwing stones and bottles. In the march that wound its way along 6 miles from Laval University to the perimeter, these were the Black Bloc. While the rest of the protest was noisy and colourful, they were somber, solemn, dressed all in black, several armed with sticks and stones and masked from the beginning of the march.
No doubt there will be debates about the Black Bloc tactics. The creativity of the other demonstrators were lost in the confrontation. One group calling itself the Medieval Bloc had built a 20- foot catapult and managed to maneuver it up to police lines. Then they hurled three stuffed toys into the police. One woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty walked all the way from Laval on stilts. Another group of women calling themselves \"The Dandelions\" wore T-shirts with painted slogans like \"the persistent radical blossom that will always bloom.\" A young man painted his T-shirt with the phrase, \"It\'s hard to hit a movement target.\"
Once the perimeter went down, all attention was on the intensity of the confrontation. And it was intense. This was the red/yellow march. That means there was a high chance of confrontation with the police. As demonstrators approached the perimeter, marshals announced that people wanting a green (safe) zone should turn left. No one did.
Thousands approached the perimeter. They ran when the tear gas exploded but they came back, time after time for two hours.
One of the most extraordinary developments on Friday was the formation of a Canadian Labour Movement affinity group. Affiliates of the Canadian Labour Congress formally decided to join the direct action.
Friday was the direct action day. Today Saturday is to be the mass action day. But more than 5,000 people showed up at Laval University for the march to the perimeter knowing that it would almost certainly lead to confrontation with the police.
There have been long debates about what should happen today when an estimated 40,000 people are expected to join the People\'s March of the Americas. Organizers of today\'s march have decided to march away from the perimeter they say for safety reasons. With so many people involved and the narrow streets of this beautiful old city, people could get trapped against the wall and hurt.
Others have argued that it is politically wrong to avoid the perimeter fence, which has become a hated symbol of the reduction of public space that free trade is inflicted upon us. What likely will happen is once the main march is over a group will split off and march to the wall.
Organizers of the People\'s Summit are upset about Friday\'s action. They feel it brings discredit down on the movement . But it seems to me that it is direct confrontation with the police that has drawn so many youth into the struggle against anti-democratic trade deals.
It is true that there have been many important developments in Quebec City for the movement against free trade. For the first time, civil society across the Americas has agreed on a single political statement and a common strategy (pushing for a continental referendum and referendum in every country ) to fight the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). The importance of this development cannot be overestimated. Up until a few years ago, the Latin American labor movement favoured free trade. But the impact of NAFTA on Mexico, further impoverishing the Mexican working class, has persuaded them to join the anti-free trade forces.
Organizers of the People\'s Summit feel that the violence of the direct action diverts attention from their hard won gains. But as the saying goes, this is what democracy looks like. In a real mass movement, no one can control what happens. There are always differences. The trick, it seems to me, is to debate the differences but not get diverted or divided by them.
For more information:
http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network
Well said! As a veteran of anti-MAI activism in Paris in 1998, I have watched the various actions against global fascism grow in strength and intensity around the world.
A feature of Seattle, Melbourne and Prague demonstrations was the high level of violence being meted out by the police when there was absolutely no violence or provocation apart from crowd action to block attendance. The police violence was planned and deliberate even to inserting agents into the protests to attack demonstrators.
Hundreds and hundreds of peaceful protestors have been horse charged, brutally batoned and gassed by the police on each of these protests, inflicting serious and painful injuries on people who subscribe to non-violence.
The difference this time at Quebec is that Anarchists appear to be taking the violence on themselves directly in
a buffer zone between police and marchers to protect the majority of demonstrators from the now customary police violence. The sacrificial intent is almost unbearable to contemplate, but it does make headline news.
I personally blame mainstream media for the level of police violence directed at these protestors. The media have misinformed and mislead the public deliberately by ignoring or covering up the fascist aspect of globalised corporate capitalism. Fascism is, after all, just a development of capitalism but the intention of fascism is militarisation
and enslavement.
Fascism is not Nazism. Fascism is the corporate hand financing and backing militarisation of the state.
The Italian term for fascism is 'estato corporativa',
or corporate state. It is symbolised by the 'fasces '- a bundle of sticks representing absolute authority over the state [or globe ] by an elite group bound together by economic interests.
When I protest, I am protesting the rise of US fascism exemplified by the WTO corporate-inspired multilateral and bilateral trade agreements which have inflicted
poverty and misery everwhere with their directives to transfer public wealth and essential services into the hands of the corporations. IMF SAPs have attacked worker
unions, protections and labour laws , human rights, indigenous peoples rights and permitted environmental degradations while the rights and wealth of the fascists has increased, correspondingly.
The political definitions and descriptions of fascism are clear so when the media discuss the protests in their columns, articles, and soundbytes, please refer to the movements not as anti -capitalism but as anti-fascism. The public has an absolute right to know why we are so passionately opposed to something so seemingly innocuous as a trade agreement or a global institution.
Janice
Long live the anarchist resistance!