The Québec Student Strike: From ‘Maple Spring’ to Summer Rebellion?
Posted by Andrew Gavin Marshall ⋅ April 30, 2012⋅ 42 Comments
Filed Under debt, education, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Jean Charest, Line Beauchamp, Montreal, Paul Desmarais, protest, Quebec, resistance, revolution, student movement, student protest, student strike, tuition hikes
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The Québec Student Strike: From ‘Maple Spring’ to Summer Rebellion?
Tuition Hikes, Student Strikes, Police Batons, and Teargas Bombs
By: Andrew Gavin Marshall
The following is Part 6 of the series, “Class War and the College Crisis.”
The “red square” symbol of the Québec student movement
Part 1: The “Crisis of Democracy” and the Attack on Education
Part 2: The Purpose of Education: Social Uplift or Social Control?
Part 3: Of Prophets, Power, and the Purpose of Intellectuals
Part 4: Student Strikes, Debt Domination, and Class War in Canada
Part 5: Canada’s Economic Collapse and Social Crisis
In Montréal, where I live, and across the Canadian province of Québec, there is a growing and expanding student movement which emerged as a strike in February against the provincial government’s plan to increase the cost of university tuition by $325 per year for the next five years, for a total of $1,625. The students have been seeking and demanding a halt to the tuition hike in order to keep higher education accessible, a concept that the province of Québec alone has held onto with greater strength than any other province in Canada. The government continues to dismiss and deride the students, meeting their protests with batons, teargas bombs, and mass arrests. The universities in Québec are complicit with the government in their repression of students and the struggle for basic democratic rights, bringing in private security firms to patrol and harass students in the schools. While the university administrations claim they are ‘neutral’ on the issue of tuition hikes, privately, the boards of governors are made up of bankers and business executives who lobby the government to increase tuition. After all, in April of 2007 – five years ago – Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank Group), one of Canada’s ‘big five’ banks which dominate the economy, released a “plan for prosperity” for the province of Quebec, which recommended, among other things, raising the cost of tuition: “by raising tuition fees but focusing on increased financial assistance for those in need, post secondary education (PSE) institutions will be better-positioned to prosper and provide world-class education and research.”[1]
The movement is becoming more radicalized, more activated, and is consistently met with more state repression. Almost daily, it seems, there are protests all over the city, drawing in other social organizers and activists in solidarity. The little red square patch – the symbol of the Québec student strike – is adorned across the province of Québec and the city of Montréal and on the jackets and bags of a large percentage of its residents. The city and the province, it seems, are at the forefront of a youth-driven social struggle, a growing and rumbling resistance movement. As the issues spread from tuition hikes to a more broad conception of social justice, the movement has the potential to grow both within and far beyond Québec. If the situation continues as it has until present, already the longest student strike in Québec’s history, with increased activism and accelerated state repression, it is not inconceivable to imagine a growing student-led social rebellion by the end of the summer. As the economic situation in Canada – and indeed, the world – continues to get worse for the people of the world (as opposed to the corporations and banks, who are doing very well!), the momentum behind the current student movement has the potential to spill across Québec’s borders into the rest of Canada, with some people referring to this as the beginnings of the ‘Québec Spring,’ or the ‘Maple Spring.’
Protest in Montréal
Emotions are running high in Québec, and increasingly, the government and the Canadian media are presenting the protesters as violent and destructive, and framing the debate in a misleading context, presenting the students as whining about “entitlements.” The rest of Canada is especially fed a line of intellectual excrement, repeating the same invalid and misleading arguments ad nauseum. This article seeks to present the issues of the strike, and the actions of protesters and the government into a wider context, so that other young Canadians (and youth around the world) may understand what is truly taking place, what is truly being struggled for, what the government and media are doing to stop it, the absurdity of the arguments against the students, and the need for this movement to spread beyond this province, to let this truly be the dawn of the ‘Maple Spring.’
Entitlements and Social Justice: Putting the Protests in Context
The most commonly spewed argument against the student protests – and for the tuition increases – emanating from the ‘stenographers of power’ (the media) and others, is that the students are complaining about their supposed ‘right’ to entitlements for cheap education. Québec has the cheapest university tuition in Canada (for residents of the province), and even with the tuition increases, it will still remain among the cheapest nation-wide. Thus, claims the media, there is no rational basis for the complaints and strike. The argument is, however, based upon the fallacious argument that, “the rest of Canada does it, so why not Québec?” In Québec’s history, however, the claim that “the rest of Canada does it” has never been an argument that has won the sympathy of residents of Canada’s French-speaking province. This argument, however, goes beyond a cultural difference between Québec and English-speaking Canada. The most basic problem with this line of thinking is that what is taking place in the rest of Canada is something to aspire to, that because the rest of Canada has higher tuition costs, this is not something to struggle against. When placed in context, we are left with the conclusion that the rest of Canada should be following the example of the students in Québec, not the other way around. So let’s break down the numbers.
Currently, the average yearly cost of tuition for Québec residents is $2,519. With the projected increases of $325 over five years (for a total of $1,625), the annual cost would reach roughly $4,000. The province of Ontario has the highest tuition costs in the country, which has also increased over the past four years from $5,388 to $6,640, an increase of 23% between 2008 and 2012. Québec’s proposed 75% increase over the next five years would mean that Newfoundland would have the lowest tuition in Canada, at $2,649 per year. Québec, while currently the cheapest in Canada, has already undergone a number of tuition hikes in recent years. While maintaining a tuition freeze between 1994 and 2007, while the rest of Canada had consistent hikes, Québec premier Jean Charest introduced a five-year tuition hike of $100 per year between 2007 and 2012. So the reality is that Jean Charest has undertaken and is attempting to undertake a 10-year tuition hike for a total of $2,125 in additional costs, more than doubling what tuition cost in 2007, prior to the onset of the global economic crisis.[2]
So, what does this have to do with the rest of Canada? Let’s pretend, for a moment, that the argument that “the rest of Canada does it” is a valid one. So let’s look at what the rest of Canada actually does, and therefore, if this is something which should be accepted and promoted, instead of struggled against. An article in the Kamloops Daily News pointed out that the average tuition cost in Canadian schools is $5,000, while Québec currently has roughly half that cost. Thus, stated the author, “despite all the whining and crying coming from post-secondary students in Quebec, it’s hard — really hard — to feel sorry for them.” Describing the students like children throwing a tantrum for lack of getting what they want – “kicking up a fuss” – the author contends that since we’re not in a “perfect world,” tuition has to be increased. This line of thinking is, of course, beyond ignorant. Its premise is that because we don’t live in a “perfect world,” there is no basis for trying to struggle for a “better world.” I suppose that black Americans in a liberation struggle in the 1950s, 60s and 70s should have just listened to those who claimed that, “hey, it’s not a perfect world, accept your place in it!” Or perhaps gays and lesbians should just accept that it’s “not a perfect world,” so, why bother attempting to attain rights? Or, for that matter, just tell women to get back in the kitchen. After all, it’s not a “perfect world,” so there’s really no point in trying to make it better, in trying to achieve even small victories along the way. With this absurd argument out of the way, it is true that Québec has roughly half the tuition costs as the rest of Canada. As well as this, Québec students have less student debt than the rest of Canada, at roughly $13,000, also nearly half as what the rest of Canada has. The author of the absurd article contends, therefore, that the real reason for the strike is that, “like a lot of things in Quebec, the sense of entitlement seems to have become a normal part of the culture.”[3]
Now, think about this for a moment. Let’s put this in its proper context. The average tuition for students in Québec is $2,500, and the average debt for Québec students is $13,000. On the other hand, the average tuition costs for Canadian students is $5,000, with the average debt for Canadian students at $27,000. Is this really something to aspire to? Is this really the type of “equality” that we should want, that we should accept, or adhere to? Is it really a valid argument in stating that since the rest of Canadian students pay excessive tuition costs and graduate with absurd debts, that we should too? Especially important in this equation is the current condition for students and youth in Canada today, where upon graduating with an average of $27,000 (a national average, which, by the way, is kept lower due to Quebec’s lower fees), and “once they complete their degrees, there are fewer jobs around that pay the kind of money that allows grads to seriously whittle away at their debt.” This massive debt for students in Canada “is bankrupting a generation of students,” explained the Globe and Mail. It’s not simply the money which is being borrowed, but the interest rates being paid, varying from province to province at between 5 and 9 percent. Interest rates, more over, are expected to increase, and thus, the cost of the debt will increase, and with that, so too will youth poverty increase.[4]
With tuition hikes to add to that, the debt burden will become greater. So not only will the average interest payments on student debt increase with more student debt required to pay for tuition, but the interest rates themselves will increase. What this translates into is class warfare. Thus, the argument that “the rest of Canada does it, so stop complaining,” is akin to saying, “Everyone else is screwed, doomed to be a ‘lost generation’, so stop complaining that we’re throwing you to the wolves too!” Since debt essentially amounts to a form of slavery, let’s use the example of slavery itself to look at this argument. Let’s build a premise of ten slave plantations, one of which is made of indentured slaves (meaning that they will be freed after a set amount of time), and the other nine consist of absolute slavery (from birth to death). Indentured slavery, while not desirable, is better than absolute slavery from birth to death. So, if the plantation owners begin to change the system of slavery of the unique plantation from indentured to life-time slavery, and the indentured slaves revolt, the plantation owners would then argue, “All nine other plantations operate under that system, stop complaining.” Is this a legitimate argument? So when Québec’s student-slave plantation owners tell us that, “the rest of Canada does it,” what they’re really saying is that they want to enslave us in debt and plunge us into a poverty of future opportunities to the same degree that exists in the rest of Canada. And when we fight against this, they say we are “whining and crying” about “entitlements.”
Québec students, themselves, are not living the easy life, as the picture is often painted. A study from November of 2010 put to shame these notions, based upon surveys of students in 2009, and thus, before the $500 tuition increase that ended in 2012, meaning that the numbers are likely much worse today. Half of all full-time students in Québec live on less than $12,200 per year, significantly below the national poverty line. To add to that, 25% of full-time students live on less than $7,400 per year. This data includes the amounts that students get in government loans, leading the president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (University Student Federation of Quebec), Louis-Philippe Savoie, to comment, “Imagine the disastrous effect that raising tuition fees by the Charest government” would then have on the students. The largest source of finances for students does not come from government loans, but from working: part-time students work more, and have less debt, with their work accounting for 83% of their financing; full-time students have more debt, but still 55% of their financing comes from working, and over 80% of full-time students work an average of 18.8 hours per week. Thus, Savoie noted, “The portrait of the lazy student is totally false.” The second largest source of financial support for students is from parents, accounting for 22%, with 60% of full-time students getting support from their parents and families, while 23% of part-time students get financial support from their parents, accounting for a total of 7% of their total financing. Roughly 60% of full-time students in Québec will go into debt, averaging at around $14,000, with student loans making up the majority of that debt, as 44.5% of full-time students have government loans, 23.4% take out bank loans or credit lines, and 22.1% take on credit card debt. The study further showed that 46.6% of part-time students will even end up in debt, averaging at $11,500. The report concluded that the government should freeze tuition and increase financial assistance.[5] Over one year later, the government announced a 75% increase in tuition costs.
To Strike and Strike Down!
By April 26, 2012, the student strike – the longest in Québec’s history – had lasted 72 days and had a running total of 160 different protests, hundreds of people arrested, multiple injuries, and still the government stands stubborn in its refusal to even enter a negotiation with the students in good faith. As a result of the government’s intransigence to democratic appeals, some have taken to acts of violence and destruction. Bricks have been tossed off a downtown overpass, and onto the tracks of the Montréal metro system, leading to road and metro closures. Cars and businesses in downtown are left with broken windows and shattered debris, the remnants of protests in which police invariably turn to oppression and brutality. As the government and police become more repressive, the issue becomes less and less about tuition, and develops a wider social position. Thus, the nomenclature has begun to change from “student strike” to “Québec Spring” – or “Maple Spring” emblematic of “a broader, international Occupy-style fight for a new economic order.” In French, ‘Maple Spring’ is translated as “Printemps Érable,” with érable being very close to the French word for ‘Arab,’ thus drawing an even closer dialectical connection with the ‘Arab Spring.’ One student commented, “A lot of people have stopped calling it a student movement; now it’s a social movement, and I think that it affects people in a much deeper way than just tuition fees.” Another student added, “the whole protest is against the neoconservative and neoliberal point of view of doing politics… People in Quebec are using this movement as a means of venting against the current government.”[6]
In March of 2011, Québec’s Finance Minister under the Liberal Jean Charest government announced the tuition hikes of $325 per year, over five years. In August of 2011, students began campaigning against the tuition hikes, with a large peaceful rally held in Montréal in November, establishing a “common front” of student groups attempting to apply democratic pressure against the government. On February 13, 2012, the strike officially began, with several student groups voting in favour of a walk out. The decisions in the student group are, after all, made democratically, unlike the decisions of the government.
On February 23, students occupied a downtown bridge, and were subsequently pepper-sprayed by police. During a protest on March 7, one student, Francis Grenier, almost lost an eye due to a police stun grenade. On March 21, student tactics changed – as the government refused to even consider negotiations – and were now seeking to disrupt the economy in order to be heard. One group of students occupied the busy city Champlain Bridge in Montréal during rush hour, leading to each student involved being fined $494. On March 22, a massive rally of students from around the province took place in Montréal, drawing hundreds of thousands of students and supporters. The government again refused to negotiate or even consider changing its position. Line Beauchamp, the Quebec [Mis]Education Minister, had the outside of her Montréal office painted red – the symbolic colour of the protests – as she continued to deride the protests and refuse to negotiate with the students. On April 16, the city’s subway (metro) system was shut down in a number of places as some individuals (who remain unidentified) tossed bags of rocks onto the metro tracks at a number of different stations. On April 18 and 19, over 300 people were arrested in the city of Gatineau, Québec, in a confrontation with police at a local university campus. On April 20 and 21, as Jean Charest was attending a job fair, speaking to an audience of business leaders in promoting his ‘Plan Nord’ (Plan North) which seeks to provide government funds to subsidize multi-million and multi-billion dollar mining corporations to exploit the mineral resources of northern Québec, had his speech interrupted by protests. Outside the convention centre, protesters clashed with police, leading to the arrests of over 100 people.[7]
Francis Grenier, who almost lost his eye
In what was described by the Globe and Mail as Jean Charest’s “Marie Antoinette moment,” as tear gas filled the streets with students fleeing the riot police protecting the comfortable lap-dog-to-the-rich premier inside the convention centre, Charest, speaking at a business lunch with his real constituency (the wealthy elite), joked, “we could offer them a job … in the North, as far as possible.”[8]
Jean Charest, when he paused from making jokes about giving jobs to students “as far as possible” in the North, commented that, “[t]his is 2012, this is Quebec. We have had ministers find tanks of gas on their verandas… Molotov cocktails in front of their offices. There are ministers who have had death threats.” He added, “I find it unacceptable that one student association refuses to condemn violence,” referring to C.L.A.S.S.E (the largest and most militant of the student groups). Meanwhile, as Charest joked and complained, students were being brutalized by police just outside his conference meeting, with tear gas and concussion grenades being tossed at Québec’s youth by riot police. Charest declared social disruption to be “unacceptable,” but apparently state repression and violence is therefore, totally acceptable.[9]
With Jean Charest’s ‘Marie Antoinette moment’ during his conference of congratulating Quebec’s business elite on their new government subsidization from his administration (the latest Québec budget allocated massive funds for mining companies), protests continued outside, with students setting up barricades “made from construction site materials and restaurant patio furniture to impede the circulation of police,” and so of course, the police “responded with stun grenades, pepper spray and batons.” As the violence erupted, Charest was inside making more jokes to his real constituents, stating, “[t]he (event) that we’re holding today is very popular. People are running all over the place to get in.” The crowd of businessmen erupted in laughter and applause. Charest added, “It’s an opportunity for job hunters.” The spokesperson for the student group, CLASSE, replied to the premier’s contemptuous comments, stating, “all my calls for calm won’t do anything… He’s laughing at us. I don’t know if he realizes were in a crisis right now.”[10]
The Schools Side Against the Students
The schools themselves have been participating in the repression of student strikes. Injunctions were issued to protesters, demanding that they permit other students to attend their classes and exams. The legal injunctions declared that those who were not attending classes were not considered to be participating in a legitimate strike. After the injunctions were issued, and two days after the school’s director demanded classes resume, student protesters blocked the entrance to College de Valleyfield, with hundreds blocking the main doors to the school. The school director threatened students that if they did not return to class they would fail the semester. The director, however, canceled the classes in order to avoid a physical confrontation with protesters. Education minister Line Beauchamp then reminded schools that, “they are legally obliged to provide courses.” Premier Charest, who was in Brazil at the time, again serving corporate interests on a trade mission, suggested the possibility of “forcing the schools to open.” He added, “We leave to each institution the task of taking the decisions they must make based on several criteria that include safety as well as the management of their establishments.”[11]
At Concordia University, protesters also blocked the entrance doors, preventing other students and teachers from entering the building during exams. The school responded by calling in the riot police to ‘remove’ the protesters, with fights breaking out between various students, and police then began “intervening” with pepper spray. The University of Montreal won a court injunction which banned protests from assembling on the school campus. The school informed students that, “all individuals must refrain from blocking access to campus buildings, individual classrooms, and even parking lots. Protesters are also banned from taking any action that interferes with classes, campus services or meetings.”[12]
Protest at Concordia University
Striking students at McGill University delivered a letter to University President Heather Munroe-Blum, signed by many students, professors, staff and student groups, asking the school to accommodate striking students with finding alternatives to exams or issuing ‘Incompletes’ for classes. Munroe-Blum was not present to accept the letter, with her chief of staff accepting the letter on her behalf, stating that Munroe-Blum had “University business off campus.” Perhaps she was running errands for the Royal Bank of Canada, whose board of directors she also sits on. Concordia University has also shown significant opposition to the strike. The chancellor of Concordia, incidentally, is also on the board of directors of the Bank of Montreal. Concordia, facing demands from striking students to accommodate the strike, replied: “The university’s position has been the same from the beginning, and it’s not going to change.” Students who are involved in the strike, stated a Concordia spokesperson, are “accepting the risks.” She added, “[t]hose who choose not to attend exams when exams are being held, they know the consequences… There’s just nothing more we can add.” A CLASSE representative referred to the situation of the striking students at Concordia, numbering in the thousands, “Unfortunately, since the start of the conflict [they] have faced an intransigent and undemocratic attitude in their talks with their administration.” Some of the French-speaking schools had been making accommodations for striking students, but none were to be found at the English-speaking schools, where there are fewer strikers and more elitist administrators. The CLASSE representative, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, commented that, “[o]ur coalition and our militants will be there on the campus to help the students, to help the strikers, in order to make their democratic-mandated strike respected.”[13]
Concordia University has also responded to the strike by hiring a private security firm to patrol the school. On March 26, there was a clash between striking students and security guards as the school took a harsh stance against picketing students. Some students were taking part in a sit-in on the 7th floor of the school, while others were being harassed by seven security guards on the 4th floor. Geography students were blocking the entrance to their classroom when security guards showed up, purportedly to ensure “there would be no incident,” while intimidating the students and filming them. One student who was present commented, “What happened at the classrooms so far was very calm and very peaceful. The presence of security guards is creating a really uncomfortable environment on campus. It’s really unnecessary and it feels like students are being prosecuted.” The previous week, the school had sent emails out to all of its students, “warning about consequences for students who choose to continue blocking access to classes, which could include formal charges.” The geography teacher who was supposed to teach the class then cancelled it, telling the security guards that there weren’t enough students to continue the class. The professor commented, “I just think that I’m in a really difficult position because I respect what the students have democratically chosen to do… But the picket wouldn’t permit me to pass through anyway and there weren’t enough students that were in the classroom to hold the class.” Earlier that same day, a student who was filming an argument between security guards and students “was struck in the face by one of the security guards, throwing the camera out of her hands and onto the ground.” The incident was filmed, and after the camera was thrown to the ground, the student asked the security guard for his name “for hitting a student,” after which he walked away.[14]
As it turned out, the security official that hit the student in the face “was discovered not to be in possession of a valid security permit, according to a letter sent by the Concordia security department.” The student who had been assaulted had filed a request for information from the director of Concordia University Security, to which she received a letter response informing her that the assaulting guard – hired by the school from the private firm of Maximum Security Inc. – did not possess a security license, adding, “Given the fact that he is not a licensed security agent [...] we are not legally permitted to release his name.” Concordia Student Union (CSU) VP Chad Walcott commented, “It would be very concerning if we are being blocked access to any information about the assault of a student… Having unlicensed security staff on campus is completely unacceptable.” The student who was hit told the school newspaper that, “[t]hese kind of accidents are likely to happen again… That’s what happens when you start hiring a large number of security guards for political purposes on campus when they’re not trained to do it.”[15]
CSU VP Chad Walcott later commented: “The university told us on [March 30] that this person was under review… Then we found out that he wasn’t even licensed at all, which leads me to believe that the university lied to us, or they themselves were lied to… Every security agent that is on the university premises is supposed to be a licensed individual. These individuals are also all supposed to be providing students with licenses when requested, and to fail to do so is a violation of the Private Security Act.” As section four of Quebec’s Private Security Act stipulates, “Any person operating an enterprise that carries on a private security activity must hold an agency license of the appropriate class.”[16]
Meanwhile, in late April, the Canadian Parliament – with the Conservative Party in power – are attempting to pass a bill entitled, “Bill C-26: The Citizen’s Arrest and Self Defence Act,” which “clarifies” laws around citizen’s arrests, and according to the Canadian Bar Association, “will grant greater powers to private security agencies” which “will give poorly trained ‘rent-a-cops’ greater latitude to arrest Canadians.” An official at the Canadian Bar Association warned that, “Such personnel often lack the necessary range of equipment or adequate training to safely and lawfully make arrests in a manner proportionate to the circumstances.” The only MP in Parliament to oppose the bill was Elizabeth May of the Green Party, who stated that it would be a “very big gift to the private security companies… The constitution of this country is governed by the concept of peace, order and good government… This stuff goes off in a wacky new direction, and it worries me.”[17]
The Concordia University email sent to students declared that it was “no longer possible to tolerate further disruption of university activities by a minority of protesters who refuse to respect the rights of others,” though apparently it is okay to tolerate harassment by private security guards. The university informed students that those who choose to picket will be asked for their IDs by the private security goons, “and will be reported to a panel to face the appropriate charges,” while those who refuse to provide ID “will have their pictures taken in order to be identified.” The school declared that, “[t]he charges will depend on the severity of the case but it could go from a written reprimand to expulsion.” A Concordia spokesperson stated, “[t]he university will only target students who are physically blocking access to classrooms and offices. We received complaints and we need to make sure our community has the liberty of movement. Blocking the Guy Metro building [the previous week] for example was unacceptable.” The Concordia Student Union and Graduate Student’s Association replied to the school’s email, stating, “Students will not be intimidated.” Both organizations referred to the school’s email as “dangerous” and “irresponsible,” presenting picketers as aggressive, when “in reality [their actions] have been consistently characterized by a lighthearted, peaceful, and creative nature, with very few incidents.” A student union official stated, “[t]heir message is calling for a profiling of students and a general discrimination against protesters and picketers. We think that it is highly unacceptable.” The same official added that, “We actually sat with the university administration to tell them that this email would only create conflictual relations between students and the university… We were basically told that the university did not care if things went out of hand.”[18]
Negotiations in Good Faith…? Not With Beauchamp!
In late April, the [Mis]Education Minister, Line Beauchamp, suggested that the government would agree to discussions with the students. She ensured, however, that the talks would be cancelled before they began, by demanding that the more radical, and most active student organization – C.L.A.S.S.E. – be refused the opportunity to engage in the discussions. Why? CLASSE was branded as “radical” (assuming ‘radical’ is a bad term to begin with) because it refused to come outright in denouncing violence at the protests, though there has never been any condemnation of police brutality and repression from the government, so it’s apparently a contradictory position. Moreover, Beauchamp, accustomed to operating in an authoritarian manner, empty of any notion of democratic governance, demanded that CLASSE do as she said before they could be invited to discussions with a government that had, until late April, refused to discuss the issue with hundreds of thousands of students demanding it. Beauchamp delivered an undemocratic ultimatum, stating that she would only speak with two of the three student associations involved, which together represent 53% of striking students. The student organization, CLASSE, which represents 47% of the 175,000 striking students, held a press conference in response, saying “Beauchamp’s decision was unacceptable and that there can’t be a solution to the dispute without CLASSE’s involvement.” A spokesperson for CLASSE commented, “She can’t marginalize half of the people on strike,” and accused Beauchamp of attempting to “divide and conquer” the student movement. CLASSE was not even involved in the violence that took place, and as the organization acts and makes decisions in a democratic manner, it cannot respond to authoritarian ultimatums from a woman who has no consideration for democratic methods.[19]
Education Minister Line Beauchamp
Despite Beauchamp’s authoritarian ultimatum, the other student groups remained in solidarity with CLASSE and refused to meet with the [Dis]Honourable Beauchamp unless CLASSE was present. CLASSE announced that they could only denounce the violence if the members voted on it, since the leaders of the organization (unlike those of the government) must make decisions based upon the democratic wishes of their constituents, not their personal pandering to the financial elite. Of course, the refusal by CLASSE to follow the immediate demands of Beauchamp incurred the continued denunciation of the organization by the government and its media lap-dogs like the Montreal Gazette, responsible for possibly the most deriding, rag-like, yellow-journalism-inspired newspaper coverage of the protests to date. However, on April 22, CLASSE addressed its constituents (unlike the government) and they took a vote in which they unanimously condemned the violence, stating: “The position we took to last night was to clearly denounce and condemn any act of deliberate physical violence towards individuals… As a progressive and democratic organization, we cannot subscribe to those actions.” The spokesperson for CLASSE added, however, that civil disobedience will continue: “We think that the principle of civil disobedience has made Quebec civil society a little bit more just and little bit more free than other societies.” Beauchamp replied to the announcement, clearly confused about the difference between civil disobedience (the likes of which was praised and practiced by peaceful non-violent leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King) and acts of violence. Beauchamp addressed her own lack of education in stating, “We all need to act in good faith. If social and economic disruptions continue, the students who endorse them will be excluding themselves from talks.” So where previously it was the refusal to denounce violence that would result in exclusion of talks, and since that requirement was met, the demand changed to refusal to denounce “social and economic disruptions,” which is the entire basis of civil disobedience, strikes, and protests. So, essentially, Beauchamp is demanding that the student organizations denounce their cause before they meet… to discuss their cause.[20]
The last strikes that took place in Quebec in 2005 were successfully divided using the same strategy as Beauchamp attempted. However, as her tactical failure was evident, the divide and conquer effort clearly was not working on Québec students anymore, who remained in solidarity with one another. The government then agreed to sit down to negotiations with the student groups in late April. The talks came to a quick end on April 25, as Line Beauchamp admonished CLASSE for sponsoring a protest the previous night which ended in violence, vandalism, and injuries. Beauchamp commented that, “We cannot pretend today that they have dissociated themselves. I consider, therefore, that the CLASSE has excluded itself from the negotiation table.” A CLASSE spokesperson replied, “Madame Beauchamp does not want to talk about the tuition hike… This decision by Madame Beauchamp is obviously another strategy to sabotage the discussions… Madame Beauchamp will not resolve the crisis without the CLASSE.”[21]
On the night Beauchamp threw her hissy-fit and again ended the chances of negotiations, Montréal had a large protest, drawing thousands of students into the streets. When the students reached a police barricade at a major downtown intersection, tempers flared: garbage cans were overturned, windows of banks were smashed, and some rocks were hurled at police cars. It is notable that violence tends to erupt in protests when confronted with a heavy police presence. A protest earlier on that same afternoon was entirely peaceful, as the police did not have a major presence, instead tailing behind the protesters in vans. It is when the protest is cordoned off, and the right to march – the right to freedom of speech, association, and movement – is being curtailed by riot police, blocking off entire intersections like some reinforced line of Storm Troopers, with police tactics aimed at attempting to separate the protesters into smaller groups, that the police presence creates an antagonizing factor. So, as the protest on the 25th of April was confronted by the line of riot police storm troopers, the protest was declared to be “illegal” by the police: as a few acts of vandalism took place, the police waited, and then began firing tear gas into the crowd of students. The crowd began to disperse and students ran, as the police threw concussion grenades and used their batons.[22]
Protest following Beauchamp’s cancellation of negotiations
The following day, all the blame was placed upon the students. In fact, this remains consistent. All the blame for all the events that have taken place is placed squarely upon the students and protesters. When, earlier in April, three out of four of Montréal’s metro lines were shut down due to bags of bricks being thrown on the tracks and emergency stop levers being pulled on the trains, the blame was also put on students, “but the police have not connected this incident to students.” One individual even released a smoke bomb in a metro station on April 18.[23] While the sources of these incidents remain unknown, the sources of the vast majority of violence at protests is quite evident: the police. It should also be noted that Québec has a bad track record of dealing with protesters and inciting violence, often through agent provocateurs. Back in 2007, at the Montebello protests against North American integration, the Québec provincial police had to later admit that they planted three undercover cops among the protesters, dressed in all black, with their faces covered and brandishing large rocks in their hands as they neared a lineup of riot police. The three men were called out by protesters as being undercover cops attempting to start a riot and justify police repression, and once their cover was blown, they made their way past the police line where they were then “arrested.” Photos of the men show that they were wearing the same police-issued shoes as the riot cops, and the government had to later admit that they were indeed police. Though, the government claimed at the time, their men were undercover “to keep order and security.” No doubt with large rocks.[24]
Emergence of the ‘Maple Spring’
Following the large protests in late April, the Liberal Quebec government – bypassing negotiations – came up with its own brand new “solution” to the protests: increase the tuition even more! Jean Charest and Line Beauchamp gave a press conference on April 27 announcing a six-point plan to end the protests, with absolutely no input from the protesters themselves. Charest began the press conference, speaking to the stenographers of power (the media), stating, “There is an increase in the tuition fees… Let’s not pretend it isn’t there.” The proposal suggested that the government would spread the increases over seven years instead of five, though Charest announced that the government would begin “indexing” the tuition costs in the sixth and seventh years to the rate of inflation, which would mean an annual increase of $254 over seven years (instead of $325 over five), resulting in a total of $1,778, as opposed to the $1,625 over five years. Beauchamp added that, “after factoring in the income-tax credit on tuition fees, the increase is $177 a year, or 50 cents a day.” Beauchamp told reporters, “I invite the students to go to their courses because the solution proposed by the government is a just and equitable solution which ensures better financing of our universities, which ensures a fair share from students, which also ensures access to university and ensures better management of our universities.” Further, Charest and Beauchamp announced that the government would add $39 million in bursaries, the premise of which suggests that it’s fine if the government takes a lot more money from students, so much as they give a small fraction of it back, without raising the obvious question of: why don’t we just keep it in the first place? A student organizer commented that Beauchamp’s “50 cents a day” argument was “very clever,” yet, “It does not touch the nub of the question.” The president of the student organization, the Federation etudiante universitaire du Quebec (FEUQ), Martine Desjardins, commented that, “Quebec families are already heavily indebted,” and the new plan would only increase the debt burden.[25]
An overlooked report from late March by the Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-economique explained that, “increased student debt from higher tuitions could have severe repercussions on public funds.” The researchers noted that, “the provincial government is creating a precarious situation when it encourages students to incur higher debt, much in the same way banks in the United States created a risky situation when they made it easy to obtain mortgages – a situation that ultimately threw the U.S. economy into a recession when homeowners began to default on their payments.” When interest rates go up, as they are set to do so, “today’s students may well find themselves in the same situation of not being able to pay off their student loans.” One of the researchers commented, “Since governments underwrite those loans, if students default it could be catastrophic for public finances… We are already seeing signs of a higher education bubble like that in the U.S… If the bubble explodes, it could be just like the mortgage crisis… The fact is, there is no need for additional funding for Quebec universities.”[26]
The student movement has now begun the campaign for other social movements, labour groups, and activist organizations to join the protests in a wider ‘social strike’ against the Québec government. The more radical student organization, which represents 47% of the 175,000 striking students in Quebec, C.L.A.S.S.E., issued a press release in late April calling for a “social strike” from the “population as a whole!”[27]
Following a massive demonstration of over 200,000 people on April 22 in Montréal demanding the protection of the environment and natural resources, the message was clear: more than tuition is at stake. A manifesto for a “Maple Spring” appeared and spread through social media networks in late April. The manifesto declared that:
2011 was the year of indignation and revolt. The Arab spring unnerved autocrats, swept out dictators, destabilized regimes and drove many to grant reforms. The images of these Arab peoples deposing their oligarchies went around the world and set an example.
Inspired by the spontaneous occupations of public places in the Arab world, the first Indignados appeared in Spain, when deep-going austerity measures were imposed on the country. The Spanish highlighted the real limits of democracy in that country, strongly affected by the economic crisis, subject to the dictates of the financial markets, with 46 per cent of its young people unemployed. The initiative produced its emulators and the movement spread in Europe and beyond.
The movement extended to North America, and from New York around the Occupy Wall Street initiative. That movement was aimed at the richest 1 per cent, the major banks and multinational corporations, which dictate the laws of an unjust global economy that is mortgaging the future of all of us. The movement then spread to more than 100 U.S. cities, but also to Canada (Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal).
The rebellious Arabs, the European Indignant, or the American occupiers, all have gathered behind the same message of hope: Another world is possible!
This storm of global protest against economic and political elites out of touch with the legitimate concerns of insecure peoples who are always being asked to pay more, to work harder, and above all not to demand anything in return, is now blowing over Quebec. The students’ courageous fight for the right to education now constitutes the spearhead of a profound movement of indignation and popular mobilization that has been stirring in Quebec for several years. The monster demonstration of March 22 launched the printemps érable! [Maple Spring!]
Let us join in this global current of revolt and follow the example of the Icelanders who, in January 2009, forced the resignation of the neoliberal government of Geir Haarde, which had participated in the genesis of the economic and social crisis in which that country plunged in 2008.
It’s Quebec’s turn to bring down its corrupt clique!
Charest, that’s enough! Let us demand the government’s resignation![28]
Among the ‘demands’ that the manifesto made were:
- The right to education for everyone, without discrimination linked to money;
- The right to a healthy environment and the conservation of our natural resources, to protect our water, our rivers, our forests, our regions, and not to yield to the voracious appetite of the mining and oil and gas companies;
- The rights of the indigenous peoples to their aboriginal lands;
- The right to enjoy a responsible and democratic government, serving its people and not some financial interests;
- The right to pacifism and international solidarity, clearly displaying Quebec’s opposition to the militaristic and commercial policies of the federal Conservative government;
- The right to a local, sustainable, mutually supportive social economy that puts humans at the centre of its concerns.[29]
Solidarity for the Québec students has been shown from students and unions and other groups across Canada and indeed, around the world. Students from the University of Ottawa have participated in strikes and protests in Montréal, and the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) sent a bus of students to participate in the mass rally of hundreds of thousands of students on March 22. SFUO president Amalia Savva stated, “When it comes to tuition fees in general—when we see a 75 per cent increase in tuition fees over the next five years in Quebec—that’s extremely dangerous for students not only in Quebec, but across the country, to set a precedent like that… Tuition fees are one of the common struggles students have, not only between Quebec and Ontario, but across the country and across the world as well.”[30]
A number of unions from Ontario expressed solidarity with the student strike, stating that, “We stand in solidarity with the student strikers and the professors, campus workers and community members who have supported this movement. Students in Quebec are fighting against the commercialization of education and user pay through tuition increases that create massive barriers to access and student debt that profits the banks while haunting students for years after graduation.”[31]
On April 26, roughly 50 peaceful protesters assembled in downtown Toronto, with riot police assembled nearby, demonstrating in support of the Québec student strike.[32] A progressive think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, had called for the Toronto protest, issuing a press release stating: “Join us for a rally in front of Québec’s Office in Toronto in solidarity with the ongoing student strike. On this occasion, we will be delivering a petition to be sent to the Premier’s office in Québec. With this action, we also want to contribute to bringing this great movement’s democratic and combative spirit to Ontario.”[33] Students, while fighting against tuition hikes around the world, continue to express solidarity with Québec’s strike, including signs of solidarity appearing at a protest against tuition hikes in Taipei, Taiwan, as well as small protests in Paris and Brussels specifically assembled to show solidarity with Québec students.[34]
Solidarity protest in Belgium
Solidarity protest in Paris, France
Student protest in Taiwan, also showing solidarity with Québec
Québec is not the only place where there is a massive student movement developing into a wider social movement. In fact, Chile saw the start of its massive nation-wide student protest movement in May of 2011, roughly one year ago. The movement began as a student protest and evolved into a wider social movement with demonstrations drawing hundreds of thousands of Chileans, often met with the state apparatus of repression, remnants from Chile’s military dictatorship put in power by the CIA in 1973. The student movement has continued into the new year, and on April 25, the same day that large protests erupted in Montréal, Santagio had a protests which drew tens of thousands of students into the streets (between 25-50,000), rejecting the government’s proposed reforms as “too little.” Student leader Gabriel Boric declared, “We will carry on making history… We students will not give up the fight to make education a public right.”[35] Roughly ten days prior to the protests, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Chile seeking to extend “free-trade” agreements for the benefit of multinational corporations. Canada already has the largest investment in Chile’s mining industry. Reportedly, the massive student movement in Chile was not under discussion between Harper and Chilean President Pinera.[36]
So in Québec, the premier is dismissing the students and subsidizing the mining corporations. In Chile, the Canadian Prime Minister is ignoring student movements in both Canada and Chile while seeking to better secure Canadian mining interests. Thus, in the provincial, national, and international arena, Canadian politicians continually seek to protect, support, and expand the interests of multinational corporations while simultaneously undermining, ignoring, dismissing, and repressing massive student movements demanding social, political, and economic justice. This is not merely a Canadian issue, but a global one, making what is happening in Québec all the more relevant in attempting to bring about a ‘Maple Spring.’ Informal acts of solidarity and formal associations and relationships should be established between the two student movements in Québec and Chile so as to further empower and support those around the world who are partaking in a similar struggle.
What the Students are Saying
I had the chance to interview students and youth taking part in the strike and protests here in Québec. While the mainstream media inundates readers with quotes and concerns of the minority of students who do not support the strike, thus giving a very slanted perspective of the events taking place, I felt it was important to provide statements and perspectives from students who do support and have been taking part in the strike. I asked the students to tell me about their experiences, perspectives, and hopes for the strike and student movement, and what their message to the rest of Canada would be, in light of the poor information being given through the media.
Karine G. from Québec City said that her message to the rest of Canada was that, “Québec is not Canada. Our education system, like other specificities in our society, reflects our difference and our values. We are not complaining, simply trying to defend who we are and how we think it should be reflected through our institutions. Democracy supposes that citizens are free to invest in what they value the most; we think education should be a priority.” She added, “No matter what people try to justify with numbers, raising tuition fees is an ideological decision. Even though the Liberals are trying to make us believe – ‘There is no other alternative’ – we are not fools.” She expressed a great deal of frustration in getting others to understand what democracy and strikes actually represent and consist of, and finds a great deal of “ignorance and individualism” as well as apathy among others who criticize or oppose the strike.
Mathieu Lapointe Deraiche from Montréal stated that while the strike began in opposition to the tuition hikes, “I think after 11 weeks of strike, in the middle of one of the greatest student movements in the history” of the province, in both numbers and duration, “the hike of fees is now only a detail.” He added, “It is now a social crisis that [has] revealed an important generational gap (not to say ‘war’) between Quebec’s youth and the children of the ‘Trentes Glorieuses,” referring to the “30 Glorious Years” of growth following World War II, ending in the 1970s. He explained that the “social crisis” has “called into question the role of the police and the media,” such as TVA, the Journal de Montréal, and the Gazette. Referring to it as a “socio-political war between the youth and the government,” Mathieu explained that it has now reached the point where he “couldn’t be satisfied with a cancellation of the fees,” as his “actual disgust towards [the] government… transcends a financial issue.”
Freezing the ‘Spring’: State Repression of the Strike
Andrée Bourbeau, a member of the legal committee for C.L.A.S.S.E., is responsible for organizing funds to pay for the legal defense of those who are arrested at the protests (whether or not they are students), by disputing the tickets and fines which are dispersed to protesters by the police for taking part in the demonstrations. The mass arrests are done through the use of such tickets, using two Québec laws in particular to repress the student protests, which C.L.A.S.S.E. maintains – and rightly so – as being unconstitutional. For example, article 500.1 of du Code de sécurité routière (Québec law) is “unconstitutional,” explained Bourbeau, “because it prohibits any demonstration.” The article states that, “No person may, during a concerted action intended to obstruct in any way vehicular traffic on a public highway, occupy the roadway, shoulder or any other part of the right of way of or approaches to the highway or place a vehicle or obstacle thereon so as to obstruct vehicular traffic on the highway or access to such a highway.” In short, the very notion of a street protest is declared “unlawful” by Québec, which is a very violation of the right to assemble, the right to free speech and movement. Thus, it is unconstitutional. This article has led to the repression of every demonstration in Québec City, where more than 300 people have received $500 fines under this law. If any of those individuals take part in another protest, and receive another fine, the amount increases to between $3,500 and $10,500. Bourbeau told me, “this is outrageous because this is purely political repression of the student movement in Quebec City.” From the beginning of April, demonstrations have been declared illegal by the police, who threaten students that they will be fined if they take part, even if the demonstrations are peaceful, and of course the vast majority of them are.
It’s a stark reminder of the reality of how the student movement is presented in the media that with over 160 protests – with an average of 2-3 per day across the province – the rest of Canada only hears about the few protests that turned violent. Yet, for the nearly 200 protests that have taken place thus far, they are consistently met with a large police presence, fines, police brutality, and other forms of state coercion and repression. But it is the incidents of bank windows being smashed which the rest of Canada hears about. In Montréal, protests are repressed by the police through a bylaw which forbids assemblies that “breach the peace.” Bourbeau explained, “this is so broad it covers every kind of demonstration.” Thus, at each demonstration, the police arrest students and other protesters simply for being present. When some protesters react with violence or vandalism, this is referred to in the media and by the government as a “riot.”
For example, an article in the National Post written by David Frum was entitled, “David Frum on the Quebec student riots.” The first line in the article wrote, “The rioting students of Quebec got scant sympathy even before they started smashing windows and detonating smoke bombs.” He later referred to the student protesters as “a radical fringe,” who do not “deserve any sympathy.” He added: “And besides, they are part of the problem: a richer-than-average tranche of their own cohort demanding support from the taxes of less affluent people.”[37] David Frum, it should be noted, is a Canadian-American “journalist” who was previously a speechwriter for U.S. President George W. Bush, an ardent neoconservative, and was one of the loudest voices calling for the war on Iraq. Frum was also responsible for coining the phrase “axis of evil,” which George Bush first used in a speech from 2002. Hard to imagine that Québec would get fair coverage from the likes of Frum.
The use of bylaws and other unconstitutional ‘articles’ are – explained Bourbeau – aimed at “trying to demobilize the students, to make us fear going out to demonstrations and organize.” Of particular concern for protesters and organizers, she said, was the recently created police “GAMMA squad” in Montréal. In January of 2011, the GAMMA (Guet des activités et des mouvements marginaux et anarchists) squad was created as a special unit of the Montréal police, specifically designed to monitor anarchists and other “marginal political groups.” In short, it is a political policing unit, designed to engage in repression of ideological opposition to the state. These types of “squads” are typical in fascist and authoritarian countries around the world, but it’s new to Montréal. While protest organizers are very concerned about this squad, they have remained virtually out of the national media (though there is some discussion of them in the French media), so very few are even aware of their existence.
In July of 2011, C.L.A.S.S.E. filed human rights complaints against the GAMMA squad after an “unprecedented” wave of arrests, when four members of the student group, three of whom were executives, were arrested as they were preparing to organize a campaign against the tuition hikes. The stated reason for the arrests was for the organizers participating in having organized protests the previous March which resulted in a small injury of a staff member of Québec Finance Minister Bouchard’s office. A CLASSE spokesperson stated that the aim of the arrests was to “break the back” of the student movement before it even began to mobilize. CLASSE is neither an “anarchist” nor a “marginal” organization (due to it being the largest representation of the student movement), which is not to say that monitoring anarchist and other “marginal” groups (however the State defines that) is acceptable, because it is not. The “evidence” against the student organizers was largely provided by an informant for the GAMMA squad.[38] CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois stated, “There is no doubt about the political nature of these arrests… This is clearly an attempt by the [Montreal police] to decapitate the Quebec student movement on the eve of one of its historical struggles.”[39]
Alexandre Popovic, a spokesperson for the Coalition against repression and police brutality, explained that the GAMMA squad represents “police use of social stereotyping to hinder the legal expression of opposition to social and legal policies.” He stated, “It’s ridiculous… They have a stereotypical cartoon image of anarchists,” adding that while anarchists believe in opposing authority (which is a good thing!), they also have families, host book fairs, and engage in intellectual discussions. Referring to the complaints filed against GAMMA to the Québec Human Rights Commission, Popovic stated: “The commission needs to remind the police that we are not in a police state. We have the right to disagree and even have thoughts they might not like.”[40] CLASSE spokesperson Nadeau-Dubois explained, “This squad is really a new kind of political police to fight against social movements.” The GAMMA unit is a branch of the Montréal Police Force’s Organized Crime Unit, which “uses tactics developed to monitor mafia and street gangs in order to keep tabs on political activists.”[41]
Though apparently they don’t do a very good job of handling the Montréal mafia, since the city government they work for has been handing out public contracts to the mafia, who have connections to political parties and the construction industry as well.[42] Back in 2009, a former city government opposition leader, Benoit Labonte, facing corruption charges, stated that the Montréal mafia controls roughly 80% of City Hall, telling Radio-Canada, “Is there a Mafia system that controls city hall? The response is yes.”[43] Mafia-connected construction executives have been involved in election campaigns in municipalities all across the city of Montréal and elsewhere, and have thereafter been awarded with lucrative public contracts.[44] Arrests were made on anti-corruption charges in Montréal in late April, and among the 14 suspects arrested, two of them were Liberal Party organizers, putting Jean Charest’s government further on the offensive. One of those Liberal Party organizers was personally given an award by Jean Charest at a Liberal Party meeting in 2010.[45] Back in September of 2010, Jean Charest’s Québec government was declared by Maclean’s Magazine to be “the most corrupt province” in Canada. Marc Bellemare, the province’s former Justice Minister in the Charest government, spoke out about the rife corruption, favouritism, collusion and graft, with Charest granting Liberal Party fundraisers a say in the appointments of judges, not to mention his government’s deep connections to the overtly-corrupt construction industry. Interestingly, “it costs Quebec taxpayers roughly 30 per cent more to build a stretch of road than anywhere else in the country.”[46] So if Québec really is concerned with “balancing the budget,” perhaps the government – and the police, for that matter – should start with ending corruption in the governments itself (as if that were even possible!). It seems that the government is more interested in supporting organized crime than organized students.
I do not mean to paint Charest as a pawn of the mafia, since he always has been and always will be far more beholden to elite financial and economic interests, specifically that of the powerful Desmarais family (Canada’s equivalent of the Rockefeller family), with its patriarch Paul Desmarais Sr, who treats Charest like a little poodle, and who has established close connections with every Canadian Prime Minister since the 1970s, and all but two of Québec’s premiers in the same amount of time. As one reporter with the Globe and Mail explained, “Desmarais has been personally consulted by prime ministers on every major federal economic and constitutional initiative since the 1970s. Most of the time, they’ve taken his advice.”[47] It was also reported that, “[o]ver the last several years, [Paul Desmarais Sr.] has spun his web to such an extent that it now enables him to call the shots,” especially in promoting his right-wing economic vision, with “a disproportionate influence on politics and the economy in Quebec and Canada.” In particular, Desmarais “has a lot of influence on Premier Jean Charest.” Quebec writer Robin Philpot wrote that when Paul Desmarais received the French Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honour) from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean Charest was in attendance, of which Philpot stated, “He took him along like a poodle.” Philpot added, “It’s a very unhealthy situation for a government to be indebted to a businessman that has his own interest at heart. They get their hands tied.”[48]
Québec Premier Jean Charest (right), with French President Sarkozy (centre), and Canadian billionaire oligarch Paul Desmarais, Sr. (left)
And now Charest is attempting to ensure that future generations of students are themselves beholden to the same interests he is: the bankers and corporations, the political-economic and financial elite who dominate the province and the country.
The Students ‘Spring’ Forward
Following Charest’s announcement of a new “seven-year” program for the tuition hikes (with even more tuition costs added on!), students took to the streets in another night of major protests in Montreal. Student leaders rejected the absurd proposal, declaring, “It’s not an offer, it’s an insult.” When some students in the protest occupied an intersection and sat down in the street, the police responded with tear gas. Then, after two hours of peaceful protest (apart from police aggression and a few projectiles thrown at police in response), the police declared the demonstration to be “illegal” and began arresting people.[49]
In late April, in the eleventh week of the strike, international media have finally taken notice, as the student movement is making its way into the headlines of CNN, the BBC, and Al-Jazeera. Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), one of the main student groups, commented that, “I think we’ve seen that no matter how far reaching the movement is, Charest just isn’t listening… After months of taking to the streets, it’s encouraging and surprising to see the struggle catching on like this. It’s been tiring for students to have to keep marching and striking but this gives us new hope moving forward.” However, despite the general perception of the protests, both student leaders and the police themselves admit that the vast majority of those assembled do so peacefully. Constable Yannick Ouimet of the Montreal Police said, “We know that 99 per cent of the people who show up to protest want to do so peacefully… What we’re seeing now is that the peaceful protesters and their leaders are helping police identify criminals so that they can be removed from the crowd.” Desjardins reflected on the latest “proposal” from Charest, calling it “a smokescreen.” He explained: “the offer was never mentioned when we set down to negotiate with the government. Instead, it was sent above students’ heads as an attempt to win over the general public.” While the media continues to repeat the falling support for the students among the general public – figures which are attributed to the violence – Desjardins felt it noteworthy to point out, “We’re seeing small openings and we’re seeing our support base broadening. It’s not just students out there, it’s parents, teachers, trade unions and different social groups. We don’t want to have gone through all of this and to go back to school empty handed.”[50]
Québec students are increasingly frustrated with the government response to the strike. At a protest in late April, a number of students gave their complaints to the media. “I don’t think there is any class of society that would like to be ignored for three months,” one student explained. She added, “Now, all of a sudden, people realize something is going on because some windows were broken.” Another student, and mother of two, Aurélie Pedron, raised the issue of agent provocateurs being used to demonize the students: “When there are vandals on bicycles, with rocks so huge that you could not find them on Ste. Catherine Street [where the protest was taking place], when it’s a bookstore whose window is smashed, do you really think it is students who do that?.. Don’t take us for idiots.” Another student explained that, “the government approach is to present us as a bunch of vandals.” One political science student explained, “this has become more than a student fight, it is a fight against the government and the state.” Another student at the protest agreed: “The issue is bigger than tuition fees. It is a question of re-establishing democracy. There is no democracy. We are closer to totalitarianism. Decisions are made without listening to the people.” Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesperson for CLASSE, elaborated on the increased scope and vision of the struggle of students: “Those people are a single elite, a greedy elite, a corrupt elite, a vulgar elite, an elite that only sees education as an investment in human capital, that only sees a tree as a piece of paper and only sees a child as a future employee.” Thus, he explained, the student strike would be “a springboard to a much wider, much deeper, much more radical challenge of the direction Quebec has been heading in recent years.”[51]
C.L.A.S.S.E. spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois
Andrée Bourbeau of CLASSE told me that, “if Quebec is the province that has the lowest tuition fees and the best system of bursaries, it’s because we fought since the 1960s through organized actions and strikes,” with the current 2012 strike being the ninth one, and the largest of its kind, with the longest duration. She added, in regards to the methods of the student organizations, that, “we have practiced direct democracy through our student general assemblies for several decades now,” and that it is through this ‘direct democracy’ approach that decisions of the students are made before approaching the government. When the government ignores and dismisses the demands of the students, it is through the direct democracy approach of syndicalisme de combat that the students decide to target – through civil disobedience and peaceful assembly – the economy itself. “Transparency is very important,” explained Bourbeau, “Acting with syndicalisme de combat means that we mobilize people, we organize demonstrations and actions. The movement is its members, not an enlightened elite.” I asked her what her message to the rest of Canada was, to which she replied:
I wait for Canadian students to start struggling for their rights, for free tuition and self-governed universities. I don’t think Quebec has to be different than the other provinces in regards to social programs and public services. [I speak] in solidarity with the people of Canada!
The “political police” and its corrupt and elite-beholden government sponsor continues to repress dissent, demonize an emerging social movement, prevent the expression of basic – constitutionally guaranteed – rights and liberties of hundreds of thousands of youth and activists across the province. The government of Québec is attempting to turn a potential ‘Maple Spring’ into a ‘Hopeless Winter.’ But as we here in Montréal can see and feel, winter is on its way out, the temperature is getting warmer, the sun is starting to shine more and more, and spring is sprouting!
Message from Canada’s Youth: We Refuse to be a Lost Generation!
The argument that Québec students are “whining and crying” about “entitlements” is not only wrong, but deeply immoral. What Québec students are doing is finally standing up and saying, ‘No More!’ What Québec students are doing is not a misguided attempt to preserve “entitlements,” but to try to ensure for ourselves a future, a future which is being – year-by-year – stolen from us. My generation of Canadians – and for that matter youth all over the world – are shackled with more debts than any before us, with less job opportunities, with more poverty, and with the burden of beginning our lives under a system which has consistently favoured the rich few at the expense of the rest. We are told to go to school and get a good job. So we go to school, get deep into debt, and graduate into a market with few jobs. With professional degrees, we go work at Starbucks, so that we may pay the interest on our student debts, or the interest on our credit card debts, struggling to pay our monthly rent, or living at home for much longer than any generation before us because we simply can’t afford to move out. Rents are going up, and housing prices are sky-high in an absurd bubble waiting to burst. So then we are told that if we want “a future,” we have to buy property. None of us can afford a $500,000 condominium in Vancouver or Toronto, so we are told: get a mortgage, it’s the “smart” thing to do. So we get a mortgage, because our parents, our banks, and our government said: “It’s the smart thing to do.” And when this absurd housing bubble pops, our interest payments on our mortgages will skyrocket, and our student debts will skyrocket, and our credit card interest payments will skyrocket, and we won’t even be able to keep up with the increasing costs of food.
We are doomed to poverty before we even have a chance at possibility. We were raised with expectations of a life we could have. For those of us who grew up middle class, like myself, we grew up in a world built on a mirage of debt. The average Canadian household today spends 150% of its income, so that for every $1 they make, they owe $1.50. The average Canadian household is $103,000 in debt, largely due to mortgages, but also as a result of credit card debt, student debt, and other loans. Canada’s big five banks help provide the mortgages, the student debt, tell us to get credit cards, and through the Bank of Canada (our central bank), keep the interest rates low so as to encourage people to get more loans and go deeper into debt. Everyone is told to get an RRSP because “it’s the smart thing to do.” So we save what money we can, and put it into an RRSP account. Yet, if we want to spend that money, we have to do so on property. If we take out the money for anything other than a house or condo (which would still require us to get a mortgage to cover the full expense), then we lose a huge percentage of the money within the account. I took a class in high school where the teacher explained to all the compliant young students that investing your money in an RRSP is “the smart thing to do.”
So now our parents are struggling to pay their rent, meet their interest payments, or even pay for food. They work several jobs, and still we struggle, day-to-day and week-to-week. Our parents see us – their children – also struggling, falling behind and not meeting the social expectations that were set for us: when to move out, when to get an apartment, when to go to school and graduate, when to get a job, when to get a house, when to get married, when to have kids, etc. So our parents, naturally, want the best for us, want us to have what they tried for but are now struggling to even maintain as an illusion. So they tell us: get a student loan to go to school and get a good job, get a credit card, get a mortgage to buy a house. They encourage us to follow their path, when where they currently stand is already dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. Our path, then, is much rougher, much more dangerous, and all the more illusory than theirs. They see only their own children, and want the best. But we, their children, see each other: we see our friends, co-workers, fellow students and compatriots; we see our entire generation and how we all struggle. Our parents see the individual struggles of their own kids. We see and feel the collective struggle of a generation. We did what we were told, and now we are left with massive debt and no jobs, higher rents and fewer hopes. We did what we were told, year after year, because, as they say, “It’s the smart thing to do.” We did everything we were told to “get ahead,” and now we are being left behind.
So what the students in Québec are doing is simply trying to catch up, is simply speaking up and saying that we don’t want to be a “lost generation,” doomed to debt bondage. And now that we – finally! – are awakening to our situation and taking action, we are derided and dismissed, insulted and ‘dissed’, spat on and chastised, beaten with batons, bombed with tear gas. We are told, now, that we are “crying and whining,” that we are spoiled children, demanding “entitlements” and subsidies. We aren’t asking for a free ride through life, all we are wanting… is the chance to have a life.
The future is the world that we are inheriting, and before we can even enter the future, it’s being stolen from us. We are disciplined under heavy debts and higher costs before we have the chance to even reach a true sense of autonomy and independence. We are indebted before we even move out of our homes, before we get our first job. And then we are told we are spoiled and entitled!
It’s time for older generations to move aside, to stop telling us what it is we should want, how we should get it, and then deride us for not doing what they say. If we feel we are ‘entitled,’ it is because we were raised to feel that way. This is partly the fault of our parents’ generation, who have lived a life in debt, and who now instruct us to follow them into the abyss, and dismiss us when we say we want to chart our own course. Well now it’s time for them to move aside. They tried, in the 1960s and early 70s, to civilize society and make a better world – something we are now told is not worth aspiring to – and indeed, achievements were made, but it was stopped short. The elites of our society saw the emergence of social democratization and struggles for liberation and put a finish to it. The system they constructed to strangle the struggle for liberation is what we call “neoliberalism” and debt-domination.
Demonstration in Montréal
Now, all around the world, from North Africa, to Latin America, East Asia, Europe and right here in Québec, the youth are finally standing up against this ruthless global system of exploitation, militarism, racism, and domination. What the students in Québec are doing is joining the global struggle as it emerges around the world, and setting an example for the rest of Canada and North America, who have so far been lagging far behind. We are not preserving entitlement; we are seeking empowerment. If our parents failed to do it, it is left to us. So, for those in previous generations who only want “the best” for their children, it is time to stop telling us to follow their examples, and time to start following ours. It is time to stand with and behind the youth, instead of out in front and above us. It is time to support us where we need it most. What the youth of the world are now saying is that we will welcome your support and encouragement, but if you get in our way, we will push you aside and leave you behind. So if you – like all people of this world should – desire a better world for your children, want to enter a more hopeful future, and create a more equal and fair society, it’s time to step up to the plate and stand behind the vanguard of the revolution: the youth!
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People,” on BoilingFrogsPost.com.
Notes
[1] Press Release, “TD Economics outlines plan for prosperity in Quebec report,” Newswire, 10 April 2007:
http://www.newswire.ca/fr/story/178423/td-economics-outlines-plan-for-prosperity-in-quebec-report
[2] Claire Penhorwood, “Quebec tuition fight about keeping education accessible, students say,” CBC News, 21 March 2012:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/03/21/f-tuitionfees.html
[3] Kamloops Daily News, “It’s hard to feel sorry for these Quebec students,” Winnipeg Free Press, 25 February 2012:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/its-hard-to-feel-sorry-for-these-quebec-students-140407073.html
[4] Gary Mason, “The crushing weight of student debt,” The Globe and Mail, 7 July 2011:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/gary_mason/the-crushing-weight-of-student-debt/article2088760/
[5] Jacob Serebrin, “Half of full-time Quebec students live on $12,000 a year,” Canadian University Press, 19 November 2010:
http://cupwire.ca/articles/38179
[6] Stefani Forster and Alexander Panetta, “Quebec Student Strike: Montreal’s Riotous Night Leaves A Mess After Government Talks Break Down,” The Huffington Post, 26 April 2012:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/04/26/montreal-quebec-student-protest-riots_n_1454679.html
[7] Canadian Press, “Some key events in Quebec’s battle over tuition hikes,” The Winnipeg Free Press, 27 April 2012:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/some-key-events-in-quebecs-battle-over-tuition-hikes-149265525.html
[8] Antonia Maioni, “Charest’s Marie Antoinette moment,” The Globe and Mail, 24 April 2012:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/charests-marie-antoinette-moment/article2411573/
[9] CBC, “Violent Montreal student protest nets 17 arrests,” CBC News, 20 April 2012:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/04/20/students-palais-de-congres.html
[10] Giuseppe Valiante, “Montreal protest turns violent,” QMI Agency, 20 April 2012:
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2012/04/20/protest-at-kenney-immigration-speech
[11] CTV, “Tuition protesters unrelenting, in spite of injunctions,” CTV Montreal, 12 April 2012:
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20120412/mtl_valleyfield_120412/
[12] Ibid.
[13] Henry Gass, “Students continue striking into exam period,” The McGill Daily, 15 April 2012:
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2012/04/students-continue-striking-into-exam-period/
[14] Joel Ashak, “Campus security clashes with students,” The Concordian, 27 March 2012:
http://theconcordian.com/2012/03/27/campus-security-clashes-with-students/
[15] Joel Ashak, “Agent involved in alleged assault found unlicensed,” The Concordian, 1 April 2012:
http://theconcordian.com/2012/04/01/agent-involved-in-alleged-assault-found-unlicensed/
[16] Corey Pool, “Scrutinizing Security,” The Link, 3 April 2012:
http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/2917
[17] Jeff Davis, “Citizen’s arrest bill gives more power to rent-a-cops, police warn,” Postmedia News, 24 April 2012:
http://www.canada.com/news/Citizen+arrest+bill+gives+more+power+rent+cops+police+warn/6512389/story.html
[18] Joel Ashak, “Campus security clashes with students,” The Concordian, 27 March 2012:
http://theconcordian.com/2012/03/27/campus-security-clashes-with-students/
[19] Karen Seidman, “Students’ battle against Quebec heats up,” The Gazette, 17 April 2012:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Students+battle+against+Quebec+heats/6468030/story.html
[20] Sarah Deshaies, “Students, education minister start talks in Quebec,” Canadian University Press, 26 April 2012:
http://cupwire.ca/articles/52659
[21] Kevin Daugherty, “Tuition negotiations hit a roadblock,” The Gazette, 26 April 2012:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Tuition+negotiations+roadblock/6520106/story.html
[22] Megan Kinch, “BLOG: Montreal Demonstration “Turned Violent” When Police Shot Explosives at Us,” Toronto Media Co-op, 26 April 2012:
http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/blog/megan-kinch/10656
[23] Sarah Deshaies, “Quebec education minister reaches out to select organizations as student strikes reach 10th week,” Canadian University Press, 18 April 2012:
http://cupwire.ca/articles/52648
[24] CBC, “Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest,” CBC News, 23 August 2007:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html
[25] Kevin Dougherty, “Protesting Quebec students reject Jean Charest’s new six-point plan on education,” The National Post, 27 April 2012:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/27/protesting-quebec-students-reject-jean-charests-new-six-point-plan-on-education/
[26] Karen Seidman and Kevin Daugherty, “Increased student debt from higher tuition could cost Quebec, report contends,” The Montreal Gazette, 28 March 2012:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Student+debt+could+cost+Quebec+report/6372686/story.html
[27] CLASSE, “Quebec students appeal for wider ‘social strike’ against Charest government,” Rabble.ca, 27 April 2012:
http://rabble.ca/news/2012/04/quebec-students-appeal-wider-social-strike-against-charest-government
[28] Various, “Manifesto for a Maple Spring,” Rabble.ca, 26 April 2012:
http://rabble.ca/news/2012/04/quebecs-spring-manifesto-printemps-%C3%A9rable
[29] Ibid.
[30] Jane Lytvynenko, “U of O students show solidarity with Quebec,” The Fulcrum, 28 March 2012:
http://thefulcrum.ca/2012/03/u-of-o-students-show-solidarity-with-quebec/
[31] UWO, “UNIONS ACROSS ONTARIO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE QUEBEC STUDENT STRIKE,” UWO GTA Union, 25 April 2012:
http://www.gtaunion.com/gta/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=150:unions-across-ontario-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-quebec-student-strike
[32] James Hamilton, “Toronto rally for Quebec Students,” Toronto Grand Prix Tourist, 26 April 2012:
http://torontogp.blogspot.ca/2012/04/toronto-rally-for-quebec-students.html
[33] CSJ, “Solidarity With Quebec Student Strike!”, Centre for Social Justice, 26 April 2012:
http://www.socialjustice.org/community/?f_cat=2&arch=3
[34] Mediaswap, “International Support for the Québec Student Strike Against Tuition Hikes,” 28 March 2012:
http://mediaswap.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/international-support-for-the-quebec-student-strike-against-tuition-hikes/
[35] Jill Langlois, “Chile: Students protest for free education, reject President Sebastian Pinera’s $700 million funding offer,” Global Post, 26 April 2012:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/chile/120426/chile-students-protest-free-education-reject-president-offer
[36] Jennifer Ditchburn, “Harper looks to Chile for help in joining lucrative Pacific trade pact,” The Globe and Mail, 16 April 2012:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-looks-to-chile-for-help-in-joining-lucrative-pacific-trade-pact/article2403953/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Politics&utm_content=2403953
[37] David Frum, “David Frum on the Quebec student riots: Grandpa’s free ride,” The National Post, 27 April 2012:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/28/david-frum-on-the-quebec-student-riots-grandpas-free-ride/
[38] Vincent Larouche, “Des étudiants se disent persécutés par la police,” La Presse, 18 July 2011:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/education/201107/18/01-4418938-des-etudiants-se-disent-persecutes-par-la-police.php
[39] Jacob Serebrin, “Student union’s human rights complaint against Montreal police,” Maclean’s On Campus, 20 July 2011:
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/07/20/student-unions-human-rights-complaint-against-montreal-police/
[40] Max Harrold, “Montreal police unit to monitor anarchists,” The Gazette, 14 July 2011:
http://www.globalmontreal.com/Montreal+police+unit+monitor+anarchists/5109988/story.html
[41] Christian Macdonald, “Political policing in Montreal,” The Dominion, 9 November 2011:
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4236
[42] CBC, “RCMP challenges Quebec request for Mafia evidence,” CBC News, 18 April 2012:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/04/18/rcmp-challenges-quebec-inquiry-request-for-mafia-evidence-cp.html
[43] CTV, “Mafia ties run deep at city hall: Labonte,” CTV Montreal, 22 October 2009:
http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20091022/mtl_poll_091022?hub=MontrealHome
[44] Linda Gyulai, “Quebec collusion squad casts a very wide net,” Postmedia News, 18 April 2012:
http://www.canada.com/Quebec+collusion+squad+casts+very+wide/6479620/story.html
[45] Brian Daly, “Two Que. Liberal organizers among corruption suspects,” The Toronto Sun, 19 April 2012:
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/19/two-que-liberal-organizers-among-corruption-suspects
[46] Martin Patriquin, “Quebec: The most corrupt province,” Maclean’s, 24 September 2010:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/24/the-most-corrupt-province/
[47] Konrad Yakabuski, Like Father, like sons?, The Globe and Mail, 26 March 2006:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/like-father-like-sons/article170466/singlepage/#articlecontent
[48] Marianne White, “Author delivers high-voltage critique of Paul Desmarais Sr. — the man behind Power Corp,” Ottawa Citizen, 21 October 2008:
http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=2e3cff7f-05a2-44fc-afc1-616c5c40f64f
[49] Christopher Curtis, Roberto Rocha and Max Harrold, “Jean Charest’s new education offer results in huge night of protests,” The National Post, 28 April 2012:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/28/jean-charests-new-education-offer-results-in-huge-night-of-protests/
[50] Christopher Curtis, “Quebec student strike makes international news, but “Charest just isn’t listening”,” The Montreal Gazette, 28 April 2012:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Student+strike+makes+international+news/6536473/story.html
[51] Graeme Hamilton, “Quebec student protests not just about tuition but battle against ‘greedy elites’,” National Post, 28 April 2012:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/27/quebec-student-protests-not-just-about-tuition-but-battle-against-greedy-elites/
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement by ANDREW GAVIN MARSHALL
May 23, 2012
The Maple Spring
10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement by ANDREW GAVIN MARSHALL
The student strikes in Quebec, which began in February and have lasted for three months, involving roughly 175,000 students in the mostly French-speaking Canadian province, have been subjected to a massive provincial and national media propaganda campaign to demonize and dismiss the students and their struggle. The following is a list of ten points that everyone should know about the student movement in Quebec to help place their struggle in its proper global context.
The issue is debt, not tuition
Striking students in Quebec are setting an example for youth across the continent
The student strike was organized through democratic means and with democratic aims
This is not an exclusively Quebecois phenomenon
Government officials and the media have been openly calling for violence and “fascist” tactics to be used against the students
Excessive state violence has been used against the students
The government supports organized crime and opposes organized students
Canada’s elites punish the people and oppose the students
The student strike is being subjected to a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to discredit, dismiss, and demonize the students
The student movement is part of a much larger emerging global movement of resistance against austerity, neoliberalism, and corrupt power
1) The issue is debt, not tuition: In dismissing the students, who are striking against a 75% increase in the cost of tuition over the next five years, the most common argument used is in pointing out that Quebec students pay the lowest tuition in North America, and therefore, they should not be complaining. Even with the 75% increase, they will still be paying substantially lower than most other provinces. Quebec students pay on average $2,500 per year in tuition, while the rest of Canada’s students pay on average $5,000 per year. With the tuition increase of $1,625 spread out over five years, the total tuition cost for Quebec students would be roughly $4,000. The premise here is that since the rest of Canada has it worse, Quebec students should shut up, sit down, and accept “reality.” THIS IS FALSE. In playing the “numbers game,” commentators and their parroting public repeat the tuition costs but fail to add in the numbers which represent the core issue: DEBT. So, Quebec students pay half the average national tuition. True. But they also graduate with half the average national student debt. With the average tuition at $5,000/year, the average student debt for an undergraduate in Canada is $27,000, while the average debt for an undergraduate in Quebec is $13,000. With interest rates expected to increase, in the midst of a hopeless job situation for Canadian youth, Canada’s youth face a future of debt that “is bankrupting a generation of students.” The notion, therefore, that Quebec students should not struggle against a bankrupt future is a bankrupted argument.
2) Striking students in Quebec are setting an example for youth across the continent: Nearly 60% of Canadian students graduate with debt, on average at $27,000 for an undergraduate degree. Total student debt now stands at about $20 billion in Canada($15 billion from Federal Government loans programs, and the rest from provincial and commercial bank loans). In Quebec, the average student debt is $15,000, whereas Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have an average student debt of $35,000, British Columbia at nearly $30,000 and Ontario at nearly $27,000. Roughly 70% of new jobs in Canada require a post-secondary education. Half of students in their 20s live at home with their parents, including 73 per cent of those aged 20 to 24 and nearly a third of 25- to 29-year-olds. On average, a four-year degree for a student living at home in Canada costs $55,000, and those costs are expected to increase in coming years at a rate faster than inflation. It has been estimated that in 18 years, a four-year degree for Canadian students will cost $102,000. Defaults on government student loans are at roughly 14%. The Chairman of the Canadian Federation of Students warned in June of 2011 that, “We are on the verge of bankrupting a generation before they even enter the workplace.” This immense student debt affects every decision made in the lives of young graduates. With few jobs, enormous housing costs, the cutting of future benefits and social security, students are entering an economy which holds very little for them in opportunities. Women, minorities, and other marginalized groups are in an even more disadvantaged position. Canadian students are increasingly moving back home and relying more and more upon their parents for support. An informal Globe and Mail poll in early May of 2012 (surveying 2,200 students), “shows that students across Canada share a similar anxiety over rising tuition fees” as that felt in Quebec. Roughly 62% of post-secondary students said they would join a similar strike in their own province, while 32% said they would not, and 5.9% were undecided. In Ontario, where tuition is the highest in Canada, 69% said they would support a strike against increasing tuition. A Quebec research institution released a report in late March of 2012 indicating that increasing the cost of tuition for students is creating a “student debt bubble” akin to the housing bubble in the United States, and with interest rates set to increase, “today’s students may well find themselves in the same situation of not being able to pay off their student loans.” The authors of the report from the Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-economique explained that, “Since governments underwrite those loans, if students default it could be catastrophic for public finances,” and that, “If the bubble explodes, it could be just like the mortgage crisis.” In the United States, the situation is even worse. In March of 2012, the Federal Reserve reported that 27 percent of student borrowers whose loans have gone into repayment are now delinquent on their debt.” Student debt in the United States has reached $1 trillion, “passing total credit card debt along the way.” It has become a threat to the entire existence of the middle class in America. Bankruptcy lawyers in the US are “seeing the telltale signs of a student loan debt bubble.” A recent survey from the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) indicated, “more than 80 percent of bankruptcy lawyers have seen a substantial increase in the number of clients seeking relief from student loans in recent years.” The head of the NACBA stated, “This could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy.” In 1993, 45% of students who earn a bachelor’s degree had to go into debt; today, it is 94%. The average student debt in the United States in 2011 was $23,300, with 10% owning more than $54,000 and 3% owing more than $100,000. President Obama has addressed the situation by simply providing more loans to students. A recent survey of graduates revealed that 40% of them “had delayed making a major purchase, like a home or car, because of college debt, while slightly more than a quarter had put off continuing their education or had moved in with relatives to save money,” and 50% of those surveyed had full-time jobs. Between 2001 and 2011, “state and local financing per student declined by 24 percent nationally.” In the same period of time,“tuition and fees at state schools increased 72 percent.” It would appear that whether in the United States, Canada, or even beyond, the decisions made by schools, banks, and the government, are geared toward increasing the financial burden on students and families, and increasing profits for themselves. The effect will be to plunge the student and youth population into poverty over the coming years. Thus, the student movement in Quebec, instead of being portrayed as “entitled brats” elsewhere, are actually setting an example for students and youth across the continent and beyond. Since Quebec tuition is the lowest on the continent, it gives all the more reason that other students should follow Quebec’s example, instead of Quebec students being told to follow the rest of the country (and continent) into debt bondage.
3) The student strike was organized through democratic means and with democratic aims: The decision to strike was made through student associations and organizations that uniquely operate through direct-democracy. While most student associations at schools across Canada hold elections where students choose the members of the associations, the democratic accountability ends there (just like with government). Among the Francophone schools in Quebec, the leaders are not only elected by the students, but decisions are made through general assemblies, debate and discussion, and through the votes of the actual constituents, the members of the student associations, not just the leaders. This means that the student associations that voted to strike are more democratically accountable and participatory than most other student associations, and certainly the government. It represents a more profound and meaningful working definition of democracy that is lacking across the rest of the country. The Anglophone student associations that went on strike – from Concordia and McGill – did so because, for the first time ever, they began to operate through direct-democracy. This of course, has resulted in insults and derision from the media. The national media in Canada – most especially the National Post – complain that the student “tactics are anything but democratic,” and that the students aren’t acting in a democratic way, but that “it’s really mob rule.” Obviously, it is naïve to assume that the National Post has any sort of understanding of democracy.
4) This is not an exclusively Quebecois phenomenon: I am an Anglophone, I don’t even speak French, I have only lived in Montreal for under two years, but the strikers are struggling as much for me as for any other student, Francophone or Anglophone. Typically, when others across Canada see what is taking place here, they frame it along the lines of, “Oh those Quebecois, always yelling about something.” But I’m yelling too… in English. Many people here are yelling… in English. It is true that the majority of the students protesting are Francophone, and the majority of the schools on strike are Francophone, but it is not exclusionary. In fact, the participation in the strike from the Anglophone schools (while a minority within the schools) is unprecedented in Quebec history. This was undertaken because students began mobilizing at the grassroots and emulating the French student groups in how they make decisions (i.e., through direct-democracy). The participation of Anglophone students in the open-ended strike is unprecedented in Quebec history.
5) Government officials and the media have been openly calling for violence and “fascist” tactics to be used against the students: With all the focus on student violence at protests, breaking bank windows, throwing rocks at riot police, and other acts of vandalism, student leaders have never called for violence against the government or vandalism against property, and have, in fact, denounced it and spoken out for calm, stating: “The student movement wants to fight alongside the populace and not against it.” On the other hand, it has been government officials and the national media which have been openly calling for violence to be used against students. On May 11, Michael Den Tandt, writing for the National Post, stated that, “It’s time for tough treatment of Quebec student strikers,” and recommended to Quebec Premier Jean Charest that, “He must bring down the hammer.” Tandt claimed that there was “a better way” to deal with student protesters: “Dispersal with massive use of tear gas; then arrest, public humiliation, and some pain.” He even went on to suggest that, “caning is more merciful than incarceration,” or perhaps even re-imagining the medieval punishment in which “miscreants and ne’er-do-wells were placed in the stockade, in the public square, and pelted with rotten cabbages. That might not be a bad idea, either.” This, Tandt claimed, would be the only way to preserve “peace, order, and good government.” Kelly McParland, writing the for National Post on May 11, suggested that it was now time for Charest to “empower the police to use the full extent of the law against those who condone or pursue further disruption,” and that the government must make a “show of strength” against the students. If this was not bad enough, get ready for this: A member of the Quebec Liberal Party, head of the tax office in the Municipal Affairs Department, Bernard Guay, wrote an article for a French-language newspaper in Quebec in mid-April advocating a strategy to “end the student strikes.” In the article, the government official recommended using the fascist movements of the 1920s and 1930s as an example in how to deal with “leftists” in giving them “their own medicine.” He suggested organizing a political “cabal” to handle the “wasteful and anti-social” situation, which would mobilize students to not only cross picket lines, but to confront and assault students who wear the little red square (the symbol of the student strike). This, Guay suggested, would help society “overcome the tyranny of Leftist agitators,” no doubt by emulating fascist tyranny. The article was eventually pulled and an apology was issued, while a government superior supposedly reprimanded Guay, though the government refused to elaborate on what that consisted of. Just contemplate this for a moment: A Quebec Liberal government official recommended using “inspiration” from fascist movements to attack the striking students. Imagine if one of the student associations had openly called for violence, let alone for the emulation of fascism. It would be national news, and likely lead to arrests and charges. But since it was a government official, barely a peep was heard.
6) Excessive state violence has been used against the students:Throughout the three months of protests from students in Quebec, the violence has almost exclusively been blamed on the students. Images of protesters throwing rocks and breaking bank windows inundate the media and ‘inform’ the discourse, demonizing the students as violent, vandals, and destructive. Meanwhile, the reality of state violence being used against the students far exceeds any of the violent reactions from protesters, but receives far less coverage. Riot police meet students with pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, smoke bombs, beating them with batons, shoot them with rubber bullets, and have even been driving police cars and trucks into groups of students. On May 4, on the 42nd anniversary of the Kent State massacre in which the U.S. National Guard murdered four protesting students, Quebec almost experienced its own Kent State, when several students were critically injured by police, shot with rubber bullets in the face. One student lost an eye, and another remains in the hospital with serious head injuries, including a skull fracture and brain contusion. The Quebec provincial police – the SQ – have not only been involved in violent repression of student protests in Quebec, but have also (along with the RCMP) been involved intraining foreign police forces how to violently repress their own populations, such as in Haiti. Roughly 12,000 people in Quebec have signed a petition against the police reaction to student protests, stipulating that the police actions have been far too violent. In late April, even before the Quebec police almost killed a couple students, Amnesty International “asked the government to call for a toning down of police measures that… are unduly aggressive and might potentially smother students’ right to free expression.” The Quebec government, of course, defends police violenceagainst students and youths. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – Canada’s spy agency – has recently announced its interest in “gathering intelligence” on Quebec student protesters and related groups as “possible threats to national security.” Coincidentally, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismantled the government agency responsible for oversight of CSIS, making the agency essentially unaccountable. In reaction to student protests, the City of Montreal is considering banning masks being worn at protests in a new bylaw which is being voted on without public consultation. Thus, apparently it is fine for police to wear gas masks as they shoot chemical agents at Quebec’s youth, but students cannot attempt to even meagerly protect themselves by covering their faces. The federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper is attempting to pass a law that bans masks at protests, which includes a ten-year sentence for “rioters who wear masks.” Quebec has even established a secretive police unit called the GAMMA squad to monitor political groups in the province, which has already targeted and arrested members of the leading student organization behind the strike. The police unit is designed to monitor “anarchists” and “marginal political groups.” Some political groups have acknowledged this as “a declaration of war” by the government against such groups. Spokesperson for the largest student group, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, stated that, “This squad is really a new kind of political police to fight against social movements.” The situation of police repression has become so prevalent that even the U.S. State Department has warned Americans to stay away from student protests in the city, “as bystanders can quickly be caught up in unforeseen violence and in some cases, detained by the local police.”
Click here to watch a video compilation of police brutality against students.
7) The government supports organized crime and opposes organized students: The government claims that it must increase the cost of tuition in order to balance the budget and to increase the “competitiveness” of schools. The government has ignored, belittled, undermined, attempted to divide, and outright oppress the student movement. The Liberal Government of Quebec, in short, has declared organized students to be enemies of the state. Meanwhile, that same government has no problem of working with and supporting organized crime, namely, the Montreal Mafia. In 2010, Quebec, under Premier Jean Charest, was declared to be “the most corrupt province” in Canada. A former opposition leader in the Montreal city hall reported that, “the Italian mafia controls about 80 per cent of city hall.” The mafia is a “big player” in the Quebec economy, and “is deeply entrenched in city affairs” of Montreal, as “more than 600 businesses pay Mafia protection money in Montreal alone, handing organized crime leaders an unprecedented degree of control of Quebec’s economy.” The construction industry, especially, is heavily linked to the mafia. The Montreal Mafia is as influential as their Sicilian counterparts, where “all of the major infrastructure work in Sicily is under Mafia control.” In 2009, a government official stated that, “It’s Montreal’s Italian Mafia that controls what is going on in road construction. They control, from what we can tell, 80 per cent of the contracts.” In the fall of 2011, an internal report written by the former Montreal police chief for the government was leaked, stating, “We have discovered a firmly rooted, clandestine universe on an unexpected scale, harmful to our society on the level of safety and economics and of justice and democracy.” The report added, “Suspicions are persistent that an evil empire is taking form in the highway construction domain,” and that, “If there were to be an intensification of influence-peddling in the political sphere, we would no longer simply be talking about marginal, or even parallel criminal activities: we could suspect an infiltration or even a takeover of certain functions of the state.” Quebec Premier Jean Charest, for several years,rejected calls for a public inquiry into corruption in the construction industry, even as the head of Quebec’s anti-collusion squad called for such an inquiry. An opposition party in Quebec stated that Jean Charest “is protecting the (Quebec) Liberal party – and in protecting the Liberal party, Mr. Charest is protecting the Mafia, organized crime.” After the leaked report revealed “cost overruns totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, kickbacks and illegal donations to political parties,” Charest had to – after two years of refusing – open a public inquiry into corruption. The Quebec mafia have not only “run gambling and prostitution and imported stupefying amounts of illegal drugs into Canada, but they have extended their influence to elected civic and provincial governments, and to Liberal and Conservative federal governments through bribery and other ‘illustrious relations’.” The Federal Conservative Party of Canada, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper as its leader, received dozens of donations from Mafia-connected construction and engineering firm employees. The Mafia-industry has also donated to the Federal Liberal Party, but less so than the Conservatives, who hold power. In Quebec, government officials have helped the Mafia charge far more for public-works contracts than they were worth. These Mafia companies would then use a lot of that extra money to fund political parties, most notably, the Liberals, who have been in power for nine years. A former Montreal police officer who worked in the intelligence unit with access to the police’s confidential list of informants was suspected of selling information to the mafia. In January of 2012, he was found dead, reportedly of a suicide. In April of 2012, fifteen arrests were made in Montreal by the police in relation to corruption charges linked to the Mafia. Among them were one of the biggest names in the construction industry, with 14 individual facing conspiracy charges “involving municipal contracts associated with the Mascouche water-treatment plants [that] are connected to big construction, engineering and law firms that have been involved in municipal contracts and politics across the Montreal region for decades. And the individuals have been around the municipal world for years.” One Quebec mayor has even been charged. The Montreal police force has “not been very interested, and it should be,” in helping the anti-corruption investigation. Two of those who were arrested included Quebec Liberal Party fundraisers, one of whom Charest personally delivered an award to in 2010 for his “years of service as an organizer.” All three of Quebec’s main political parties were connected to individuals arrested in the raids. Canada’s federal police force,the RCMP, have refused to cooperate with the Mafia-corruption inquiry in handing over their massive amounts of information to the judge leading the inquiry. Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp, who has been leading the government assault against the students, attended a political fundraiser for herself which was attended by a notorious Mafia figure who personally “donated generously to the minister’s Liberal riding association.” As these revelations emerged, Beauchamp stated, “I don’t know the individual in question and even today I wouldn’t be able to recognize him.” At the time, Beauchamp was the Environment Minister, and was responsible for granting the Mafia figure’s company a favourable certificate to expand its business. Beauchamp claimed she did not know about the deal, but as head of the Ministry which handled it, either she is utterly incompetent or a liar. Either way, she is clearly not fit for “public service” if it amounts to nothing more than “service to the Mafia.” The fact that she is now responsible for increasing tuition and leading the attack on students speaks volumes. Line Beauchamp, when questioned about taking political contributions from the Mafia, stated, “Now that the information is public and the links well established, I would not put myself in that position again.” Well isn’t that reassuring? Now that it’s public, she wouldn’t do it again. That’s sort of like saying, “I wouldn’t have committed the crime if I knew I was going to be caught.” The notion that Beauchamp didn’t know whom this Mafia figure was who was giving her money is absurd. It’s even more absurd when you note that one of Beauchamp’s political attaches was a 30-year veteran of the Montreal police force. As one Quebec political figure commented about the Liberal Government’s Mafia links: “They refuse to sit down with a student leader but they have breakfast with a mafioso … where is the logic in that?” Indeed. It’s clear that the Quebec government has no problem working with, handing out contracts to, and taking money from the Mafia and organized crime. In fact, they are so integrated that the government itself is a form of organized crime. But for that government, and for the media boot-lickers who follow the government line, organized students are the true threat to Quebec. National newspapers declare Quebec students following “mob rule” when it’s actually the government that is closely connected to “mob rule.” The students are challenging and being repressed by a Mafioso-government alliance of industrialists, politicians, financiers and police… yet it is the students who are blamed for everything. The government gives the Mafia public contracts double or triple their actual value, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars (if not more), while students are being asked to pay nearly double their current tuition. There’s money for the mob, but scraps for the students.
Canada’s elites punish the people and oppose the students: It’s not simply the government of Quebec which has set itself against the students, sought to increase their tuition and repress their resistance, often with violent means, but a wide sector of elite society in Quebec and Canada propose tuition increases and blind faith to the state in managing its repression of a growing social movement. As such, the student movement should recognize that not simply are Jean Charest and his Liberal-Mafia government the antagonists of social justice, but the whole elite society itself. As early as 2007, TD Bank, one of Canada’s big five banks, outlined a “plan for prosperity” for the province of Quebec, and directly recommended Quebec to raise tuition costs for students. Naturally, the Quebec government is more likely to listen to a bank than the youth of the province. Banks of course, have an interest in increasing tuition costs for students, as they provide student loans and lines of credit which they charge interest on and make profits. The Royal Bank of Canada acknowledged that student lines of credit are “very popular products.” Elites of all sorts support the tuition increases. In February of 2010, a group of “prominent” (i.e., elitist) Quebecers signed a letter proposing to increase Quebec’s tuition costs. Among the signatories were the former Premier of Quebec for the Parti Quebecois, Lucien Bouchard. In early May, a letter was published in the Montreal Gazette which stated that students need to pay more for their education in Quebec, signed by the same elitists who proposed the tuition increase back in February of 2010. Initially, this group of elitists had proposed an increase of $1,000 every year for three years. The letter then calls for the application of state power to be employed against the student movement: “It is time that we react. We must reinstate order; the students have to return to class… This is a situation when, regardless of political allegiances, the population must support the state, which is ultimately responsible for public order, the safety of individuals and the integrity of our institutions.” The “integrity” of institutions which cooperate with the Mafia, I might add. What incredible integrity! The letter was signed by Lucien Bouchard, former Premier of Quebec; Michel Audet, an economist and former Finance Minister in the first Charest government in Quebec; Françoise Bertrand, the President and chief executive officer of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec (The Quebec Federation of Chambers of Commerce), where she sits alongside the presidents and executives of major Canadian corporations, banks, and business interests. She also sits on the board of directors of Quebecor Inc., a major media conglomerate, with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on its board. Another signatory was Yves-Thomas Dorval, President of the Quebec Employers’ Council, who formerly worked for British American Tobacco Group, former Vice President at Edelman Canada, an international public relations firm, was a director at a pharmaceutical corporation, head of strategic planning at an insurance company, and previously worked for the Government of Quebec and Hydro-Quebec. Joseph Facal, another signatory to the letter demanding higher tuition and state repression of students, is former president of the Quebec Treasury Board, and was a cabinet minister in the Quebec government of Lucien Bouchard. Other signatories include Pierre Fortin, a professor emeritus at the Université du Québec à Montréal; Michel Gervais, the former rector of Université Laval; Monique Jérôme-Forget, former finance minister of Quebec and former president of the Quebec Treasury Board, member of the Quebec Liberal Party between 1998 and 2009, was responsible for introducing public-private partnerships in Quebec’s infrastructure development (which saw enormous cooperation with the Mafia), and is on the board of directors of Astral Media. Robert Lacroix, another co-signer, was former rector of the Université de Montréal is also a fellow at CIRANO, a Montreal-based think tank which is governed by a collection of university heads, business executives, and bankers, including representatives from Power Corporation (owned by the Desmarais family). Another signatory is Michel Leblanc, president and CEO of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, a prominent business organization in Montreal, of which the board of directors includes a number of corporate executives, mining company representatives, university board members, bankers and Hélène Desmarais, who married into the Desmarais family. Another signatory is Claude Montmarquette, professor emeritus at the Université de Montréal, who is also a member of the elitist CIRANO think tank, which as a “research institution” (for elites) has recommended increasing Quebec’s tuition costs for several years. Another signatory was Marcel Boyer, a Bell Canada Professor of industrial economics at the Université de Montréal, Vice-president and chief economist at the Montreal Economic Institute, is the C.D. Howe Scholar in Economic Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute, Member of the Board of the Agency for Public-Private Partnerships of Québec, and Visiting Senior Research Advisor for industrial economics at Industry Canada. At the Montreal Economic Institute, Boyer sits alongside notable elitists, bankers, and corporate executives, including Hélène Desmarais, who married into the Desmarais family (the most powerful family in Canada). At the C.D. Howe Institute, Boyer works for even more elitists, as the board of directors is made up of some of Canada’s top bankers, corporate executives, and again includes Hélène Desmarais. The Desmarais family, who own Power Corporation and its many subsidiaries, as well as a number of foreign corporations in Europe and China, are Canada’s most powerful family. The patriarch, Paul Desmarais Sr., has had extremely close business and even family ties to every Canadian Prime Minister since Pierre Trudeau, and all Quebec premiers (save two) in the past several decades. The Desmarais’ have strong links to the Parti Quebecois, the Liberals, Conservatives, and even the NDP, and socialize with presidents and prime ministers around the world, as well as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and even Spanish royalty. Paul Desmarais Sr. has “a disproportionate influence on politics and the economy in Quebec and Canada,” and he especially “has a lot of influence on Premier Jean Charest.” When former French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave Desmarais the French Legion of Honour, Desmarais brought Jean Charest with him. Quebec author Robin Philpot commented that Desmarais “took him along like a poodle,” referring to Charest. The Desmarais family has extensive ties to Canadian and especially Quebec politicians, have extensive interests in Canadian and international corporations and banks, are closely tied to major national and international think tanks (including the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group), and even host an annual international think tank conference in Montreal, the Conference of Montreal. The Desmarais family have had very close ties to Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and even Stephen Harper, and to Quebec premiers, including Lucien Bouchard, who co-authored the article in the Gazette advocating increased tuition. The Desmarais empire also includes ownership of seven of the ten French newspapers in Quebec, including La Presse. The Desmarais family stand atop a parasitic Canadian oligarchy, which has bankers and corporate executives controlling the entire economy, political parties, the media, think tanks which set policy, and even our educational institutions, with the chancellors of both Concordia and McGill universities serving on the boards of the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada, respectively, as well as both schools having extensive leadership ties to Power Corporation and the Desmarais family. It is this very oligarchy which demands the people pay more, go further into debt, suffer and descend into poverty, while they make record profits. In March of 2012, Power Corporation reported fourth quarter profits of $314 million, with yearly earnings at over $1.1 billion. Canada’s banks last yearmade record profits, and then decided to increase bank fees. At the end of April, it was reported that Canada’s banks had received a “secret bailout” back in 2008/09, from both the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve, amounting to roughly $114 billion, or $3,400 for every Canadian man, woman, and child (more than the cost of yearly tuition in Quebec). And yet Quebec youth are told we suffer from “entitlement.” And now banks are expected to be making even more profits, as reported in early May. As banks make more record profits, Canadians are going deeper into debt. The big Canadian banks, along with the federal government, have colluded to create a massive housing bubble in Canada, most especially in Toronto and Vancouver, and with average Canadian household debt at $103,000, most of which is held in mortgages, and with the Bank of Canada announcing its intent to raise interest rates, Canada is set for a housing crisis like that seen in the United States in 2008, forcing the people to suffer while the banks make a profit. The head of the Bank of Canada (a former Goldman Sachs executive) said that Canadian household debt is the biggest threat to the Canadian economy, but don’t worry, Canada’s Finance Minister said he is working in close cooperation with the big banks to intervene in the housing market if necessary, which would likely mean another bailout for the big banks, and of course, hand the check to you! So, Canada has its priorities: every single Canadian man, woman, and child owes $3,400 for a secret bank bailout to banks that are now making record profits and increasing their fees, while simultaneously explaining that there is no money for education, so we will have to pay more for that, too, which is something those same banks demand our governments do to us. When the students stand up, they are said to be “brats” and whining about “entitlements.” But then, what does that make the banks? This is why I argue that Canada’s elites are parasitic in their very nature, slowly draining the host (that’s us!) of its life until there is nothing left the extract.
9) The student strike is being subjected to a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to discredit, dismiss, and demonize the students: In the vast majority of coverage on the student strike and protests in Quebec, the media and its many talking heads have undertaken a major propaganda campaign against the students. The students have been consistently ignored, dismissed, derided, insulted and attacked. One Canadian newspaper said it was “hard to feel sorry” for Quebec students, who were “whining and crying” and “kicking up a fuss,” treating Canada’s young generation like ungrateful children throwing a collective tantrum. In almost every article about the student strike, the main point brought up to dismiss the students is that Quebec has the lowest tuition costs in North America. The National Post published a column written by a third-year political science student at McGill University in Montreal stating that, “Quebec students must pay their share,” and advised people to “ignore the overheated rhetoric from student strikers,” and that, “Jean Charest must go full steam ahead.” The student author, Brendan Steven, is co-founder of McGill’s Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC), which is an organizing mobilizing McGill students inopposition to the strike. Steven’s organization attacked striking student associations as “illegitimate, unconstitutional shams” and attacked the democratic functioning of other student associations holding general assemblies. Steven complained that the democratic general assemblies “are being invented on a whim.” Brendan Steven not only gets to write columns for the National Post, but getsinterviewed on CBC. Steven’s anti-strike group sent a letter to the McGill administration complaining about pro-strike students on the campus, writing, “This group violates our democratic right to access an education without fear of harm,” and added: “We are demanding the McGill administration take action against this minority group before the current conflicts escalate into disasters. They have proven they will not remain peaceful.” As a lap-dog boot-licking power worshipper, Brendan Steven has a future for himself in politics, that’s for sure! Back in January, Steven wrote an article for the Huffington Post in which he explained that the reason why CEOs get paid so much is because “they’re worth it.” He referred to Milton Friedman – the father of neoliberalism – as a “great economic thinker.” Back in November of 2011, Steven wrote an article for the McGill Daily entitled, “Do not demonize authorities,” and then went on to justify police violence against protesting students engaged in an occupation of a school building, which he characterized as “an inherently hostile act.” Steven later got an opportunity to appear on CBC’s The Current. Margaret Wente, writing for the Globe and Mail, wrote that, “It’s a little hard for the rest of us to muster sympathy for Quebec’s downtrodden students, who pay the lowest tuition fees in all of North America.” She then referred to the striking students as “the baristas of tomorrow and they don’t even know it.” Wente then attempted to explain the Quebec students by writing: “Now I get it: The kids are on another planet.” Interesting how she used the word “kids” to just add a little extra condescension. But it seems clear that Wente “gets” very little. In an August 2011 column, Wente tried to explain why poor black communities in Britain and America were experiencing riots and gang activity, placing blame on “single-mothers” and “family breakdown,” and explained that, “Rootless, unmoored young men with no stake in society are a major threat to social order.” Explaining this demographic in economic terms, Wente wrote: “They are, quite simply, surplus to requirements.” In another column, Wente argued that helping deliver much-needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza would “enable terrorists.” Wente also wrote an article entitled, “The poor are doing better than you think,” suggesting that it’s not so bad for poor people because they have air conditioning, DVD players, and cable TV. Wente has been consistently critical of the Occupy movement, and suggested in another article that, “the biggest economic challenge we face today is not income inequality, greedy corporations, Wall Street corruption or the concentration of wealth among the top 1 per cent. It’s the increasing failure of young men with high-school degrees or less to latch on to the world of work.” Of course, in Wente’s world, the inability of young men to get a job has nothing to do with income inequality, greedy corporations, Wall Street corruption or the concentration of wealth. In another article criticizing the Occupy movement, Wente managed to argue that it was not Wall Street and bankers that have destroyed the economy and left people without jobs, but rather what she refers to as the “virtueocracy,” blaming unions, single mothers who gets masters degrees in social sciences, and people who want to work at NGOs and non-profits, doing “transformational, world-saving work.” So it’s Wente’s “insightful” voice which is “informing” Canadians about the student movement in Quebec. Other Canadian publications writing about the Quebec student strike have headlines like, “Reality check for the entitled,” repeating the idiotic argument that because Quebec students pay less than the rest of Canada, they shouldn’t be “complaining” about the hikes. Andrew Coyne wrote a syndicated column in which he claimed that, “Quebec students know violence works,” framing the protest at which police almost killed two students as an action “of general rage the students had promised.” With no mention of the student who lost an eye, or the other student who ended up in the hospital with critical head injuries, Coyne talked about a cop who “was beaten savagely” and “lay helpless on the ground.” No mention, of course, of the police truck that drove into a group of students moments later, or the fact that the cop who was “beaten savagely” got away with minor injuries, unlike the students who were shot in the face with rubber bullets. By simply omitting police brutality and violence, Coyne presented the student movement as itself inherently violent, instead of at times erupting in violent reactions to state violence, which is far more extreme in every case. The Toronto Sun even had an article which claimed that the students have employed tactics of “thuggery” and “violent criminal behaviour.” Publications regularly ask their readers if Quebec students have “legitimate” grievances, if they are fighting for “social justice,” or if they are just “spoiled brats.” A syndicated column from theVancouver Sun by Licia Corbella was titled, “How rioting students help make me grateful.” She discussed her latest visit to church where the pastor advised: “Parents, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them,” and mentioned how parents anger their children by “belittling them, underestimating them and not treating them as individuals.” Corbella then took particular note of how parents provoke and enrage children “when we give them a sense of entitlement.” With the word “entitlement,” Corbella naturally then began thinking about Quebec students, as according to Corbella’s pastor, “entitlement leads to rage.” Corbella wrote that rioting “is, in essence, what a spoiled two-year-old would do if they had the ability.” She further wrote: “In Quebec, these entitled youth, who believe the rest of society MUST provide them with an almost free education or else, have blocked other students from accessing the educations they paid for, burned vehicles, smashed shop windows, looted property and severely beaten up a police officer who got separated from the rest of his colleagues.” Again, no mention of the two students who were almost killed by police at the same event. Corbella quoted someone interviewed on TV, endorsing the claim that the student protests are “starting to resemble terrorism,” though she took issue with the word “starting.” This is the result of creating, according to Corbell, “an entitlement society.” Apparently, the pastor’s lesson about not “belittling” the young did not sink in with Corbella. An article in the Chronicle Heraldasked, “What planet are these kids on?” The author then wrote that, “the irony is that these students now want the system to accommodate their desires and for someone else to pay the bill,” and that, “students should stop making foolish demands.” Other articles claim that students “need a lesson in economics.” After all, the fact that the majority of economists, fully armed with “lessons in economics,” were unable to predict the massive global economic crisis in 2008, should obviously not lead to any questioning of the ideology of modern economic theory. No, it would be better for students to learn about the ocean from those who couldn’t see a tsunami as it approached the beach. Another article, written by a former speechwriter to the Prime Minister of Canada, wrote that the student arguments were vacuous and that the youth were in a “state of complete denial.” Rex Murphy, a commentator with the National Post and CBC, referred to the student strike as “short-sighted” and that student actions were “crude attempts at precipitating a crisis.” Student actions, he claimed, were the “actions of a mob” and were “simply wrong,” and thus, should be “condemned.” The CBC has been particularly terrible in their coverage of the student movement. With few exceptions, the Canadian media have established a consensus in opposition to the student protests, and use techniques of omission, distortion, or outright condemnation in order to promote a distinctly anti-student stance.
10) The student movement is part of a much larger emerging global movement of resistance against austerity, neoliberalism, and corrupt power: In the coverage and discourse about the student movement, very little context is given in placing this student movement in a wider global context. The British newspaper, The Guardian, acknowledged this context, commenting on the red squares worn by striking students (a symbol of going squarely into the red, into debt), explaining that they have “become a symbol of the most powerful challenge to neoliberalism on the continent.” The article also adopted the term promoted by the student movement itself to describe the wider social context of the protests, calling it the “Maple Spring.” The author placed the fight against tuition increases in the context of a struggle against austerity measures worldwide, writing: “Forcing students to pay more for education is part of a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the rich – as with privatization and the state’s withdrawal from service-provision, tax breaks for corporations and deep cuts to social programs.” The article noted how the student movement has linked up with civic groups against a Quebec government plan to subsidize mining companies in exploiting the natural resources of Northern Quebec (Plan Nord), taking land from indigenous peoples to give to multibillion dollar corporations. As one of the student leaders stated, the protest was about more than tuition and was aimed at the elite class itself, “Those people are a single elite, a greedy elite, a corrupt elite, a vulgar elite, an elite that only sees education as an investment in human capital, that only sees a tree as a piece of paper and only sees a child as a future employee.” The student strike has thus become a social movement. The protests aim at economic disruption through civil disobedience, and have garnered the support of thousands of protesters, and 200,000 protesters on March 22, and close to 300,000 on April 22. Protests have blocked entrances to banks, disrupted a conference for the Plan Nord exploitation, linking the movement with indigenous and environmental groups. It was only when the movement began to align with other social movements and issues that the government even accepted the possibility of speaking to students. Unions have also increasingly been supporting the student strike, including with large financial contributions. Though, the large union support for the student movement was also involved in attempted co-optation and undermining of the students. At the negotiations between the government and the students, the union leaders convinced the student leaders to accept the deal, which met none of the student demands and kept the tuition increases intact. There was a risk that the major unions were essentially aiming to undermine the student movement. But the student groups, which had to submit the agreement to democratic votes, rejected the horrible government offer. Thus the Maple Spring continues. Quebec is not the only location with student protests taking place. In Chile, a massive student movement has emerged and developed over the past year, changing the politics of the country and challenging the elites and the society they have built for their own benefit. One of the leaders of the Chilean student movement is a 23-year old young woman, Camila Vallejo, who has attained celebrity status. In Quebec’s student movement, the most visible and vocal leader is 21-year old Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who has also achieved something of celebrity status within the province. Just as in Quebec, student protests in Chile are met with state violence, though in the Latin American country, the apparatus of state violence is the remnants of a U.S.-supported military dictatorship. Still, this does not stop tens of thousands of students going out into the streets in Santiago, as recently as late April. Protests by students have also been emerging elsewhere, often in cooperation and solidarity with the Occupy movement and other anti-austerity protests. Silent protests are emerging at American universities where students are protesting their massive debts. California students have been increasingly protesting increased tuition costs. Student protests at UC Berkeley ended with 12 citations for trespassing. Some students in California have even begun a hunger strike against tuition increases. In Brooklyn, New York, students protesting against tuition increases, many of them wearing the Quebec “red square” symbol, were assaulted by police officers. Even high school students in New York have been protesting. Israeli social activists are back on the streets protesting against austerity measures. An Occupy group has resumed protests in London. The Spanish indignado movement, which began in May of 2011, saw a resurgence on the one year anniversary, with another round of anti-austerity protests in Spain, bringing tens of thousands of protesters, mostly youths, out into the streets of Madrid, and more than 100,000 across the country. Their protest was met with police repression. Increasingly, students, the Occupy movement, and other social groups are uniting in protests against the costs of higher education and the debts of students. This is indeed the context in which the ‘Maple Spring’ – the Quebec student movement – should be placed, as part of a much broader global anti-austerity movement.
So march on, students. Show Quebec, Canada, and the world what it takes to oppose parasitic elites, mafia-connected politicians, billionaire bankers, and seek to change a social, political, and economic system that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Solidarity, brothers and sisters!
For a comprehensive analysis of the Quebec student strike, see: “The Québec Student Strike: From ‘Maple Spring’ to Summer Rebellion?”
For up to date news and information of student movements around the world, join this Facebook page: We Are the Youth Revolution.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People,” on BoilingFrogsPost.com.
The Maple Spring
10 Things You Should Know About the Quebec Student Movement by ANDREW GAVIN MARSHALL
The student strikes in Quebec, which began in February and have lasted for three months, involving roughly 175,000 students in the mostly French-speaking Canadian province, have been subjected to a massive provincial and national media propaganda campaign to demonize and dismiss the students and their struggle. The following is a list of ten points that everyone should know about the student movement in Quebec to help place their struggle in its proper global context.
The issue is debt, not tuition
Striking students in Quebec are setting an example for youth across the continent
The student strike was organized through democratic means and with democratic aims
This is not an exclusively Quebecois phenomenon
Government officials and the media have been openly calling for violence and “fascist” tactics to be used against the students
Excessive state violence has been used against the students
The government supports organized crime and opposes organized students
Canada’s elites punish the people and oppose the students
The student strike is being subjected to a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to discredit, dismiss, and demonize the students
The student movement is part of a much larger emerging global movement of resistance against austerity, neoliberalism, and corrupt power
1) The issue is debt, not tuition: In dismissing the students, who are striking against a 75% increase in the cost of tuition over the next five years, the most common argument used is in pointing out that Quebec students pay the lowest tuition in North America, and therefore, they should not be complaining. Even with the 75% increase, they will still be paying substantially lower than most other provinces. Quebec students pay on average $2,500 per year in tuition, while the rest of Canada’s students pay on average $5,000 per year. With the tuition increase of $1,625 spread out over five years, the total tuition cost for Quebec students would be roughly $4,000. The premise here is that since the rest of Canada has it worse, Quebec students should shut up, sit down, and accept “reality.” THIS IS FALSE. In playing the “numbers game,” commentators and their parroting public repeat the tuition costs but fail to add in the numbers which represent the core issue: DEBT. So, Quebec students pay half the average national tuition. True. But they also graduate with half the average national student debt. With the average tuition at $5,000/year, the average student debt for an undergraduate in Canada is $27,000, while the average debt for an undergraduate in Quebec is $13,000. With interest rates expected to increase, in the midst of a hopeless job situation for Canadian youth, Canada’s youth face a future of debt that “is bankrupting a generation of students.” The notion, therefore, that Quebec students should not struggle against a bankrupt future is a bankrupted argument.
2) Striking students in Quebec are setting an example for youth across the continent: Nearly 60% of Canadian students graduate with debt, on average at $27,000 for an undergraduate degree. Total student debt now stands at about $20 billion in Canada($15 billion from Federal Government loans programs, and the rest from provincial and commercial bank loans). In Quebec, the average student debt is $15,000, whereas Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have an average student debt of $35,000, British Columbia at nearly $30,000 and Ontario at nearly $27,000. Roughly 70% of new jobs in Canada require a post-secondary education. Half of students in their 20s live at home with their parents, including 73 per cent of those aged 20 to 24 and nearly a third of 25- to 29-year-olds. On average, a four-year degree for a student living at home in Canada costs $55,000, and those costs are expected to increase in coming years at a rate faster than inflation. It has been estimated that in 18 years, a four-year degree for Canadian students will cost $102,000. Defaults on government student loans are at roughly 14%. The Chairman of the Canadian Federation of Students warned in June of 2011 that, “We are on the verge of bankrupting a generation before they even enter the workplace.” This immense student debt affects every decision made in the lives of young graduates. With few jobs, enormous housing costs, the cutting of future benefits and social security, students are entering an economy which holds very little for them in opportunities. Women, minorities, and other marginalized groups are in an even more disadvantaged position. Canadian students are increasingly moving back home and relying more and more upon their parents for support. An informal Globe and Mail poll in early May of 2012 (surveying 2,200 students), “shows that students across Canada share a similar anxiety over rising tuition fees” as that felt in Quebec. Roughly 62% of post-secondary students said they would join a similar strike in their own province, while 32% said they would not, and 5.9% were undecided. In Ontario, where tuition is the highest in Canada, 69% said they would support a strike against increasing tuition. A Quebec research institution released a report in late March of 2012 indicating that increasing the cost of tuition for students is creating a “student debt bubble” akin to the housing bubble in the United States, and with interest rates set to increase, “today’s students may well find themselves in the same situation of not being able to pay off their student loans.” The authors of the report from the Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-economique explained that, “Since governments underwrite those loans, if students default it could be catastrophic for public finances,” and that, “If the bubble explodes, it could be just like the mortgage crisis.” In the United States, the situation is even worse. In March of 2012, the Federal Reserve reported that 27 percent of student borrowers whose loans have gone into repayment are now delinquent on their debt.” Student debt in the United States has reached $1 trillion, “passing total credit card debt along the way.” It has become a threat to the entire existence of the middle class in America. Bankruptcy lawyers in the US are “seeing the telltale signs of a student loan debt bubble.” A recent survey from the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) indicated, “more than 80 percent of bankruptcy lawyers have seen a substantial increase in the number of clients seeking relief from student loans in recent years.” The head of the NACBA stated, “This could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy.” In 1993, 45% of students who earn a bachelor’s degree had to go into debt; today, it is 94%. The average student debt in the United States in 2011 was $23,300, with 10% owning more than $54,000 and 3% owing more than $100,000. President Obama has addressed the situation by simply providing more loans to students. A recent survey of graduates revealed that 40% of them “had delayed making a major purchase, like a home or car, because of college debt, while slightly more than a quarter had put off continuing their education or had moved in with relatives to save money,” and 50% of those surveyed had full-time jobs. Between 2001 and 2011, “state and local financing per student declined by 24 percent nationally.” In the same period of time,“tuition and fees at state schools increased 72 percent.” It would appear that whether in the United States, Canada, or even beyond, the decisions made by schools, banks, and the government, are geared toward increasing the financial burden on students and families, and increasing profits for themselves. The effect will be to plunge the student and youth population into poverty over the coming years. Thus, the student movement in Quebec, instead of being portrayed as “entitled brats” elsewhere, are actually setting an example for students and youth across the continent and beyond. Since Quebec tuition is the lowest on the continent, it gives all the more reason that other students should follow Quebec’s example, instead of Quebec students being told to follow the rest of the country (and continent) into debt bondage.
3) The student strike was organized through democratic means and with democratic aims: The decision to strike was made through student associations and organizations that uniquely operate through direct-democracy. While most student associations at schools across Canada hold elections where students choose the members of the associations, the democratic accountability ends there (just like with government). Among the Francophone schools in Quebec, the leaders are not only elected by the students, but decisions are made through general assemblies, debate and discussion, and through the votes of the actual constituents, the members of the student associations, not just the leaders. This means that the student associations that voted to strike are more democratically accountable and participatory than most other student associations, and certainly the government. It represents a more profound and meaningful working definition of democracy that is lacking across the rest of the country. The Anglophone student associations that went on strike – from Concordia and McGill – did so because, for the first time ever, they began to operate through direct-democracy. This of course, has resulted in insults and derision from the media. The national media in Canada – most especially the National Post – complain that the student “tactics are anything but democratic,” and that the students aren’t acting in a democratic way, but that “it’s really mob rule.” Obviously, it is naïve to assume that the National Post has any sort of understanding of democracy.
4) This is not an exclusively Quebecois phenomenon: I am an Anglophone, I don’t even speak French, I have only lived in Montreal for under two years, but the strikers are struggling as much for me as for any other student, Francophone or Anglophone. Typically, when others across Canada see what is taking place here, they frame it along the lines of, “Oh those Quebecois, always yelling about something.” But I’m yelling too… in English. Many people here are yelling… in English. It is true that the majority of the students protesting are Francophone, and the majority of the schools on strike are Francophone, but it is not exclusionary. In fact, the participation in the strike from the Anglophone schools (while a minority within the schools) is unprecedented in Quebec history. This was undertaken because students began mobilizing at the grassroots and emulating the French student groups in how they make decisions (i.e., through direct-democracy). The participation of Anglophone students in the open-ended strike is unprecedented in Quebec history.
5) Government officials and the media have been openly calling for violence and “fascist” tactics to be used against the students: With all the focus on student violence at protests, breaking bank windows, throwing rocks at riot police, and other acts of vandalism, student leaders have never called for violence against the government or vandalism against property, and have, in fact, denounced it and spoken out for calm, stating: “The student movement wants to fight alongside the populace and not against it.” On the other hand, it has been government officials and the national media which have been openly calling for violence to be used against students. On May 11, Michael Den Tandt, writing for the National Post, stated that, “It’s time for tough treatment of Quebec student strikers,” and recommended to Quebec Premier Jean Charest that, “He must bring down the hammer.” Tandt claimed that there was “a better way” to deal with student protesters: “Dispersal with massive use of tear gas; then arrest, public humiliation, and some pain.” He even went on to suggest that, “caning is more merciful than incarceration,” or perhaps even re-imagining the medieval punishment in which “miscreants and ne’er-do-wells were placed in the stockade, in the public square, and pelted with rotten cabbages. That might not be a bad idea, either.” This, Tandt claimed, would be the only way to preserve “peace, order, and good government.” Kelly McParland, writing the for National Post on May 11, suggested that it was now time for Charest to “empower the police to use the full extent of the law against those who condone or pursue further disruption,” and that the government must make a “show of strength” against the students. If this was not bad enough, get ready for this: A member of the Quebec Liberal Party, head of the tax office in the Municipal Affairs Department, Bernard Guay, wrote an article for a French-language newspaper in Quebec in mid-April advocating a strategy to “end the student strikes.” In the article, the government official recommended using the fascist movements of the 1920s and 1930s as an example in how to deal with “leftists” in giving them “their own medicine.” He suggested organizing a political “cabal” to handle the “wasteful and anti-social” situation, which would mobilize students to not only cross picket lines, but to confront and assault students who wear the little red square (the symbol of the student strike). This, Guay suggested, would help society “overcome the tyranny of Leftist agitators,” no doubt by emulating fascist tyranny. The article was eventually pulled and an apology was issued, while a government superior supposedly reprimanded Guay, though the government refused to elaborate on what that consisted of. Just contemplate this for a moment: A Quebec Liberal government official recommended using “inspiration” from fascist movements to attack the striking students. Imagine if one of the student associations had openly called for violence, let alone for the emulation of fascism. It would be national news, and likely lead to arrests and charges. But since it was a government official, barely a peep was heard.
6) Excessive state violence has been used against the students:Throughout the three months of protests from students in Quebec, the violence has almost exclusively been blamed on the students. Images of protesters throwing rocks and breaking bank windows inundate the media and ‘inform’ the discourse, demonizing the students as violent, vandals, and destructive. Meanwhile, the reality of state violence being used against the students far exceeds any of the violent reactions from protesters, but receives far less coverage. Riot police meet students with pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, smoke bombs, beating them with batons, shoot them with rubber bullets, and have even been driving police cars and trucks into groups of students. On May 4, on the 42nd anniversary of the Kent State massacre in which the U.S. National Guard murdered four protesting students, Quebec almost experienced its own Kent State, when several students were critically injured by police, shot with rubber bullets in the face. One student lost an eye, and another remains in the hospital with serious head injuries, including a skull fracture and brain contusion. The Quebec provincial police – the SQ – have not only been involved in violent repression of student protests in Quebec, but have also (along with the RCMP) been involved intraining foreign police forces how to violently repress their own populations, such as in Haiti. Roughly 12,000 people in Quebec have signed a petition against the police reaction to student protests, stipulating that the police actions have been far too violent. In late April, even before the Quebec police almost killed a couple students, Amnesty International “asked the government to call for a toning down of police measures that… are unduly aggressive and might potentially smother students’ right to free expression.” The Quebec government, of course, defends police violenceagainst students and youths. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – Canada’s spy agency – has recently announced its interest in “gathering intelligence” on Quebec student protesters and related groups as “possible threats to national security.” Coincidentally, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismantled the government agency responsible for oversight of CSIS, making the agency essentially unaccountable. In reaction to student protests, the City of Montreal is considering banning masks being worn at protests in a new bylaw which is being voted on without public consultation. Thus, apparently it is fine for police to wear gas masks as they shoot chemical agents at Quebec’s youth, but students cannot attempt to even meagerly protect themselves by covering their faces. The federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper is attempting to pass a law that bans masks at protests, which includes a ten-year sentence for “rioters who wear masks.” Quebec has even established a secretive police unit called the GAMMA squad to monitor political groups in the province, which has already targeted and arrested members of the leading student organization behind the strike. The police unit is designed to monitor “anarchists” and “marginal political groups.” Some political groups have acknowledged this as “a declaration of war” by the government against such groups. Spokesperson for the largest student group, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, stated that, “This squad is really a new kind of political police to fight against social movements.” The situation of police repression has become so prevalent that even the U.S. State Department has warned Americans to stay away from student protests in the city, “as bystanders can quickly be caught up in unforeseen violence and in some cases, detained by the local police.”
Click here to watch a video compilation of police brutality against students.
7) The government supports organized crime and opposes organized students: The government claims that it must increase the cost of tuition in order to balance the budget and to increase the “competitiveness” of schools. The government has ignored, belittled, undermined, attempted to divide, and outright oppress the student movement. The Liberal Government of Quebec, in short, has declared organized students to be enemies of the state. Meanwhile, that same government has no problem of working with and supporting organized crime, namely, the Montreal Mafia. In 2010, Quebec, under Premier Jean Charest, was declared to be “the most corrupt province” in Canada. A former opposition leader in the Montreal city hall reported that, “the Italian mafia controls about 80 per cent of city hall.” The mafia is a “big player” in the Quebec economy, and “is deeply entrenched in city affairs” of Montreal, as “more than 600 businesses pay Mafia protection money in Montreal alone, handing organized crime leaders an unprecedented degree of control of Quebec’s economy.” The construction industry, especially, is heavily linked to the mafia. The Montreal Mafia is as influential as their Sicilian counterparts, where “all of the major infrastructure work in Sicily is under Mafia control.” In 2009, a government official stated that, “It’s Montreal’s Italian Mafia that controls what is going on in road construction. They control, from what we can tell, 80 per cent of the contracts.” In the fall of 2011, an internal report written by the former Montreal police chief for the government was leaked, stating, “We have discovered a firmly rooted, clandestine universe on an unexpected scale, harmful to our society on the level of safety and economics and of justice and democracy.” The report added, “Suspicions are persistent that an evil empire is taking form in the highway construction domain,” and that, “If there were to be an intensification of influence-peddling in the political sphere, we would no longer simply be talking about marginal, or even parallel criminal activities: we could suspect an infiltration or even a takeover of certain functions of the state.” Quebec Premier Jean Charest, for several years,rejected calls for a public inquiry into corruption in the construction industry, even as the head of Quebec’s anti-collusion squad called for such an inquiry. An opposition party in Quebec stated that Jean Charest “is protecting the (Quebec) Liberal party – and in protecting the Liberal party, Mr. Charest is protecting the Mafia, organized crime.” After the leaked report revealed “cost overruns totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, kickbacks and illegal donations to political parties,” Charest had to – after two years of refusing – open a public inquiry into corruption. The Quebec mafia have not only “run gambling and prostitution and imported stupefying amounts of illegal drugs into Canada, but they have extended their influence to elected civic and provincial governments, and to Liberal and Conservative federal governments through bribery and other ‘illustrious relations’.” The Federal Conservative Party of Canada, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper as its leader, received dozens of donations from Mafia-connected construction and engineering firm employees. The Mafia-industry has also donated to the Federal Liberal Party, but less so than the Conservatives, who hold power. In Quebec, government officials have helped the Mafia charge far more for public-works contracts than they were worth. These Mafia companies would then use a lot of that extra money to fund political parties, most notably, the Liberals, who have been in power for nine years. A former Montreal police officer who worked in the intelligence unit with access to the police’s confidential list of informants was suspected of selling information to the mafia. In January of 2012, he was found dead, reportedly of a suicide. In April of 2012, fifteen arrests were made in Montreal by the police in relation to corruption charges linked to the Mafia. Among them were one of the biggest names in the construction industry, with 14 individual facing conspiracy charges “involving municipal contracts associated with the Mascouche water-treatment plants [that] are connected to big construction, engineering and law firms that have been involved in municipal contracts and politics across the Montreal region for decades. And the individuals have been around the municipal world for years.” One Quebec mayor has even been charged. The Montreal police force has “not been very interested, and it should be,” in helping the anti-corruption investigation. Two of those who were arrested included Quebec Liberal Party fundraisers, one of whom Charest personally delivered an award to in 2010 for his “years of service as an organizer.” All three of Quebec’s main political parties were connected to individuals arrested in the raids. Canada’s federal police force,the RCMP, have refused to cooperate with the Mafia-corruption inquiry in handing over their massive amounts of information to the judge leading the inquiry. Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp, who has been leading the government assault against the students, attended a political fundraiser for herself which was attended by a notorious Mafia figure who personally “donated generously to the minister’s Liberal riding association.” As these revelations emerged, Beauchamp stated, “I don’t know the individual in question and even today I wouldn’t be able to recognize him.” At the time, Beauchamp was the Environment Minister, and was responsible for granting the Mafia figure’s company a favourable certificate to expand its business. Beauchamp claimed she did not know about the deal, but as head of the Ministry which handled it, either she is utterly incompetent or a liar. Either way, she is clearly not fit for “public service” if it amounts to nothing more than “service to the Mafia.” The fact that she is now responsible for increasing tuition and leading the attack on students speaks volumes. Line Beauchamp, when questioned about taking political contributions from the Mafia, stated, “Now that the information is public and the links well established, I would not put myself in that position again.” Well isn’t that reassuring? Now that it’s public, she wouldn’t do it again. That’s sort of like saying, “I wouldn’t have committed the crime if I knew I was going to be caught.” The notion that Beauchamp didn’t know whom this Mafia figure was who was giving her money is absurd. It’s even more absurd when you note that one of Beauchamp’s political attaches was a 30-year veteran of the Montreal police force. As one Quebec political figure commented about the Liberal Government’s Mafia links: “They refuse to sit down with a student leader but they have breakfast with a mafioso … where is the logic in that?” Indeed. It’s clear that the Quebec government has no problem working with, handing out contracts to, and taking money from the Mafia and organized crime. In fact, they are so integrated that the government itself is a form of organized crime. But for that government, and for the media boot-lickers who follow the government line, organized students are the true threat to Quebec. National newspapers declare Quebec students following “mob rule” when it’s actually the government that is closely connected to “mob rule.” The students are challenging and being repressed by a Mafioso-government alliance of industrialists, politicians, financiers and police… yet it is the students who are blamed for everything. The government gives the Mafia public contracts double or triple their actual value, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars (if not more), while students are being asked to pay nearly double their current tuition. There’s money for the mob, but scraps for the students.
Canada’s elites punish the people and oppose the students: It’s not simply the government of Quebec which has set itself against the students, sought to increase their tuition and repress their resistance, often with violent means, but a wide sector of elite society in Quebec and Canada propose tuition increases and blind faith to the state in managing its repression of a growing social movement. As such, the student movement should recognize that not simply are Jean Charest and his Liberal-Mafia government the antagonists of social justice, but the whole elite society itself. As early as 2007, TD Bank, one of Canada’s big five banks, outlined a “plan for prosperity” for the province of Quebec, and directly recommended Quebec to raise tuition costs for students. Naturally, the Quebec government is more likely to listen to a bank than the youth of the province. Banks of course, have an interest in increasing tuition costs for students, as they provide student loans and lines of credit which they charge interest on and make profits. The Royal Bank of Canada acknowledged that student lines of credit are “very popular products.” Elites of all sorts support the tuition increases. In February of 2010, a group of “prominent” (i.e., elitist) Quebecers signed a letter proposing to increase Quebec’s tuition costs. Among the signatories were the former Premier of Quebec for the Parti Quebecois, Lucien Bouchard. In early May, a letter was published in the Montreal Gazette which stated that students need to pay more for their education in Quebec, signed by the same elitists who proposed the tuition increase back in February of 2010. Initially, this group of elitists had proposed an increase of $1,000 every year for three years. The letter then calls for the application of state power to be employed against the student movement: “It is time that we react. We must reinstate order; the students have to return to class… This is a situation when, regardless of political allegiances, the population must support the state, which is ultimately responsible for public order, the safety of individuals and the integrity of our institutions.” The “integrity” of institutions which cooperate with the Mafia, I might add. What incredible integrity! The letter was signed by Lucien Bouchard, former Premier of Quebec; Michel Audet, an economist and former Finance Minister in the first Charest government in Quebec; Françoise Bertrand, the President and chief executive officer of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec (The Quebec Federation of Chambers of Commerce), where she sits alongside the presidents and executives of major Canadian corporations, banks, and business interests. She also sits on the board of directors of Quebecor Inc., a major media conglomerate, with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on its board. Another signatory was Yves-Thomas Dorval, President of the Quebec Employers’ Council, who formerly worked for British American Tobacco Group, former Vice President at Edelman Canada, an international public relations firm, was a director at a pharmaceutical corporation, head of strategic planning at an insurance company, and previously worked for the Government of Quebec and Hydro-Quebec. Joseph Facal, another signatory to the letter demanding higher tuition and state repression of students, is former president of the Quebec Treasury Board, and was a cabinet minister in the Quebec government of Lucien Bouchard. Other signatories include Pierre Fortin, a professor emeritus at the Université du Québec à Montréal; Michel Gervais, the former rector of Université Laval; Monique Jérôme-Forget, former finance minister of Quebec and former president of the Quebec Treasury Board, member of the Quebec Liberal Party between 1998 and 2009, was responsible for introducing public-private partnerships in Quebec’s infrastructure development (which saw enormous cooperation with the Mafia), and is on the board of directors of Astral Media. Robert Lacroix, another co-signer, was former rector of the Université de Montréal is also a fellow at CIRANO, a Montreal-based think tank which is governed by a collection of university heads, business executives, and bankers, including representatives from Power Corporation (owned by the Desmarais family). Another signatory is Michel Leblanc, president and CEO of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, a prominent business organization in Montreal, of which the board of directors includes a number of corporate executives, mining company representatives, university board members, bankers and Hélène Desmarais, who married into the Desmarais family. Another signatory is Claude Montmarquette, professor emeritus at the Université de Montréal, who is also a member of the elitist CIRANO think tank, which as a “research institution” (for elites) has recommended increasing Quebec’s tuition costs for several years. Another signatory was Marcel Boyer, a Bell Canada Professor of industrial economics at the Université de Montréal, Vice-president and chief economist at the Montreal Economic Institute, is the C.D. Howe Scholar in Economic Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute, Member of the Board of the Agency for Public-Private Partnerships of Québec, and Visiting Senior Research Advisor for industrial economics at Industry Canada. At the Montreal Economic Institute, Boyer sits alongside notable elitists, bankers, and corporate executives, including Hélène Desmarais, who married into the Desmarais family (the most powerful family in Canada). At the C.D. Howe Institute, Boyer works for even more elitists, as the board of directors is made up of some of Canada’s top bankers, corporate executives, and again includes Hélène Desmarais. The Desmarais family, who own Power Corporation and its many subsidiaries, as well as a number of foreign corporations in Europe and China, are Canada’s most powerful family. The patriarch, Paul Desmarais Sr., has had extremely close business and even family ties to every Canadian Prime Minister since Pierre Trudeau, and all Quebec premiers (save two) in the past several decades. The Desmarais’ have strong links to the Parti Quebecois, the Liberals, Conservatives, and even the NDP, and socialize with presidents and prime ministers around the world, as well as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and even Spanish royalty. Paul Desmarais Sr. has “a disproportionate influence on politics and the economy in Quebec and Canada,” and he especially “has a lot of influence on Premier Jean Charest.” When former French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave Desmarais the French Legion of Honour, Desmarais brought Jean Charest with him. Quebec author Robin Philpot commented that Desmarais “took him along like a poodle,” referring to Charest. The Desmarais family has extensive ties to Canadian and especially Quebec politicians, have extensive interests in Canadian and international corporations and banks, are closely tied to major national and international think tanks (including the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group), and even host an annual international think tank conference in Montreal, the Conference of Montreal. The Desmarais family have had very close ties to Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and even Stephen Harper, and to Quebec premiers, including Lucien Bouchard, who co-authored the article in the Gazette advocating increased tuition. The Desmarais empire also includes ownership of seven of the ten French newspapers in Quebec, including La Presse. The Desmarais family stand atop a parasitic Canadian oligarchy, which has bankers and corporate executives controlling the entire economy, political parties, the media, think tanks which set policy, and even our educational institutions, with the chancellors of both Concordia and McGill universities serving on the boards of the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada, respectively, as well as both schools having extensive leadership ties to Power Corporation and the Desmarais family. It is this very oligarchy which demands the people pay more, go further into debt, suffer and descend into poverty, while they make record profits. In March of 2012, Power Corporation reported fourth quarter profits of $314 million, with yearly earnings at over $1.1 billion. Canada’s banks last yearmade record profits, and then decided to increase bank fees. At the end of April, it was reported that Canada’s banks had received a “secret bailout” back in 2008/09, from both the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve, amounting to roughly $114 billion, or $3,400 for every Canadian man, woman, and child (more than the cost of yearly tuition in Quebec). And yet Quebec youth are told we suffer from “entitlement.” And now banks are expected to be making even more profits, as reported in early May. As banks make more record profits, Canadians are going deeper into debt. The big Canadian banks, along with the federal government, have colluded to create a massive housing bubble in Canada, most especially in Toronto and Vancouver, and with average Canadian household debt at $103,000, most of which is held in mortgages, and with the Bank of Canada announcing its intent to raise interest rates, Canada is set for a housing crisis like that seen in the United States in 2008, forcing the people to suffer while the banks make a profit. The head of the Bank of Canada (a former Goldman Sachs executive) said that Canadian household debt is the biggest threat to the Canadian economy, but don’t worry, Canada’s Finance Minister said he is working in close cooperation with the big banks to intervene in the housing market if necessary, which would likely mean another bailout for the big banks, and of course, hand the check to you! So, Canada has its priorities: every single Canadian man, woman, and child owes $3,400 for a secret bank bailout to banks that are now making record profits and increasing their fees, while simultaneously explaining that there is no money for education, so we will have to pay more for that, too, which is something those same banks demand our governments do to us. When the students stand up, they are said to be “brats” and whining about “entitlements.” But then, what does that make the banks? This is why I argue that Canada’s elites are parasitic in their very nature, slowly draining the host (that’s us!) of its life until there is nothing left the extract.
9) The student strike is being subjected to a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to discredit, dismiss, and demonize the students: In the vast majority of coverage on the student strike and protests in Quebec, the media and its many talking heads have undertaken a major propaganda campaign against the students. The students have been consistently ignored, dismissed, derided, insulted and attacked. One Canadian newspaper said it was “hard to feel sorry” for Quebec students, who were “whining and crying” and “kicking up a fuss,” treating Canada’s young generation like ungrateful children throwing a collective tantrum. In almost every article about the student strike, the main point brought up to dismiss the students is that Quebec has the lowest tuition costs in North America. The National Post published a column written by a third-year political science student at McGill University in Montreal stating that, “Quebec students must pay their share,” and advised people to “ignore the overheated rhetoric from student strikers,” and that, “Jean Charest must go full steam ahead.” The student author, Brendan Steven, is co-founder of McGill’s Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC), which is an organizing mobilizing McGill students inopposition to the strike. Steven’s organization attacked striking student associations as “illegitimate, unconstitutional shams” and attacked the democratic functioning of other student associations holding general assemblies. Steven complained that the democratic general assemblies “are being invented on a whim.” Brendan Steven not only gets to write columns for the National Post, but getsinterviewed on CBC. Steven’s anti-strike group sent a letter to the McGill administration complaining about pro-strike students on the campus, writing, “This group violates our democratic right to access an education without fear of harm,” and added: “We are demanding the McGill administration take action against this minority group before the current conflicts escalate into disasters. They have proven they will not remain peaceful.” As a lap-dog boot-licking power worshipper, Brendan Steven has a future for himself in politics, that’s for sure! Back in January, Steven wrote an article for the Huffington Post in which he explained that the reason why CEOs get paid so much is because “they’re worth it.” He referred to Milton Friedman – the father of neoliberalism – as a “great economic thinker.” Back in November of 2011, Steven wrote an article for the McGill Daily entitled, “Do not demonize authorities,” and then went on to justify police violence against protesting students engaged in an occupation of a school building, which he characterized as “an inherently hostile act.” Steven later got an opportunity to appear on CBC’s The Current. Margaret Wente, writing for the Globe and Mail, wrote that, “It’s a little hard for the rest of us to muster sympathy for Quebec’s downtrodden students, who pay the lowest tuition fees in all of North America.” She then referred to the striking students as “the baristas of tomorrow and they don’t even know it.” Wente then attempted to explain the Quebec students by writing: “Now I get it: The kids are on another planet.” Interesting how she used the word “kids” to just add a little extra condescension. But it seems clear that Wente “gets” very little. In an August 2011 column, Wente tried to explain why poor black communities in Britain and America were experiencing riots and gang activity, placing blame on “single-mothers” and “family breakdown,” and explained that, “Rootless, unmoored young men with no stake in society are a major threat to social order.” Explaining this demographic in economic terms, Wente wrote: “They are, quite simply, surplus to requirements.” In another column, Wente argued that helping deliver much-needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza would “enable terrorists.” Wente also wrote an article entitled, “The poor are doing better than you think,” suggesting that it’s not so bad for poor people because they have air conditioning, DVD players, and cable TV. Wente has been consistently critical of the Occupy movement, and suggested in another article that, “the biggest economic challenge we face today is not income inequality, greedy corporations, Wall Street corruption or the concentration of wealth among the top 1 per cent. It’s the increasing failure of young men with high-school degrees or less to latch on to the world of work.” Of course, in Wente’s world, the inability of young men to get a job has nothing to do with income inequality, greedy corporations, Wall Street corruption or the concentration of wealth. In another article criticizing the Occupy movement, Wente managed to argue that it was not Wall Street and bankers that have destroyed the economy and left people without jobs, but rather what she refers to as the “virtueocracy,” blaming unions, single mothers who gets masters degrees in social sciences, and people who want to work at NGOs and non-profits, doing “transformational, world-saving work.” So it’s Wente’s “insightful” voice which is “informing” Canadians about the student movement in Quebec. Other Canadian publications writing about the Quebec student strike have headlines like, “Reality check for the entitled,” repeating the idiotic argument that because Quebec students pay less than the rest of Canada, they shouldn’t be “complaining” about the hikes. Andrew Coyne wrote a syndicated column in which he claimed that, “Quebec students know violence works,” framing the protest at which police almost killed two students as an action “of general rage the students had promised.” With no mention of the student who lost an eye, or the other student who ended up in the hospital with critical head injuries, Coyne talked about a cop who “was beaten savagely” and “lay helpless on the ground.” No mention, of course, of the police truck that drove into a group of students moments later, or the fact that the cop who was “beaten savagely” got away with minor injuries, unlike the students who were shot in the face with rubber bullets. By simply omitting police brutality and violence, Coyne presented the student movement as itself inherently violent, instead of at times erupting in violent reactions to state violence, which is far more extreme in every case. The Toronto Sun even had an article which claimed that the students have employed tactics of “thuggery” and “violent criminal behaviour.” Publications regularly ask their readers if Quebec students have “legitimate” grievances, if they are fighting for “social justice,” or if they are just “spoiled brats.” A syndicated column from theVancouver Sun by Licia Corbella was titled, “How rioting students help make me grateful.” She discussed her latest visit to church where the pastor advised: “Parents, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them,” and mentioned how parents anger their children by “belittling them, underestimating them and not treating them as individuals.” Corbella then took particular note of how parents provoke and enrage children “when we give them a sense of entitlement.” With the word “entitlement,” Corbella naturally then began thinking about Quebec students, as according to Corbella’s pastor, “entitlement leads to rage.” Corbella wrote that rioting “is, in essence, what a spoiled two-year-old would do if they had the ability.” She further wrote: “In Quebec, these entitled youth, who believe the rest of society MUST provide them with an almost free education or else, have blocked other students from accessing the educations they paid for, burned vehicles, smashed shop windows, looted property and severely beaten up a police officer who got separated from the rest of his colleagues.” Again, no mention of the two students who were almost killed by police at the same event. Corbella quoted someone interviewed on TV, endorsing the claim that the student protests are “starting to resemble terrorism,” though she took issue with the word “starting.” This is the result of creating, according to Corbell, “an entitlement society.” Apparently, the pastor’s lesson about not “belittling” the young did not sink in with Corbella. An article in the Chronicle Heraldasked, “What planet are these kids on?” The author then wrote that, “the irony is that these students now want the system to accommodate their desires and for someone else to pay the bill,” and that, “students should stop making foolish demands.” Other articles claim that students “need a lesson in economics.” After all, the fact that the majority of economists, fully armed with “lessons in economics,” were unable to predict the massive global economic crisis in 2008, should obviously not lead to any questioning of the ideology of modern economic theory. No, it would be better for students to learn about the ocean from those who couldn’t see a tsunami as it approached the beach. Another article, written by a former speechwriter to the Prime Minister of Canada, wrote that the student arguments were vacuous and that the youth were in a “state of complete denial.” Rex Murphy, a commentator with the National Post and CBC, referred to the student strike as “short-sighted” and that student actions were “crude attempts at precipitating a crisis.” Student actions, he claimed, were the “actions of a mob” and were “simply wrong,” and thus, should be “condemned.” The CBC has been particularly terrible in their coverage of the student movement. With few exceptions, the Canadian media have established a consensus in opposition to the student protests, and use techniques of omission, distortion, or outright condemnation in order to promote a distinctly anti-student stance.
10) The student movement is part of a much larger emerging global movement of resistance against austerity, neoliberalism, and corrupt power: In the coverage and discourse about the student movement, very little context is given in placing this student movement in a wider global context. The British newspaper, The Guardian, acknowledged this context, commenting on the red squares worn by striking students (a symbol of going squarely into the red, into debt), explaining that they have “become a symbol of the most powerful challenge to neoliberalism on the continent.” The article also adopted the term promoted by the student movement itself to describe the wider social context of the protests, calling it the “Maple Spring.” The author placed the fight against tuition increases in the context of a struggle against austerity measures worldwide, writing: “Forcing students to pay more for education is part of a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the rich – as with privatization and the state’s withdrawal from service-provision, tax breaks for corporations and deep cuts to social programs.” The article noted how the student movement has linked up with civic groups against a Quebec government plan to subsidize mining companies in exploiting the natural resources of Northern Quebec (Plan Nord), taking land from indigenous peoples to give to multibillion dollar corporations. As one of the student leaders stated, the protest was about more than tuition and was aimed at the elite class itself, “Those people are a single elite, a greedy elite, a corrupt elite, a vulgar elite, an elite that only sees education as an investment in human capital, that only sees a tree as a piece of paper and only sees a child as a future employee.” The student strike has thus become a social movement. The protests aim at economic disruption through civil disobedience, and have garnered the support of thousands of protesters, and 200,000 protesters on March 22, and close to 300,000 on April 22. Protests have blocked entrances to banks, disrupted a conference for the Plan Nord exploitation, linking the movement with indigenous and environmental groups. It was only when the movement began to align with other social movements and issues that the government even accepted the possibility of speaking to students. Unions have also increasingly been supporting the student strike, including with large financial contributions. Though, the large union support for the student movement was also involved in attempted co-optation and undermining of the students. At the negotiations between the government and the students, the union leaders convinced the student leaders to accept the deal, which met none of the student demands and kept the tuition increases intact. There was a risk that the major unions were essentially aiming to undermine the student movement. But the student groups, which had to submit the agreement to democratic votes, rejected the horrible government offer. Thus the Maple Spring continues. Quebec is not the only location with student protests taking place. In Chile, a massive student movement has emerged and developed over the past year, changing the politics of the country and challenging the elites and the society they have built for their own benefit. One of the leaders of the Chilean student movement is a 23-year old young woman, Camila Vallejo, who has attained celebrity status. In Quebec’s student movement, the most visible and vocal leader is 21-year old Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who has also achieved something of celebrity status within the province. Just as in Quebec, student protests in Chile are met with state violence, though in the Latin American country, the apparatus of state violence is the remnants of a U.S.-supported military dictatorship. Still, this does not stop tens of thousands of students going out into the streets in Santiago, as recently as late April. Protests by students have also been emerging elsewhere, often in cooperation and solidarity with the Occupy movement and other anti-austerity protests. Silent protests are emerging at American universities where students are protesting their massive debts. California students have been increasingly protesting increased tuition costs. Student protests at UC Berkeley ended with 12 citations for trespassing. Some students in California have even begun a hunger strike against tuition increases. In Brooklyn, New York, students protesting against tuition increases, many of them wearing the Quebec “red square” symbol, were assaulted by police officers. Even high school students in New York have been protesting. Israeli social activists are back on the streets protesting against austerity measures. An Occupy group has resumed protests in London. The Spanish indignado movement, which began in May of 2011, saw a resurgence on the one year anniversary, with another round of anti-austerity protests in Spain, bringing tens of thousands of protesters, mostly youths, out into the streets of Madrid, and more than 100,000 across the country. Their protest was met with police repression. Increasingly, students, the Occupy movement, and other social groups are uniting in protests against the costs of higher education and the debts of students. This is indeed the context in which the ‘Maple Spring’ – the Quebec student movement – should be placed, as part of a much broader global anti-austerity movement.
So march on, students. Show Quebec, Canada, and the world what it takes to oppose parasitic elites, mafia-connected politicians, billionaire bankers, and seek to change a social, political, and economic system that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
Solidarity, brothers and sisters!
For a comprehensive analysis of the Quebec student strike, see: “The Québec Student Strike: From ‘Maple Spring’ to Summer Rebellion?”
For up to date news and information of student movements around the world, join this Facebook page: We Are the Youth Revolution.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People’s Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, “Empire, Power, and People,” on BoilingFrogsPost.com.
Québec's Student Strike Turning Into a Citizens' Revolt
Québec's Student Strike Turning Into a Citizens' Revolt
Friday, 25 May 2012 10:25 By Elizabeth Leier, Truthout | News Analysis
Quebec student strikes. (Photo: Robin Dumont / Flickr)The province of Québec is no stranger to large and powerful social movements (the 1949 Asbestos Strike comes to mind, as does the Summit of the Americas in Québec City, in 2001). However, the ongoing conflict between the provincial government and striking students and their supporters will go down in history as one of the province's - indeed the country's - biggest mass protests. On its 102nd day, the student movement is growing, as is the awareness of an ever more oppressive and corrupt government.
On May 22, nearly half a million people marched in the streets of Montreal in defiance of a recently adopted law denying protester's civil liberties, namely the right to protest, freedom of association and of expression. A crowd made up of students, professors, children and citizens from every walk of life marched peacefully throughout the city, ignoring provisions prohibiting any deviation from the planned itinerary and disrupting the commercial and banking district. The crowd openly defied articles of Bill 78, which make any gathering of over 50 protesters illegal, and chanted for the resignation of Premier Jean Charest, who has systematically refused to meet with the students personally. Many consider that the government's refusal to find a solution and, indeed, its increasingly repressive position have given the movement a second wind.
On Wednesday, May 23, more than 3,000 people assembled in Montreal, in Emilie-Gamelin Square for the 30th nightly protest, while throughout the city, citizens spontaneously took to the streets (in some neighborhoods, over 2,000 people) banging on pots and pans and blocking busy roads, in a situation reminiscent of the Argentinian protests of 2001. No longer just a student strike, the Maple Spring is fast becoming a widespread citizens' revolt.
The Emilie Gamelin protest was declared illegal instants after it began, even though there had been no acts of violence from protesters. In fact, the one act of violence was directed at protesters, as a car whose driver decided to drive through the people barricading the street deliberately hit two young men.
Police tolerated the protesters until 1 AM, at which point they began to kettle the marchers within strategic parts of the city. Cavalry officers and baton-wielding municipal police had planned on striking forcefully and doubled their numbers. Most who were present insist that the march had been entirely peaceful, though the police contest this and claim that some projectiles were thrown at them (rocks, mostly). However, you will be hard-pressed to find any footage or pictures of these supposed acts taking place, although scores of journalists and cameras were present.
The police then proceeded to a mass arrest of 512 people and, though they gave the order to disperse, several protesters say that the police did not allow them to leave the kettle. The protesters then spent several hours in crowded city buses, denied water and access to toilets, waiting to be taken to a local detention center and identified. Most were levied a hefty fine ($612), though 12 were charged under the criminal code. In Québec City, 176 people were arrested for staging a sit-in.
Many people are calling these arrests outrageous and unjustified. Nightly protests in Montreal now resemble a war zone with flash bombs going off every few minutes and riot police chasing people down the streets.
The climate in the province is currently one of fear and anger. It is impossible to walk around Montreal in the evening without seeing hundreds of police cars, flanked by buses carrying hundreds of riot police, armed with high-pressure water guns and rubber bullets.
Some have commented that the streets of Montreal remind them of the images coming from Syria.
Recently, there have been rumors of military intervention. This would not be a first for the province, as the War Measures Act was invoked in 1970 during what came to be known as the "October Crisis." Memories of this crisis still haunt the collective Québec consciousness and any mention of military intervention is met with expressions of angst. Ironically, Article 9 of the new law provides the minister of education with far-reaching powers to adapt (read suspend) any provincial law in order to break the strike.
However, the general mood of the protesters has not changed; they have become more determined and, with the movement growing larger as a result of Bill 78, further convinced they are closer to winning than ever. Indeed, nearly everyone now agrees that what started out as a refusal to accept an 82 percent tuition fee hike - and the possible lifetime of debt peonage associated thereto - has turned into something much greater. As Sid Ryan from the Ontario Federation of Labor has said: we could be on our way to a Canadian spring. People see what the students are fighting for - while centered on tuition - is all about inequality and accessibility.
What is certain about this movement is that the generation that is currently fighting, a generation that has grown up in a post 9/11 and austerity-riddled world, is learning firsthand how the current political system functions and they aren't happy about it.
Friday, 25 May 2012 10:25 By Elizabeth Leier, Truthout | News Analysis
Quebec student strikes. (Photo: Robin Dumont / Flickr)The province of Québec is no stranger to large and powerful social movements (the 1949 Asbestos Strike comes to mind, as does the Summit of the Americas in Québec City, in 2001). However, the ongoing conflict between the provincial government and striking students and their supporters will go down in history as one of the province's - indeed the country's - biggest mass protests. On its 102nd day, the student movement is growing, as is the awareness of an ever more oppressive and corrupt government.
On May 22, nearly half a million people marched in the streets of Montreal in defiance of a recently adopted law denying protester's civil liberties, namely the right to protest, freedom of association and of expression. A crowd made up of students, professors, children and citizens from every walk of life marched peacefully throughout the city, ignoring provisions prohibiting any deviation from the planned itinerary and disrupting the commercial and banking district. The crowd openly defied articles of Bill 78, which make any gathering of over 50 protesters illegal, and chanted for the resignation of Premier Jean Charest, who has systematically refused to meet with the students personally. Many consider that the government's refusal to find a solution and, indeed, its increasingly repressive position have given the movement a second wind.
On Wednesday, May 23, more than 3,000 people assembled in Montreal, in Emilie-Gamelin Square for the 30th nightly protest, while throughout the city, citizens spontaneously took to the streets (in some neighborhoods, over 2,000 people) banging on pots and pans and blocking busy roads, in a situation reminiscent of the Argentinian protests of 2001. No longer just a student strike, the Maple Spring is fast becoming a widespread citizens' revolt.
The Emilie Gamelin protest was declared illegal instants after it began, even though there had been no acts of violence from protesters. In fact, the one act of violence was directed at protesters, as a car whose driver decided to drive through the people barricading the street deliberately hit two young men.
Police tolerated the protesters until 1 AM, at which point they began to kettle the marchers within strategic parts of the city. Cavalry officers and baton-wielding municipal police had planned on striking forcefully and doubled their numbers. Most who were present insist that the march had been entirely peaceful, though the police contest this and claim that some projectiles were thrown at them (rocks, mostly). However, you will be hard-pressed to find any footage or pictures of these supposed acts taking place, although scores of journalists and cameras were present.
The police then proceeded to a mass arrest of 512 people and, though they gave the order to disperse, several protesters say that the police did not allow them to leave the kettle. The protesters then spent several hours in crowded city buses, denied water and access to toilets, waiting to be taken to a local detention center and identified. Most were levied a hefty fine ($612), though 12 were charged under the criminal code. In Québec City, 176 people were arrested for staging a sit-in.
Many people are calling these arrests outrageous and unjustified. Nightly protests in Montreal now resemble a war zone with flash bombs going off every few minutes and riot police chasing people down the streets.
The climate in the province is currently one of fear and anger. It is impossible to walk around Montreal in the evening without seeing hundreds of police cars, flanked by buses carrying hundreds of riot police, armed with high-pressure water guns and rubber bullets.
Some have commented that the streets of Montreal remind them of the images coming from Syria.
Recently, there have been rumors of military intervention. This would not be a first for the province, as the War Measures Act was invoked in 1970 during what came to be known as the "October Crisis." Memories of this crisis still haunt the collective Québec consciousness and any mention of military intervention is met with expressions of angst. Ironically, Article 9 of the new law provides the minister of education with far-reaching powers to adapt (read suspend) any provincial law in order to break the strike.
However, the general mood of the protesters has not changed; they have become more determined and, with the movement growing larger as a result of Bill 78, further convinced they are closer to winning than ever. Indeed, nearly everyone now agrees that what started out as a refusal to accept an 82 percent tuition fee hike - and the possible lifetime of debt peonage associated thereto - has turned into something much greater. As Sid Ryan from the Ontario Federation of Labor has said: we could be on our way to a Canadian spring. People see what the students are fighting for - while centered on tuition - is all about inequality and accessibility.
What is certain about this movement is that the generation that is currently fighting, a generation that has grown up in a post 9/11 and austerity-riddled world, is learning firsthand how the current political system functions and they aren't happy about it.
Open Letter to Black Bloc Anarchists, and undefined Anarchist:Michael Staudenmaier.
Open Letter to Black Bloc Anarchists, and undefined Anarchist:Michael Staudenmaier.
Cut It Out: An Open Letter to Black Bloc Anarchists
by Carl Gibson
I like to compare those using Black Bloc tactics at a nonviolent protest to taking a 6 year-old kid to the symphony. You’ll likely find yourself constantly apologizing to those sitting in your row when the child makes fart jokes every time he hears the tympani. No matter what you do, how nice you are, how appreciative you are of the music or how knowledgeable of the composer you are, the crowd will only remember you for having the annoying kid with you who ruined it for everybody.
The highlight of the historic NATO summit protests in Chicago last weekend was when Iraq Veterans Against the War, joined by their families, threw their war medals in the direction of McCormick Place, where NATO generals were meeting, to denounce the senseless violence they committed to earn their medals. The veterans also delivered a flag to the mother of a soldier who committed suicide. An Afghan woman tearfully denounced the war that took the lives of family members. The ceremony was powerful and emotionally-gripping, and showed that members of the military rejected being sent overseas to risk their lives so the 0.1% in the military-industrial complex could profit from wasteful contracts and resource exploitation. And it would have been the media’s top story and the topic of everyone’s conversations if you didn’t have to act like a selfish bunch of ass clowns.
According to those who were there, you disrespected the veterans by chanting through the Iraq Veterans Against the War’s call for a moment of silence for lives lost overseas. By starting confrontations with riot police during the ceremony, you deprived veterans and their families their moment of justice for your own selfish need to have all the attention. You didn’t stop war, end capitalism, or even get close to the NATO summit. All you did was attract more riot police to an otherwise peaceful event, leading to kettlings, beatings and arrests. Way to go.
I’m willing to accept that there were likely several agents provocateur working with the police inside of a Black Bloc to incite violence. I’ll acknowledge that even within your ranks, some differ with others using the most extreme tactics. And I’ll denounce police for kettling and beating protesters with unforgiving brutality. But I’m still going to say it: your tactics do our movement more harm than good, and you need to just cut it out already.
The thing is, Black Bloc tactics actually serve the cause of the 0.1%. By making the dominant message about protesters vs. police instead of 99% vs. 0.1%, your tactics divide public opinion and turn it against the majority of those in the movement who don’t believe in violence of any kind, including property destruction. Infantile behavior taken by some of you, like taunting police, blowing cigarette smoke in their faces and throwing rocks through the windows of small businesses takes the moral high ground away from the movement, legitimizes the rule of the 0.1% and justifies the existence of an oppressive police state to the average American whom we’re trying to reach.
The top commenter on this YouTube video explaining Black Bloc said, “Black Bloc activists are the true revolutionaries, not these pacifists who advocate social democracy as a way to clean up capitalism's bullshit.” Another Black Bloc anarchist at the NATO summit said, "We're the ones that stand up and say, 'Fuck the police...We're the ones that have balls." Such ignorance exemplifies the futility of Black Bloc tactics. No matter how much you destroy or how intimidating you appear, the police state and the military-industrial complex will always have more armor, more guns, more tear gas and pepper spray than you can take, and in any standoff, they will beat you 100% of the time. Cops know how to handle violence. And city governments will continue to spend millions of dollars defending them when they attack you without abandon.
Occupy Wall Street was unknown outside of our own circles until an NYPD officer famously pepper-sprayed two women without provocation, even getting Jon Stewart to talk about the event. When student protesters at UC Davis were unjustly attacked, the world saw it and got angry. These actions forced average Americans to take the side of the victims, or at least learn more about their cause. But when your group of black-clad anarchists curses at cops and smashes windows to protest capitalism and get beaten by police afterward, you are only justifying your own punishment by testosterone-fueled riot police eager to crack a head with a baton and strengthening capitalism’s iron grip on society.
Nobody asked you to be the self-appointed “Defenders of Dissent” at our actions. Nobody asked you to give us lessons in how to be “real activists.” If you want to join the movement, join the movement. But stop dividing the movement into the “true revolutionaries” and “fake activists.” You aren’t helping anyone except the 0.1%. Either cut it out or go the hell away.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You can contact Carl at usuncut@gmail.com, and listen to his online radio talk show, Swag The Dog, at blogtalkradio.com/swag-the-dog.
Cut It Out: An Open Letter to Black Bloc Anarchists
by Carl Gibson
I like to compare those using Black Bloc tactics at a nonviolent protest to taking a 6 year-old kid to the symphony. You’ll likely find yourself constantly apologizing to those sitting in your row when the child makes fart jokes every time he hears the tympani. No matter what you do, how nice you are, how appreciative you are of the music or how knowledgeable of the composer you are, the crowd will only remember you for having the annoying kid with you who ruined it for everybody.
The highlight of the historic NATO summit protests in Chicago last weekend was when Iraq Veterans Against the War, joined by their families, threw their war medals in the direction of McCormick Place, where NATO generals were meeting, to denounce the senseless violence they committed to earn their medals. The veterans also delivered a flag to the mother of a soldier who committed suicide. An Afghan woman tearfully denounced the war that took the lives of family members. The ceremony was powerful and emotionally-gripping, and showed that members of the military rejected being sent overseas to risk their lives so the 0.1% in the military-industrial complex could profit from wasteful contracts and resource exploitation. And it would have been the media’s top story and the topic of everyone’s conversations if you didn’t have to act like a selfish bunch of ass clowns.
According to those who were there, you disrespected the veterans by chanting through the Iraq Veterans Against the War’s call for a moment of silence for lives lost overseas. By starting confrontations with riot police during the ceremony, you deprived veterans and their families their moment of justice for your own selfish need to have all the attention. You didn’t stop war, end capitalism, or even get close to the NATO summit. All you did was attract more riot police to an otherwise peaceful event, leading to kettlings, beatings and arrests. Way to go.
I’m willing to accept that there were likely several agents provocateur working with the police inside of a Black Bloc to incite violence. I’ll acknowledge that even within your ranks, some differ with others using the most extreme tactics. And I’ll denounce police for kettling and beating protesters with unforgiving brutality. But I’m still going to say it: your tactics do our movement more harm than good, and you need to just cut it out already.
The thing is, Black Bloc tactics actually serve the cause of the 0.1%. By making the dominant message about protesters vs. police instead of 99% vs. 0.1%, your tactics divide public opinion and turn it against the majority of those in the movement who don’t believe in violence of any kind, including property destruction. Infantile behavior taken by some of you, like taunting police, blowing cigarette smoke in their faces and throwing rocks through the windows of small businesses takes the moral high ground away from the movement, legitimizes the rule of the 0.1% and justifies the existence of an oppressive police state to the average American whom we’re trying to reach.
The top commenter on this YouTube video explaining Black Bloc said, “Black Bloc activists are the true revolutionaries, not these pacifists who advocate social democracy as a way to clean up capitalism's bullshit.” Another Black Bloc anarchist at the NATO summit said, "We're the ones that stand up and say, 'Fuck the police...We're the ones that have balls." Such ignorance exemplifies the futility of Black Bloc tactics. No matter how much you destroy or how intimidating you appear, the police state and the military-industrial complex will always have more armor, more guns, more tear gas and pepper spray than you can take, and in any standoff, they will beat you 100% of the time. Cops know how to handle violence. And city governments will continue to spend millions of dollars defending them when they attack you without abandon.
Occupy Wall Street was unknown outside of our own circles until an NYPD officer famously pepper-sprayed two women without provocation, even getting Jon Stewart to talk about the event. When student protesters at UC Davis were unjustly attacked, the world saw it and got angry. These actions forced average Americans to take the side of the victims, or at least learn more about their cause. But when your group of black-clad anarchists curses at cops and smashes windows to protest capitalism and get beaten by police afterward, you are only justifying your own punishment by testosterone-fueled riot police eager to crack a head with a baton and strengthening capitalism’s iron grip on society.
Nobody asked you to be the self-appointed “Defenders of Dissent” at our actions. Nobody asked you to give us lessons in how to be “real activists.” If you want to join the movement, join the movement. But stop dividing the movement into the “true revolutionaries” and “fake activists.” You aren’t helping anyone except the 0.1%. Either cut it out or go the hell away.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Old Lyme, Connecticut. You can contact Carl at usuncut@gmail.com, and listen to his online radio talk show, Swag The Dog, at blogtalkradio.com/swag-the-dog.
The Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans For Peace Boston Memorial Day For Peace Ceremony
Click on the headline to link to The Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans For Peace Boston Memorial Day For Peace Ceremony.
From "Occupy Student Debt" -A Statement Of Purpose
At our last meeting, we agreed to put out a statement that updated and summarized the campaign's standpoint, Here is the final version, Please circulate the text below.
ar/
A Statement from the Occupy Student Debt Campaign
Everybody is now talking about the student debt crisis, but nothing is being done about it. Thanks in large part to the great public amplifier of the Occupy movement, this year’s presidential contenders have been forced to embrace student loan reform as a talking point in their respective campaigns. But the debt relief being pushed by the Obama administration is a token gesture, aimed at getting some traction on the youth vote--especially the more disillusioned or alienated student constituencies. Recent bills introduced in Congress--Student Loan Forgiveness Act (H.R. 4170) and the Private Student Bankruptcy Fairness Act (H.R. 2028)--have zero chance of passing in anything like their current form. Practically speaking, no reform program of any substance is on the legislative horizon, least of all one that would regulate the predatory lending practices of Wall Street banks.
The truth is that student debt relief is too important to be left to elected officials. They are chronically dependent on the financial backing of the lending industry, and are structurally incapable of addressing this crisis, let alone resolving it. As a result, reform initiatives such as Student Loan Justice and Forgive Student Debt (to Stimulate the Economy) that have been aimed at petitioning lawmakers have very little to show for all their hard effort. The recent federal modifications in payment schedules are micro-cosmetic compared to the sea-change that is required to free debtors of their intolerable burdens and rescue higher education from its increasing use as a profit engine for financiers, asset speculators, and real estate developers. The pathway to this outcome does not lie in futile pleas for economic reform, but through a political movement, driven by self-empowerment and direct action on the part of debtors.
The Occupy Student Debt Campaign was launched at Zuccotti Park in November 2011 with the goal of building a student debt abolition movement. Our campaign is based on principles for which we believe there is widespread support
1) Free public education, through federal coverage of tuition fees.
2) Zero-interest student loans, so that no one can profit from them
3) Fiscal transparency at all universities, public as well as private
4) The elimination of current student debt, through a single act of relief.
These are interlocking principles, and should not stand on their own. Imagine a world in which lawmakers were to respond positively to the current calls for debt “forgiveness” (an unfortunate term that implies the debtor has sinned). Such a measure would offer much-needed relief, but it would still disadvantage future debtors if it were not complemented by remedies that brought to an end the practice of compelling students to privately fund higher education by going into debt bondage. So, too, a singular focus on reducing interest rates (even to zero) is more likely to encourage colleges to increase their fees than to open up equitable access to education.
In light of Wall Street’s stranglehold on Congress, the Occupy Student Debt Campaign holds that alternative strategies are necessary to promote and publicize our principles. That is why it endorses the practice of debt refusal as a legitimate response to the predicament of individuals and communities targeted by predatory lenders, or by state officials seeking to pass on the costs of the financial crisis in the guise of austerity measures. Greece, Chile, England, Italy, Spain, and Quebec have all seen popular revolts against government efforts to preserve, and extend, the power of financial elites to discipline selected populations. With each new outbreak of people’s voices, the imposition of debt is publicly exposed, not simply as a means of redistributing wealth upwards, but also as an instrument of social control.
Under current U.S. laws, defaulting on a student debt carries serious penalties. These laws are unjust, but they are a sharp deterrent to individuals who might otherwise consider refusing their debts. In response, our campaign advocates collective action. Even in its absence, the default rates are accelerating, with alarming consequences. Our Pledge of Refusal is framed as a debt strike threat (debtors pledge to withhold payments once a million others have signed). We welcome, and will support, other forms of debt refusal/strike that are consistent with the aim of building a broad political movement.
The culture of honoring all debts, even those unjustly incurred, is not universally respected, least of all on Wall Street. Loans are new forms of money and credit are created from nothing for the ultimate benefit of the lender; they are little more than numbers on a computer screen. Bankers know this, and so they treat their own debts accordingly, as matters to be renegotiated, restructured, or written off. Only the little people are supposed to pay in full. As this double standard becomes more and more apparent, debt refusal will emerge as the most rational response to an immoral predicament.
The struggle over wages was a defining feature of the industrial era. We believe that the struggle over debt will play a similar role in our own times. Not because wage-conflict is over (it never will be), but because debts, for most people, are the wages of the future.
Join Us!
The Occupy Student Debt Campaign
Web: www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org
Twitter: @StdntDebtPledge
Facebook: OccupyStudentDebtCampaign
(N.B. Our campaign tactics differ from those who own the Occupy Student Debt domain name, and who have no relationship to Occupy Wall Street)
ar/
A Statement from the Occupy Student Debt Campaign
Everybody is now talking about the student debt crisis, but nothing is being done about it. Thanks in large part to the great public amplifier of the Occupy movement, this year’s presidential contenders have been forced to embrace student loan reform as a talking point in their respective campaigns. But the debt relief being pushed by the Obama administration is a token gesture, aimed at getting some traction on the youth vote--especially the more disillusioned or alienated student constituencies. Recent bills introduced in Congress--Student Loan Forgiveness Act (H.R. 4170) and the Private Student Bankruptcy Fairness Act (H.R. 2028)--have zero chance of passing in anything like their current form. Practically speaking, no reform program of any substance is on the legislative horizon, least of all one that would regulate the predatory lending practices of Wall Street banks.
The truth is that student debt relief is too important to be left to elected officials. They are chronically dependent on the financial backing of the lending industry, and are structurally incapable of addressing this crisis, let alone resolving it. As a result, reform initiatives such as Student Loan Justice and Forgive Student Debt (to Stimulate the Economy) that have been aimed at petitioning lawmakers have very little to show for all their hard effort. The recent federal modifications in payment schedules are micro-cosmetic compared to the sea-change that is required to free debtors of their intolerable burdens and rescue higher education from its increasing use as a profit engine for financiers, asset speculators, and real estate developers. The pathway to this outcome does not lie in futile pleas for economic reform, but through a political movement, driven by self-empowerment and direct action on the part of debtors.
The Occupy Student Debt Campaign was launched at Zuccotti Park in November 2011 with the goal of building a student debt abolition movement. Our campaign is based on principles for which we believe there is widespread support
1) Free public education, through federal coverage of tuition fees.
2) Zero-interest student loans, so that no one can profit from them
3) Fiscal transparency at all universities, public as well as private
4) The elimination of current student debt, through a single act of relief.
These are interlocking principles, and should not stand on their own. Imagine a world in which lawmakers were to respond positively to the current calls for debt “forgiveness” (an unfortunate term that implies the debtor has sinned). Such a measure would offer much-needed relief, but it would still disadvantage future debtors if it were not complemented by remedies that brought to an end the practice of compelling students to privately fund higher education by going into debt bondage. So, too, a singular focus on reducing interest rates (even to zero) is more likely to encourage colleges to increase their fees than to open up equitable access to education.
In light of Wall Street’s stranglehold on Congress, the Occupy Student Debt Campaign holds that alternative strategies are necessary to promote and publicize our principles. That is why it endorses the practice of debt refusal as a legitimate response to the predicament of individuals and communities targeted by predatory lenders, or by state officials seeking to pass on the costs of the financial crisis in the guise of austerity measures. Greece, Chile, England, Italy, Spain, and Quebec have all seen popular revolts against government efforts to preserve, and extend, the power of financial elites to discipline selected populations. With each new outbreak of people’s voices, the imposition of debt is publicly exposed, not simply as a means of redistributing wealth upwards, but also as an instrument of social control.
Under current U.S. laws, defaulting on a student debt carries serious penalties. These laws are unjust, but they are a sharp deterrent to individuals who might otherwise consider refusing their debts. In response, our campaign advocates collective action. Even in its absence, the default rates are accelerating, with alarming consequences. Our Pledge of Refusal is framed as a debt strike threat (debtors pledge to withhold payments once a million others have signed). We welcome, and will support, other forms of debt refusal/strike that are consistent with the aim of building a broad political movement.
The culture of honoring all debts, even those unjustly incurred, is not universally respected, least of all on Wall Street. Loans are new forms of money and credit are created from nothing for the ultimate benefit of the lender; they are little more than numbers on a computer screen. Bankers know this, and so they treat their own debts accordingly, as matters to be renegotiated, restructured, or written off. Only the little people are supposed to pay in full. As this double standard becomes more and more apparent, debt refusal will emerge as the most rational response to an immoral predicament.
The struggle over wages was a defining feature of the industrial era. We believe that the struggle over debt will play a similar role in our own times. Not because wage-conflict is over (it never will be), but because debts, for most people, are the wages of the future.
Join Us!
The Occupy Student Debt Campaign
Web: www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org
Twitter: @StdntDebtPledge
Facebook: OccupyStudentDebtCampaign
(N.B. Our campaign tactics differ from those who own the Occupy Student Debt domain name, and who have no relationship to Occupy Wall Street)
Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans For Peace In Boston Memorial Day For Peace Ceremony
Click on headline to link to Smedley Butler Brigade Veterans For Peace In Boston Memorial Day For Peace Ceremony entry from Boston Dig.
From The Coaliton Of Immokalee (Fl) Workers-The Struggle Continues
June 4, 2012
#1 is done: Chipotle countdown a wrap!
Chipotle changes its tune... but the public just keeps on singing the same song!
When we first launched the Top Ten List of Falsehoods, Fibs, and Fabrications in Chipotle's Answer to a Customer's Email about the Campaign for Fair Food, we had planned, after nine weeks of meticulously deconstructing Chipotle's misleading missive, to end on a somewhat lighthearted note. But then Chipotle went and changed its response to questions about the Campaign for Fair Food, and the company's new answer -- though in many ways an implicit admission of the first email's outrageous overreaching -- requires its own rejoinder.
[For those of you who might be curious, the original idea for #1 on the countdown was a post about Chipotle's mistaken identification of Immokalee as a county in Florida (Immokalee is in fact an unincorporated community, one of the country's poorest towns), underscoring the irony that, in an email in which Chipotle asks its customers to believe that the burrito king understands farmworker reality better than the workers themselves do, the company can't even accurately locate Immokalee on a map...]
Chipotle's new response to inquiries about the Campaign is a trimmer, decidedly more humble explanation of its refusal to sign a Fair Food Agreement. Gone are the company's risible claims of having single-handedly reformed the Florida tomato industry (#'s 4 and 5 on the List), its declaration of longstanding support for the CIW (#6), its contention that the CIW is seeking to control its entire supply chain (#9). And, on balance, that's good. At least someone has been reading the List these past two months.
But the new response introduces a twist that simply cannot go unchallenged. Here's one iteration of it, from an interview of Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold by the Miami New Times:
"'What's important to understand about the nature of this issue,' he starts, 'is that when the CIW started their program in the mid-1990's, they were originally targeting growers. Then they switched gears, targeting large-scale buyers like Chipotle, or McDonald's, or Taco Bell... to get the buyers to put economic pressure on the growers so the growers would change their practices.
'Now more than 90% of all the tomatoes grown in Florida are grown under CIW's program; so in effect, they won. Anyone who wants to participate in their program can, and we've been doing that since 2009. We only work with growers who have signed on with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. We're working directly with growers rather than through an agreement with CIW. The result is the same in terms of benefits to the workers...'" read more
The first paragraph reflects the more accurate, less absurdly Chipotle-centric, history of the Campaign for Fair Food and the reform of the Florida tomato industry. This appears, at first blush, to be a significant step in the right direction for Chipotle's PR department after its disastrous effort to imply that Chipotle had somehow played a central role in bringing about the changes in Florida's fields. However reluctantly, Chipotle seems to have finally realized that it was nothing more than an extra, not the lead actor it would have its customers believe, in the history of the farmworkers' struggle for human rights in Florida, a history now in its third decade.
But then we get to the second paragraph.
It's in that second paragraph that Chipotle takes it upon itself to define not only what constitutes victory in the Campaign for Fair Food, but also -- and this is the real heart of the matter when it comes to Chipotle -- what it means to "participate" in the Fair Food Program.
On the question of "victory", Chipotle is, quite simply, wrong. Yes, 90% of the growers are participating, but that is only one part of the equation. In the Campaign for Fair Food, victory is a multi-factor proposition: Change = Workers + Consumers + Growers + Buyers doing their part to improve farm labor wages and working conditions. Workers, Consumers, and Growers are on board, as are many of the Buyers, but as long as Chipotle and the supermarket giants -- companies like Publix, Kroger, Giant, Stop & Shop, and Safeway -- refuse to sign Fair Food agreements, full and sustainable change will remain an elusive goal toward which we will not stop working.
Even if Chipotle declares victory for us.
On the question of what it means to "participate" in the Fair Food Program, here again Chipotle tries to talk its way out of truly doing its part. Participation is not simply paying the penny per pound and buying from participating growers. Participation is also making a binding commitment to do those things, and agreeing to allow for verification of the company's performance of its commitment. Otherwise, what is to keep Chipotle from reversing its course once the public attention wanes, since it was public attention that got Chipotle to pay the penny in the first place?
It isn't difficult to demonstrate that full and sustainable participation is only possible with a binding commitment and verification. Just ask yourself: What would happen if all the buyers were to follow Chipotle's approach? The resulting patchwork of unenforceable promises would fall apart the minute it was tested, and we have not come this far to build a future of Fair Food on a foundation of empty assurances.
No matter how strong Chipotle's faith in its own integrity may be.
The strategy behind Chipotle's latest response seems obvious: Strip away the ridiculous claims (they've become a liability, anyway), and stick to the idea that the battle for farmworkers' rights has been won, the Campaign for Fair Food is over, and whether the workers in Immokalee are capable of realizing it or not, it's time now for conscientious consumers to move on. [Ed note: Have you noticed Chipotle's convenient habit of assuming that farmworkers aren't capable of accurately analyzing their own situation? Must be a confusion left over from all those years of working to improve farm animals' rights.]
Should be interesting to see how this new strategy works out for them. Couldn't be much worse than the last one.
Next up: After two months of the Chipotle Countdown, what are Chipotle's customers saying about the company's refusal to sign a Fair Food agreement? We'll hear from some of the nearly 65,000 people who sent emails to Chipotle through the sumofus.org e-action alert, including some pretty piquant points of view...
May 30, 2012
Chipotle List #2 ready for your inspection...
CIW members and allies protest outside a Baltimore Chipotle two weeks ago, while a young consumer looks on and considers food from a whole new perspective.
#2: "... we only purchase our tomatoes from growers who have signed on with the CIW."
Fact: That may or may not be the case, but we'll just have to take Chipotle's word for it. We don't have the right to audit their purchases because we don't have a Fair Food Agreement with Chipotle.
Chipotle's approach to the Fair Food Program can be summarized in two words: "Trust us."
No partnership. No verification. No commitment. Just Chipotle promising that it will do the right thing.
If this sounds familiar, maybe that's because it's been tried before, though to that company's credit, it didn't take long before they came to realize that a true partnership with farmworkers is indispensable to any genuine effort to transform farm labor conditions.
Chipotle, on the other hand, hasn't learned that lesson quite yet.
And so people who crave "farmworker justice with their burritos" -- like the fine people of the Twin Cities pictured here on the right, who recently delivered a letter to the manager of a local Chipotle restaurant and wrote a fantastic blog post about it -- continue to try to teach Chipotle the true meaning of the expression "food with integrity."
Meanwhile Chipotle continues its one-man show of compliance with the Fair Food Code of Conduct. And no one's clapping.
Chipotle's produce broker (whom they share with McDonald's) submits monthly reports to the Fair Food Standards Council (FFSC), as do Participating Buyers in the Fair Food Program. The FFSC's accounting department then analyzes these reports, not only to check for compliance (for example, is the Buyer purchasing from a suspended or nonparticipating grower), but also to cross-check and reconcile these reports with Participating Growers' reports in order to gain a full picture of the transactions under the Fair Food Program.
The principal difference between Chipotle and the ten Participating Buyers contractually committed to the Fair Food Program, however, is that the other ten buyers have agreed to verify their purchases. In other words, they're not just saying, "Trust us." Instead, they are held to a very real standard of transparency that encourages accuracy. By signing a Fair Food Agreement, they have entered into a binding commitment to pay a premium on all their Florida tomato purchases and to buy only from Participating Growers, a commitment that can be verified and enforced, a commitment Chipotle won't make.
Chipotle, by its own design, has no direct contact with the FFSC, so you can forget about FFSC auditors showing up at the burrito giant's Denver headquarters for an audit of its tomato purchases anytime soon. The exchange of information between the two parties, such as it is, is filtered through a broker that answers to Chipotle. As a result, the FFSC is left with reports which may or may not tell the whole story about Chipotle's tomato supply chain. Even assuming the reports submitted by the broker accurately reflect its knowledge of Chipotle's Florida tomato purchases, there would be nothing to keep Chipotle from simultaneously using additional undisclosed brokers to purchase some large or small percentage of its Florida tomatoes totally outside the purview of the Fair Food Program, thereby denying farmworkers the "penny per pound" on all those purchases.
And that's exactly the point. Without a commitment to transparency, there can be no verification or legitimate claims of compliance.
And that will never satisfy people truly looking to consume "food with integrity," especially since real integrity, when it comes to farm labor justice, is just an agreement away. We'll give our friends in Minneapolis the final word in this update:
"... Similar to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, Chipotle has built a reputation for providing food with integrity. It’s amazing that they are willing to put that reputation on the line by resisting collaboration with CIW. Chipotle claims that they are instituting all of the conditions of the code of conduct; they just don’t want to sign the agreement with CIW. Yet without allowing for third-party verification, and given Chipotle’s history of questionable statements about its actions in support of farmworkers, Chipotle’s claims simply don’t have credence." read more
May 28, 2012
Another Lakeland community leader takes a stand, calls on Publix to join Fair Food Program!
The Rev. Andy Oliver, a United Methodist Elder from Lakeland, pens a powerful reflection on Publix and supply chain accountability, or "What Publix can learn from Apple"...
Despite Publix's almost iconic status in Lakeland, the central Florida community where the $28 billion grocery giant was founded back in 1930, more and more community leaders are taking a critical look at their hometown supermarket and finding it wanting when it comes to the treatment of farmworkers in its supply chain.
The latest such expression of disappointment with the Lakeland-based chain comes from the Rev. Andy Oliver, a United Methodist Elder who preached for some time at one of Lakeland's biggest churches. Rev. Oliver compares Publix's response to the Campaign for Fair Food to computer giant Apple's response to allegations of worker abuse at Foxconn, the Chinese factory where its iphones, ipods, and ipads are produced. He begins by describing Apple's decision to launch an investigation in to the complaints at Foxconn and the position taken by Apple CEO Tim Cook who, "welcomed the report and agreed to support its recommendations." He quoted the Apple CEO -- "We think empowering workers and helping them understand their rights is essential" -- and gave Apple "kudos... for investigating all the way down the supply chain, even if it might cut into their profit margin. This is a game changer that I hope will not only change Foxconn, but factories in the rest of China and the world."
Then he turns to Publix. After describing the "deplorable" labor conditions in Florida's fields, and expressing his frustration with Publix's decision to spread disinformation about the Campaign for Fair Food through a "whisper campaign" employing local surrogates rather than address those conditions, he concludes:
"... Publix is just as responsible for people at the beginning of the supply chain as they are for CEO Crenshaw’s salary. They are just as responsible as Nike was for those shoes being made in sweat shops. They are just as responsible as Apple is for the conditions at Foxconn.
The conversation is changing. As more and more people become aware of working conditions in Immokalee and other farms they are starting to ask questions about where their food comes from. Grocery stores do everything they can to not make you think about where your food comes from, but a more socially conscious people are starting to ask those questions. Award winning documentaries, “Payback” and “Food Chain” are about to raise the conversation to a higher level and a wider audience. More people are going to start to demand that Publix act more like Apple.
The difference between Apple and Publix is that Apple is doing something about it, even from half a world away. No one expects either Apple or Publix to fix injustice overnight, but we want them to honestly try. Publix has something to learn from Apple’s example. And if you don’t think that farm worker wages and conditions is Publix’s business, then I have a great job for you picking tomatoes on a farm in Immokalee." read more
It is a must-read article, which you can find in its entirety here. Don't miss it.
#1 is done: Chipotle countdown a wrap!
Chipotle changes its tune... but the public just keeps on singing the same song!
When we first launched the Top Ten List of Falsehoods, Fibs, and Fabrications in Chipotle's Answer to a Customer's Email about the Campaign for Fair Food, we had planned, after nine weeks of meticulously deconstructing Chipotle's misleading missive, to end on a somewhat lighthearted note. But then Chipotle went and changed its response to questions about the Campaign for Fair Food, and the company's new answer -- though in many ways an implicit admission of the first email's outrageous overreaching -- requires its own rejoinder.
[For those of you who might be curious, the original idea for #1 on the countdown was a post about Chipotle's mistaken identification of Immokalee as a county in Florida (Immokalee is in fact an unincorporated community, one of the country's poorest towns), underscoring the irony that, in an email in which Chipotle asks its customers to believe that the burrito king understands farmworker reality better than the workers themselves do, the company can't even accurately locate Immokalee on a map...]
Chipotle's new response to inquiries about the Campaign is a trimmer, decidedly more humble explanation of its refusal to sign a Fair Food Agreement. Gone are the company's risible claims of having single-handedly reformed the Florida tomato industry (#'s 4 and 5 on the List), its declaration of longstanding support for the CIW (#6), its contention that the CIW is seeking to control its entire supply chain (#9). And, on balance, that's good. At least someone has been reading the List these past two months.
But the new response introduces a twist that simply cannot go unchallenged. Here's one iteration of it, from an interview of Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold by the Miami New Times:
"'What's important to understand about the nature of this issue,' he starts, 'is that when the CIW started their program in the mid-1990's, they were originally targeting growers. Then they switched gears, targeting large-scale buyers like Chipotle, or McDonald's, or Taco Bell... to get the buyers to put economic pressure on the growers so the growers would change their practices.
'Now more than 90% of all the tomatoes grown in Florida are grown under CIW's program; so in effect, they won. Anyone who wants to participate in their program can, and we've been doing that since 2009. We only work with growers who have signed on with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. We're working directly with growers rather than through an agreement with CIW. The result is the same in terms of benefits to the workers...'" read more
The first paragraph reflects the more accurate, less absurdly Chipotle-centric, history of the Campaign for Fair Food and the reform of the Florida tomato industry. This appears, at first blush, to be a significant step in the right direction for Chipotle's PR department after its disastrous effort to imply that Chipotle had somehow played a central role in bringing about the changes in Florida's fields. However reluctantly, Chipotle seems to have finally realized that it was nothing more than an extra, not the lead actor it would have its customers believe, in the history of the farmworkers' struggle for human rights in Florida, a history now in its third decade.
But then we get to the second paragraph.
It's in that second paragraph that Chipotle takes it upon itself to define not only what constitutes victory in the Campaign for Fair Food, but also -- and this is the real heart of the matter when it comes to Chipotle -- what it means to "participate" in the Fair Food Program.
On the question of "victory", Chipotle is, quite simply, wrong. Yes, 90% of the growers are participating, but that is only one part of the equation. In the Campaign for Fair Food, victory is a multi-factor proposition: Change = Workers + Consumers + Growers + Buyers doing their part to improve farm labor wages and working conditions. Workers, Consumers, and Growers are on board, as are many of the Buyers, but as long as Chipotle and the supermarket giants -- companies like Publix, Kroger, Giant, Stop & Shop, and Safeway -- refuse to sign Fair Food agreements, full and sustainable change will remain an elusive goal toward which we will not stop working.
Even if Chipotle declares victory for us.
On the question of what it means to "participate" in the Fair Food Program, here again Chipotle tries to talk its way out of truly doing its part. Participation is not simply paying the penny per pound and buying from participating growers. Participation is also making a binding commitment to do those things, and agreeing to allow for verification of the company's performance of its commitment. Otherwise, what is to keep Chipotle from reversing its course once the public attention wanes, since it was public attention that got Chipotle to pay the penny in the first place?
It isn't difficult to demonstrate that full and sustainable participation is only possible with a binding commitment and verification. Just ask yourself: What would happen if all the buyers were to follow Chipotle's approach? The resulting patchwork of unenforceable promises would fall apart the minute it was tested, and we have not come this far to build a future of Fair Food on a foundation of empty assurances.
No matter how strong Chipotle's faith in its own integrity may be.
The strategy behind Chipotle's latest response seems obvious: Strip away the ridiculous claims (they've become a liability, anyway), and stick to the idea that the battle for farmworkers' rights has been won, the Campaign for Fair Food is over, and whether the workers in Immokalee are capable of realizing it or not, it's time now for conscientious consumers to move on. [Ed note: Have you noticed Chipotle's convenient habit of assuming that farmworkers aren't capable of accurately analyzing their own situation? Must be a confusion left over from all those years of working to improve farm animals' rights.]
Should be interesting to see how this new strategy works out for them. Couldn't be much worse than the last one.
Next up: After two months of the Chipotle Countdown, what are Chipotle's customers saying about the company's refusal to sign a Fair Food agreement? We'll hear from some of the nearly 65,000 people who sent emails to Chipotle through the sumofus.org e-action alert, including some pretty piquant points of view...
May 30, 2012
Chipotle List #2 ready for your inspection...
CIW members and allies protest outside a Baltimore Chipotle two weeks ago, while a young consumer looks on and considers food from a whole new perspective.
#2: "... we only purchase our tomatoes from growers who have signed on with the CIW."
Fact: That may or may not be the case, but we'll just have to take Chipotle's word for it. We don't have the right to audit their purchases because we don't have a Fair Food Agreement with Chipotle.
Chipotle's approach to the Fair Food Program can be summarized in two words: "Trust us."
No partnership. No verification. No commitment. Just Chipotle promising that it will do the right thing.
If this sounds familiar, maybe that's because it's been tried before, though to that company's credit, it didn't take long before they came to realize that a true partnership with farmworkers is indispensable to any genuine effort to transform farm labor conditions.
Chipotle, on the other hand, hasn't learned that lesson quite yet.
And so people who crave "farmworker justice with their burritos" -- like the fine people of the Twin Cities pictured here on the right, who recently delivered a letter to the manager of a local Chipotle restaurant and wrote a fantastic blog post about it -- continue to try to teach Chipotle the true meaning of the expression "food with integrity."
Meanwhile Chipotle continues its one-man show of compliance with the Fair Food Code of Conduct. And no one's clapping.
Chipotle's produce broker (whom they share with McDonald's) submits monthly reports to the Fair Food Standards Council (FFSC), as do Participating Buyers in the Fair Food Program. The FFSC's accounting department then analyzes these reports, not only to check for compliance (for example, is the Buyer purchasing from a suspended or nonparticipating grower), but also to cross-check and reconcile these reports with Participating Growers' reports in order to gain a full picture of the transactions under the Fair Food Program.
The principal difference between Chipotle and the ten Participating Buyers contractually committed to the Fair Food Program, however, is that the other ten buyers have agreed to verify their purchases. In other words, they're not just saying, "Trust us." Instead, they are held to a very real standard of transparency that encourages accuracy. By signing a Fair Food Agreement, they have entered into a binding commitment to pay a premium on all their Florida tomato purchases and to buy only from Participating Growers, a commitment that can be verified and enforced, a commitment Chipotle won't make.
Chipotle, by its own design, has no direct contact with the FFSC, so you can forget about FFSC auditors showing up at the burrito giant's Denver headquarters for an audit of its tomato purchases anytime soon. The exchange of information between the two parties, such as it is, is filtered through a broker that answers to Chipotle. As a result, the FFSC is left with reports which may or may not tell the whole story about Chipotle's tomato supply chain. Even assuming the reports submitted by the broker accurately reflect its knowledge of Chipotle's Florida tomato purchases, there would be nothing to keep Chipotle from simultaneously using additional undisclosed brokers to purchase some large or small percentage of its Florida tomatoes totally outside the purview of the Fair Food Program, thereby denying farmworkers the "penny per pound" on all those purchases.
And that's exactly the point. Without a commitment to transparency, there can be no verification or legitimate claims of compliance.
And that will never satisfy people truly looking to consume "food with integrity," especially since real integrity, when it comes to farm labor justice, is just an agreement away. We'll give our friends in Minneapolis the final word in this update:
"... Similar to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, Chipotle has built a reputation for providing food with integrity. It’s amazing that they are willing to put that reputation on the line by resisting collaboration with CIW. Chipotle claims that they are instituting all of the conditions of the code of conduct; they just don’t want to sign the agreement with CIW. Yet without allowing for third-party verification, and given Chipotle’s history of questionable statements about its actions in support of farmworkers, Chipotle’s claims simply don’t have credence." read more
May 28, 2012
Another Lakeland community leader takes a stand, calls on Publix to join Fair Food Program!
The Rev. Andy Oliver, a United Methodist Elder from Lakeland, pens a powerful reflection on Publix and supply chain accountability, or "What Publix can learn from Apple"...
Despite Publix's almost iconic status in Lakeland, the central Florida community where the $28 billion grocery giant was founded back in 1930, more and more community leaders are taking a critical look at their hometown supermarket and finding it wanting when it comes to the treatment of farmworkers in its supply chain.
The latest such expression of disappointment with the Lakeland-based chain comes from the Rev. Andy Oliver, a United Methodist Elder who preached for some time at one of Lakeland's biggest churches. Rev. Oliver compares Publix's response to the Campaign for Fair Food to computer giant Apple's response to allegations of worker abuse at Foxconn, the Chinese factory where its iphones, ipods, and ipads are produced. He begins by describing Apple's decision to launch an investigation in to the complaints at Foxconn and the position taken by Apple CEO Tim Cook who, "welcomed the report and agreed to support its recommendations." He quoted the Apple CEO -- "We think empowering workers and helping them understand their rights is essential" -- and gave Apple "kudos... for investigating all the way down the supply chain, even if it might cut into their profit margin. This is a game changer that I hope will not only change Foxconn, but factories in the rest of China and the world."
Then he turns to Publix. After describing the "deplorable" labor conditions in Florida's fields, and expressing his frustration with Publix's decision to spread disinformation about the Campaign for Fair Food through a "whisper campaign" employing local surrogates rather than address those conditions, he concludes:
"... Publix is just as responsible for people at the beginning of the supply chain as they are for CEO Crenshaw’s salary. They are just as responsible as Nike was for those shoes being made in sweat shops. They are just as responsible as Apple is for the conditions at Foxconn.
The conversation is changing. As more and more people become aware of working conditions in Immokalee and other farms they are starting to ask questions about where their food comes from. Grocery stores do everything they can to not make you think about where your food comes from, but a more socially conscious people are starting to ask those questions. Award winning documentaries, “Payback” and “Food Chain” are about to raise the conversation to a higher level and a wider audience. More people are going to start to demand that Publix act more like Apple.
The difference between Apple and Publix is that Apple is doing something about it, even from half a world away. No one expects either Apple or Publix to fix injustice overnight, but we want them to honestly try. Publix has something to learn from Apple’s example. And if you don’t think that farm worker wages and conditions is Publix’s business, then I have a great job for you picking tomatoes on a farm in Immokalee." read more
It is a must-read article, which you can find in its entirety here. Don't miss it.
From UNAC-On Syria-Resolution on Iran and related issues-Approved at March 23-25 conference of United National Antiwar Coalition
Resolution on Iran and related issues-Approved at March 23-25 conference of United National Antiwar Coalition
U.S./NATO Troops Out Now! No to Imperialist Wars, Occupations, Sanctions, Embargoes!
Self-determination for All Oppressed People!
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) was founded on the principle of self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples. We demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./NATO troops, mercenaries and drones from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. We have every confidence that, free from imperialist intervention of every type, the oppressed nations and peoples of the world are fully capable of building societies that represent their interests as opposed to the imperial exploiters, neo-colonialists and would-be subjugators.
We have seen the horrific consequences of U.S. wars, "humanitarian" interventions, starvation sanctions, crippling embargoes and targeted assassinations. All have been employed to justify renewed imperialist conquest.
It is our task and obligation as antiwar and social justice activists within the United States to prevent the U.S./NATO's enormous military, economic and media power from imposing its will on the oppressed of the world in order to benefit the interest of the U.S. power elite – the 1%. UNAC opposes any form of U.S. military or economic intervention, sanctions, sabotage and assassinations in Iran and Syria, in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Africa in general and in all other countries, regions and continents where the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department or their allies seek to impose their will.
From: ujp-discuss-owner@lists.riseup.net [mailto:ujp-discuss-owner@lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of Tyler Cullis
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 1:52 PM
To: ujp-discuss@lists.riseup.net
Subject: Re: Reply: [ujp-discuss] Syria - protest at Park Street and/or educational program??
I have never viewed either lying or being agnostic about the crimes of others to be particularly useful in organizing people to an anti-intervention platform. That is as true in the case of Bashar al-Assad as others. It does not take a genius to figure out how to cater messaging so that we oppose both U.S.-NATO intervention in Syria and the brutalities of the Syrian regime.
In fact, I think it works quite the opposite: if we deny the crimes of Bashar al-Assad (and others) on flimsy grounds, then we’ll look to others just like what we are – fringe activists dedicated to remaining on the fringe. However, if we say that yes, Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator (just like his father) and the Syrian opposition (for all its faults) has the right to challenge his leadership, but U.S.-NATO intervention will make things worse and kill off any hopes at self-determination on the part of the Syrian people, then that is something people could be attracted to.
I suppose, if asked, most people would support the right of people to determine their own futures free from violence and unwanted influence. Why give up that moral claim, then? Why say that self-determination for the Syrian people is important when it comes to the U.S. and NATO, but unimportant (and even damaging) when it comes to Bashar al-Assad?
You would lose me if a call denied the brutalities of the Syrian regime, and I’m an anti-interventionist. Who, then, do you expect to attract with that messaging?
Tyler
On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 12:29 PM, David Rolde wrote:
I can't believe people are diverting by arguing about whether or not to include Libertarians. The more important issue is that we need to have clarity on Syria! The imperialist leaders of the so-called "USA", NATO, the Zionist regime, and the U.S.-puppet Arab monarchies are sending in agents and arming mercenaries to blow things up and shoot people in Syria. Then the imperialists, and the western media which they own and control, falsely accuse the Syrian government of wrong-doing. It is the Zionist imperialists who perpetrated the Houla massacre, not the Syrian government. But we have some people in Boston who are ostensibly anti-war activists, and who say they oppose military intervention, but who parrot the imperialist propaganda line of accusations against the Syrian government and who even share the imperialist goal of regime change in Syria. Even Elaine Hagopian is doing a version of this now. Regime change means chaos or the installation of a pro-U.S. pro-Zionist neoliberal puppet regime in Syria. The imperialists are spending a lot of money and effort on their propaganda campaign against Syria. If we accept this false propaganda as truth, then we are accepting the pre-text for all-out war on Syria. Our opposition would be hollow. And just as importantly, if we don't oppose the propaganda, then we fail to oppose the intense and terrible covert U.S.-imperialist war on Syria that is going on now and that has been going on for a while now. Anti-war activists in Boston need to stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and their government against the imperialist agents and imperialist-armed terrorists who are attacking Syria right now. We need to stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and their government not only for the sake of Syria but also in solidarity with Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians who are in alliance with Syria and who are also targets of the same imperialism that is targetting Syria, and in solidarity with billions of people in Russia, China and elsewhere who are eventual targets of genocidal imperialist violence after and if the U.S./NATO conquer Syria and Iran.
I strongly suggest including the International Action Center and A.N.S.W.E.R. in any anti-war rally for Syria. I strongly suggest excluding speakers who would agree with the official NATO accusations against Syria and/or who are calling for regime change in Syria. If there are anti-imperialist Libertarians, I wouldn't see a problem with them if they stick to the issue, and if they are really opposed to corporate Democrat/Republican governance of the "USA". Ron Paul is not a Libertarian. He is a Republican and a racist. I don't think it would be useful to have a presidential campaign speech for Ron Paul at an anti-war rally.
~ David Rolde
U.S./NATO Troops Out Now! No to Imperialist Wars, Occupations, Sanctions, Embargoes!
Self-determination for All Oppressed People!
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) was founded on the principle of self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples. We demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./NATO troops, mercenaries and drones from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. We have every confidence that, free from imperialist intervention of every type, the oppressed nations and peoples of the world are fully capable of building societies that represent their interests as opposed to the imperial exploiters, neo-colonialists and would-be subjugators.
We have seen the horrific consequences of U.S. wars, "humanitarian" interventions, starvation sanctions, crippling embargoes and targeted assassinations. All have been employed to justify renewed imperialist conquest.
It is our task and obligation as antiwar and social justice activists within the United States to prevent the U.S./NATO's enormous military, economic and media power from imposing its will on the oppressed of the world in order to benefit the interest of the U.S. power elite – the 1%. UNAC opposes any form of U.S. military or economic intervention, sanctions, sabotage and assassinations in Iran and Syria, in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Africa in general and in all other countries, regions and continents where the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department or their allies seek to impose their will.
From: ujp-discuss-owner@lists.riseup.net [mailto:ujp-discuss-owner@lists.riseup.net] On Behalf Of Tyler Cullis
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 1:52 PM
To: ujp-discuss@lists.riseup.net
Subject: Re: Reply: [ujp-discuss] Syria - protest at Park Street and/or educational program??
I have never viewed either lying or being agnostic about the crimes of others to be particularly useful in organizing people to an anti-intervention platform. That is as true in the case of Bashar al-Assad as others. It does not take a genius to figure out how to cater messaging so that we oppose both U.S.-NATO intervention in Syria and the brutalities of the Syrian regime.
In fact, I think it works quite the opposite: if we deny the crimes of Bashar al-Assad (and others) on flimsy grounds, then we’ll look to others just like what we are – fringe activists dedicated to remaining on the fringe. However, if we say that yes, Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator (just like his father) and the Syrian opposition (for all its faults) has the right to challenge his leadership, but U.S.-NATO intervention will make things worse and kill off any hopes at self-determination on the part of the Syrian people, then that is something people could be attracted to.
I suppose, if asked, most people would support the right of people to determine their own futures free from violence and unwanted influence. Why give up that moral claim, then? Why say that self-determination for the Syrian people is important when it comes to the U.S. and NATO, but unimportant (and even damaging) when it comes to Bashar al-Assad?
You would lose me if a call denied the brutalities of the Syrian regime, and I’m an anti-interventionist. Who, then, do you expect to attract with that messaging?
Tyler
On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 12:29 PM, David Rolde
I can't believe people are diverting by arguing about whether or not to include Libertarians. The more important issue is that we need to have clarity on Syria! The imperialist leaders of the so-called "USA", NATO, the Zionist regime, and the U.S.-puppet Arab monarchies are sending in agents and arming mercenaries to blow things up and shoot people in Syria. Then the imperialists, and the western media which they own and control, falsely accuse the Syrian government of wrong-doing. It is the Zionist imperialists who perpetrated the Houla massacre, not the Syrian government. But we have some people in Boston who are ostensibly anti-war activists, and who say they oppose military intervention, but who parrot the imperialist propaganda line of accusations against the Syrian government and who even share the imperialist goal of regime change in Syria. Even Elaine Hagopian is doing a version of this now. Regime change means chaos or the installation of a pro-U.S. pro-Zionist neoliberal puppet regime in Syria. The imperialists are spending a lot of money and effort on their propaganda campaign against Syria. If we accept this false propaganda as truth, then we are accepting the pre-text for all-out war on Syria. Our opposition would be hollow. And just as importantly, if we don't oppose the propaganda, then we fail to oppose the intense and terrible covert U.S.-imperialist war on Syria that is going on now and that has been going on for a while now. Anti-war activists in Boston need to stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and their government against the imperialist agents and imperialist-armed terrorists who are attacking Syria right now. We need to stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and their government not only for the sake of Syria but also in solidarity with Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians who are in alliance with Syria and who are also targets of the same imperialism that is targetting Syria, and in solidarity with billions of people in Russia, China and elsewhere who are eventual targets of genocidal imperialist violence after and if the U.S./NATO conquer Syria and Iran.
I strongly suggest including the International Action Center and A.N.S.W.E.R. in any anti-war rally for Syria. I strongly suggest excluding speakers who would agree with the official NATO accusations against Syria and/or who are calling for regime change in Syria. If there are anti-imperialist Libertarians, I wouldn't see a problem with them if they stick to the issue, and if they are really opposed to corporate Democrat/Republican governance of the "USA". Ron Paul is not a Libertarian. He is a Republican and a racist. I don't think it would be useful to have a presidential campaign speech for Ron Paul at an anti-war rally.
~ David Rolde
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