People's Democracy

Judy Rebeck

IT’S not easy to upstage the opening of meeting with 34 leaders including US president George Bush. Despite what seemed like endless volleys of tear gas, mostly peaceful protesters came back again and again to Rene Levesque Boulevard in Quebec City to face down the police, and in so doing captured the attention of world media.

The battle lasted almost two hours as police chased demonstrators off the plateau with heavy use of tear gas and demonstrators came back after recovering from the stinging pain in their eyes and throats. The most poignant moment was a sit down of about 20 people, flashing peace signs in the midst of a fog of tear gas.

Most media attention is on the perimeter breach and it was an impressive action. First a few, then more, climbed up the chain-link, surrounded the centre of the city to protect the Summit of the Americas, and, in a rocking action, pushed it down. By my watch it took less than five minutes for the hated fence to come down. The amazing thing was that only about 100 people rushed through the fence. The rest held back. It was the protesters, not the police, who controlled the crowd. I was astounded at the discipline. There were ten or twenty people out of about 3,000 throwing stones and bottles. In the march that wound its way along 6 miles from Laval University to the perimeter, these were the Black Bloc. While the rest of the protest was noisy and colourful, they were sombre, solemn, dressed all in black, several armed with sticks and stones and masked from the beginning of the march.

No doubt there will be debates about the Black Bloc tactics. The creativity of the other demonstrators was lost in the confrontation. One group, calling itself the Medieval Bloc, had built a 20-foot catapult and managed to manoeuvre it up to police lines. Then they hurled three stuffed toys into the police. One woman, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, walked all the way from Laval on stilts. Another group of women calling themselves ‘The Dandelions’ wore T-shirts with painted slogans like "the persistent radical blossom that will always bloom." A young man painted his T-shirt with the phrase, "It’s hard to hit a movement target."

Once the perimeter went down, all attention was on the intensity of the confrontation. And it was intense. This was the red/yellow march. That means there was a high chance of confrontation with the police. As demonstrators approached the perimeter, marshals announced that people wanting a green (safe) zone should turn left. No one did. Thousands approached the perimeter. They ran when the teargas exploded but they came back, time after time for two hours.

One of the most extraordinary developments on Friday (April 20) was the formation of a Canadian Labour Movement affinity group. Affiliates of the Canadian Labour Congress formally decided to join the direct action.

Friday was the direct action day. Today, Saturday, is to be the mass action day. But more than 5,000 people showed up at Laval University for the march to the perimeter, knowing that it would almost certainly lead to confrontation with the police.

There have been long debates about what should happen today when an estimated 40,000 people are expected to join the People’s March of the Americas. Organisers of today’s march have decided to march away from the perimeter they say for safety reasons. With so many people involved and the narrow streets of this beautiful old city, people could get trapped against the wall and hurt.

Others have argued that it is politically wrong to avoid the perimeter fence, which has become a hated symbol of the reduction of public space that free trade has inflicted upon us. What likely will happen is once the main march is over, a group will split off and march to the wall.

Organisers of the People’s Summit are upset about Friday’s action. They feel it brings discredit down on the movement. But it seems to me that it is direct confrontation with the police that has drawn so many youth into the struggle against anti-democratic trade deals.

It is true that there have been many important developments in Quebec City for the movement against free trade. For the first time, civil society across the Americas has agreed on a single political statement and a common strategy (pushing for a continental referendum and referendum in every country) to fight the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). The importance of this development cannot be overestimated. Up until a few years ago, the Latin American labour movement favoured free trade. But the impact of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association) on Mexico, further impoverishing the Mexican working class, has persuaded them to join the anti-free trade forces.

Organisers of the People’s Summit feel that the violence of the direct action diverts attention from their hard won gains. But as the saying goes, this is what democracy looks like. In a real mass movement, no one can control what happens. There are always differences. The trick, it seems to me, is to debate the differences but not get diverted or divided by them.