Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information

mtlcounter-info

A member of the RCP-Montreal assaults an employee of Café Aquin at his workplace

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Mar 312017
 

The team of Café Aquin (UQAM) wants to collectively respond to the assault that two employees were victims of, one of whom who was more specifically targeted by a member of the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Montréal (RCP). The assault took place this Tuesday, March 28, at 5:45 at Café Aquin.

Like many other people who care about solidarity and social justice, we’re compelled to act by the authoritarian direction of the RCP of Montreal, which has already been a problem for a while, and has been more present in the last months and weeks. On their site, you’ll find an example of an article that reports how four dissidents of the RCP were beaten and violently expelled from the Normand Béthune bookstore, the headquarters of the group. These dissidents were calling out the RCP Montreal for transphobia, anti-feminism, and authoritarianism.

It’s in this context that the events of Tuesday took place. Here’s a summary by two employees and three clients:

Around 5:30, this Tuesday March 28, two members of the RCP came to put their posters and distribute their fliers around and inside Café Aquin. Several minutes later, an employee who was on break told the two members that their posters and fliers aren’t welcome. Several moments later, the two members of the RCP reentered the café. One passed BEHIND the counter, into the area reserved for employees. He went towards the employee, who only critiqued them, in order to intimidate and threaten him, accompanied by shoving him. The employee told the aggressor to leave the space, telling him that it is his workplace and he’s not welcome. He was forced to add gestures to his words, for his own safety. After several moments, the employee, helped by another employee and several clients, managed to make them leave by bringing them to the exit. That is how the two members of the RCP left the café and Aquin pavilion.

The team at Café Aquin wants to unequivocally oppose the actions of these two members of the RCP (one active in the aggression, the other supporting it). The aggression of a worker AT his workplace is scandalous. All the more so given that these actions were committed by partisans of the Party that claims to defend the proletariat.

We’re sorry to all the clients who didn’t feel safe during the events. The Café Aquin is a space that wants to be safe, feminist, and solidaritous. For this reason, from today we are telling the two members of the RCP Montreal to no longer come to Café Aquin, and anyone who supports them to do the same.

Lastly, as the student café of UQAM, we equally hope that student associations who might support the RCP Montreal in whatever way (offering spaces, the printing of posters, etc.) reflect on their support for a Party whose practices and words are clearly contrary to their most basic mandates.

Sincerely and in solidarity,
The team at Café Aquin

Montreal antifa prevails: would you like a beating with your happy meal?

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Mar 272017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On March 25, 2017, approximately 200 people responded to a call to confront far-right groups planning to disrupt a day of anti-racist/anti-fascist workshops in Montreal. The call was made after a Facebook event calling to shut down the “terrorist workshop” surfaced. The event was made by the Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens (CCCC), the same group that called for the anti-immigrant March 4th demonstrations which occurred all across Canada. On that day, fascist group La Meute was able to take the streets of Montreal for the first time.

At around 9am, folks began to gather in front of the Hall Building of Concordia University’s downtown campus, where the workshop was to be held. The crowd was a mixture of students, anti-fascists, and anarchists, close to half of which had faces covered. It was a cold morning and drinking coffee without taking off our masks was proving more difficult than usual, but the very real threat of another far-right mobilization similar to that of March 4th kept us vigilant.

After about 45 minutes, a grey mini-van pulled up next to the crowd. From it emerged Georges Hallak, leader and seemingly the only member of CCCC. With a shit-eating grin and a Canadian flag affixed to a hockey stick (fucking Canadians…), he began to walk towards the crowd, making it just a few steps before his face met a barrage of fists. Police quickly made their way over, put Hallak in handcuffs, and stuffed him inside a cruiser.

The crowd cackled and cheered, equally excited and in disbelief of the scene that had transpired (seriously, a Canadian flag glued to a hockey stick…what the fuck?). To make matters even more ridiculous, it turned out that Hallak had actually been livestreaming on Facebook while all of this happened. The video of his swift demise lives on in our hearts and our hard-drives. The mood was thus set: it appeared that the crowd was feeling confrontational.

Ten minutes later, a lone skinhead materialized across the street. Clad in camo pants, some seriously tacky sunglasses, and “red braces”[1. Within a few racist skinhead circles, red braces have to be “earned” by some violent act such as attacking a perceived enemy of the white race. However, some skinheads wear red not because they have committed an act of violence but simply because it is part of their subculture.] (suspenders), the man waddled around, talked to cops, and hid behind a police cruiser, seemingly confused as to where the rest of his friends were. A few projectiles were thrown in his direction but the crowd did not engage with him further. Eventually a small group of masked individuals approached and pushed him to the ground (note: Doc Marten’s have terrible grip and don’t fare very well in the snow). After having gotten a few punches in, the scuffle was broken up by police, who pushed the masked individuals back into the crowd.

Amidst the excitement, we failed to notice that the driver of the mini-van had actually parked half a block from the demonstration. After confirming that this was in fact the same vehicle, the crowd approached it just a few seconds before it drove off. A volley of rocks pelted the speeding vehicle, though we were not able to catch up to it.

In Hallak’s livestream, he mentions having coordinated with Soldiers of Odin (SOO), an anti-immigrant vigilante group. SOO was formed in Finland in 2015 but has since established chapters in dozens of cities across Canada. Shortly after Hallak’s arrest, about twenty members of SOO were spotted in front of a McDonald’s a block away from the demonstration. A couple dozen people clad in masks broke off from the main crowd in an effort to confront them but police were everywhere.

Having regrouped, SOO marched towards the demonstration, making it just half-a-block before being met by an angry group of militants. Police at first prevented the two sides from clashing, but a small group used an alleyway to their advantage and was able to pelt the SOO group with eggs and chunks of ice. SOO pitifully made their way back to the McDonald’s and dispersed.

At some point during these initial confrontations, police were able to isolate one anti-fascist and beat and arrest him; he was later released with a ticket. The next couple hours saw many demonstrators head into the Hall Building to attend the morning’s workshop undisrupted, while a couple of hilarious events transpired outside.

Two SOO members were spotted eating cheeseburgers inside the McDonald’s. A small group of masked individuals entered the Golden Arches and attempted to confront them, but an incredibly awkward conversation broke out between the two groups instead. We stood around awkwardly while some people, presumably interested in the new all-day breakfast options, wondered if we were in line. The two men became increasingly cantankerous, and we decided reinforcements would be helpful. Soon, a crowd of twenty arrived from a block over and pummeled one of the SOO members with eggs and fists. When a pickup truck for them to flee in arrived on the corner, another member was beaten to the ground and the vehicle had a window broken with a well-placed rock.

Hallak’s mini-van, parked outside of the police station by his driver who was seemingly wanting to check up on him, was given a thorough redecoration (just in time for spring!). Police attempted to usher Hallak into the vehicle but were forced to stuff him back into a police cruiser when a small confrontational crowd emerged. The mini-van and cruiser drove off, not to be seen again.

After another hour and no sight of racists, demonstrators dispersed. The morning was eventful and filled with fun activities, a welcome morale boost after our failures on March 4th. However, we find it important to point out some areas that could use improvement.

Although the racists were definitely outnumbered and outmaneuvered, they were still able to assemble, even if only on the sidewalk. This itself can be seen as a victory for them. Their ability to take the streets will only serve to galvanize their ranks and provide opportunities for them to conduct outreach and recruit potential members. A no-platform approach works best if we make it absolutely impossible for them to show up in numbers.

The groups that show up to these events (CCCC, Soldiers of Odin, La Meute) have very public web presences. Online surveillance can help us glean crucial info in terms of their tactics and logistical capacity. These people’s faces and full names are all over Facebook.

These demonstrations can consist of a lot downtime. We sometimes wait for hours before any sign of the enemy arises. Let’s use this time to form informal assemblies or spokes-councils in which we can share ideas and discuss strategies in order to be more cohesive in the streets.

Enbridge Line 3: The Feeblest Head of the Hydra

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Mar 232017
 

From It’s Going Down

I started researching this article while at Standing Rock, after learning that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had approved a $7.5 billion pipeline project to replace Line 3. At the time, I didn’t even know such a proposal was on the table. In so-called Canada, the Kinder Morgan and Energy East pipelines have gotten the lion’s share of media attention.

My first thought when I saw the map of the pipeline route was that it seemed calculated to run through areas where the environmental movement is weakest and where anti-oil activism would be most unpopular. My second thought was to ask myself what I could do to help stop it. I think that in more hostile political climates it’s even more important that local organizers know that they have the support of a broader movement.

By the time I’d read a few articles I was excited about the possibilities of this campaign. Basically, Line 3 is an aging pipeline that has reached the end of its life-span. You could also call it a ticking time bomb. My point here is that if the Line 3 replacement project is stopped, and if Line 3 is taken off-line, then for the first time in the history of the anti-pipeline movement, we won’t simply be stopping them from expanding their capacity, we’ll actually be reducing it. We’ll be turning the tide.

What is Line 3?

Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project is a $7.5-billion-dollar project, slated to run southeast from Hardisty, Alberta (near Edmonton), through Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin, on the western tip of Lake Superior. The original 34-inch pipeline was built in 1968. The new pipeline would be 36 inches and could carry 760,000 barrels per day (bpd).

This project would be the most expensive in Enbridge’s history. The line is currently transporting about 390,000 bpd, far below its maximum throughput of 760,000 bpd. Its flow has been restricted for safety reasons.

Bizarrely, in this case Enbridge wants to convince regulators how unsafe Line 3 is. According to expert testimony the company provided to Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission, the corrosion and cracking is so extensive that further use could cause calamitous leaks.

How bad is it? Enbridge says that half of the joints are corroding, and that it has five times more stress cracks per mile than other pipelines in the same corridor. It was originally made with defective steel and the welding was done with outdated technology. One worker called keeping it safe “a game of whack-a-mole.”

According to Enbridge, “Approximately 4,000 integrity digs [invasive pipeline inspections] in the US alone are currently forecasted for Line 3 over the next 15 years to maintain its current level of operation. This would result in year-after-year impacts to landowners and the environment. On average, 10-15 digs are forecasted per mile on Line 3 if it is not replaced…”

Enbridge is staring down the clock right now, as the US Justice Department ordered the company back in July to replace the entire pipeline by December 2017 or commit to substantial safety upgrades to the existing line. That decree is part of a settlement the company reached after a massive 2010 spill of 3.8 million litres (around 80,000 gallons) of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

Although Enbridge is replacing Line 3 because they have to, they’re also looking to slip something past the public. Not only does the proposed “replacement” up the capacity of the pipeline, it also would allow it to transport tar sands. Currently, Line 3 carries “light” crude oil—which is largely drawn from Western Canada’s conventional oilfields—but a completed Line 3 replacement would allow Enbridge to carry diluted bitumen across the border. This project hasn’t had to jump the political hurdles of other border-crossing tar sands pipelines, like the Keystone XL, and already has a presidential permit.

The new line would run parallel to the existing Line 3 for most of its route, but would take a different route for the final 300 kilometres (around 185 miles) between Clearbrook, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin. And, oh yeah, the original pipeline would be decommissioned and left in the ground.

So, let’s recap. This “replacement” doubles the capacity for Line 3, changes the product to be shipped, follows a different route, and the pipeline that it will “replace” will remain in the ground. Don’t you love living in the age of persuasion?

Honor the Earth, an indigenous-led NGO based in Minnesota, ain’t having it. From their website: “Enbridge wants to simply abandon its existing Line 3 pipeline and walk away from it, because it has over 900 “structural anomalies,” and build a brand new line in this new corridor. If this new corridor is established, we expect Enbridge to propose building even more pipelines in it. We cannot allow that.”

Resistance in Minnesota

Thanks to the amazing work of Honor the Earth and other activists in Minnesota, things are looking good for the campaign against Line 3. Here’s a breakdown:

The conservationist group Friends of the Headwaters was formed to divert Line 3 from northern Minnesota’s wild rice lakes. They proposed a longer pipeline that would carve further south through agricultural lands. State law requires pipeline companies to submit a simple environmental review of proposed projects. Three years ago, when Enbridge first brought up the Line 3 replacement, they intended to study their chosen site only. Friends of the Headwaters insisted that they also study feasible routes outside the Mississippi River Headwaters area.

A lengthy lawsuit ensued, and in December of 2015 the Minnesota Supreme Court sided with environmentalists. Enbridge was ordered to complete a more comprehensive assessment, including alternate routes.

Minnesota is currently writing its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Line 3, after months of battle over what the study would include and who would perform the analyses. The draft EIS is scheduled for April 2017 and the public will be able to comment at public hearings. A final permit decision is expected in spring of 2018.

As soon as Minnesota’s Environmental Impact Statement is released in April, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy plans to continuing fighting Line 3 in court. So, given all of these factors, for sure Enbridge will fail to meet the project’s December 2017 deadline. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Let’s be real, though. There’s a shit-ton of money at stake here. I find it hard to imagine regulators taking a 390,000 bpd pipeline off-line. I’m not aware of a major pipeline ever having been taken off-line because it is old and unsafe. One example of such a pipeline is the TransNorthern pipeline in Eastern Canada. Back in November, a trio of Quebecois women shut down this pipeline through a lockdown action. They did so to bring attention to the fact that even members of the National Energy Board (NEB) have recommended that this pipeline, which was built in the 1950s, be decommissioned. TransNorthern continues to operate despite its inability to comply with the improvements the NEB ordered the company to make.

It would be great if Line 3 were shut down by the state of Minnesota, but equally possible is that Line 3 will spill, and that when it does an army of pundits will pin the blame on environmentalists for delaying Line 3’s replacement. Remember Lac Megantic? An oil train blew up a town in Quebec, killing 47 people, and the next day media spin doctors were using the disaster to argue for pipelines, since oil-by-rail obviously isn’t safe. These bastards have no shame.

Which brings us to a reality that we will probably have to deal with in the near future. As pipeline infrastructure ages, the public will be presented with a new choice—shiny new pipelines or old, rusted-out, leaky ones. This is a classic double bind, a false choice designed to force acceptance of something undesired. You know, like democracy. Perversely, environmentalists may stand accused of causing oil spills. Activists will reject this logic, but it may be seductive to centrists and pre-fabricated-thought-thinkers. It might be wise to think of a counter-narrative to this.

The reality remains that Line 3 might spill before it gets shut down. My guess would be that Enbridge will get an extension beyond December 2017 and continue operating. And it’s certain that other pipelines will rupture.

A New Approach

What if, instead of occupying to stop a pipeline from being built, land defenders used the event of an oil spill to shut down a pipeline? Though it’s probably undesirable to occupy the site of a spill, this could be accomplished by occupying a site of critical importance for the functioning of the line, such as a pumping station or valve, and preventing workers from accessing it. There would be several advantages to this strategy.

First, when there is an oil spill, a pipeline is already shut down. Though a slew of recent direct actions targeting valves have shown that it is certainly possible to autonomously shut down pipelines safely, it would be easier and less psychologically taxing to keep a pipeline off-line than to shut one down.

Second, an oil spill packs an emotional punch. I maintain that it is emotion, not rational thought, that inspires action. To most people, the petroleum economy is so normal that it takes a change in consciousness to interrupt their acceptance of it. It provides a moment where anti-pipeline direct action will be broadly understood, drawing sympathizers and supporters out of the woodwork. Artful anarchist propaganda makes radical ideas seem like common sense, and this argument sort of makes itself: If a pipeline is disaster-prone, it should be shut down.

Third, if we’re shutting down active pipelines, we’re not merely stopping the expansion of the oil and gas industry, we’re forcing its shrinkage. We’re seizing the initiative away from the capitalists. We are busting the operative myth of statecraft—that we do not have a choice.

Fourth, this switches the focus away from the sort of thinking that presents one issue as the be-all and end-all of ecological activism. There are over 200,000 miles of pipelines criss-crossing Turtle Island. There is a potential front-line just about everywhere. This shifts focus closer to home, and also ideally would lead to situations where there the tactic becomes normalized, because it is happening all over the place.

Lastly, everything that we can do to increase the political and economic risk of pipeline ruptures to corporations is good. If spills come with higher consequences for companies, they will have more incentive to prevent them. Some famous squatting graffiti in Spain read EVICTIONS = RIOTS. In two years, could we say OIL SPILLS = OCCUPATIONS?

From Temporary Autonomous Zones to Permanent Autonomous Zones

I am hoping that the Line 3 campaign leads to something akin to the resistance at Standing Rock, but which draws on some of the lessons of that fight. It’s long been my belief that resistance to industrial capitalism should go hand-in-hand with the creation of autonomous communities able to survive and thrive independent of the fossil fuel economy, and that blockades provide a moment where the impossible suddenly becomes possible, where we can strike at the heart of capitalism by collectively defying the illusion of property that holds the whole system in place.

My political goal is the creation of a federation of autonomous communes able to meet their own needs independent of the fossil fuel economy.

For that reason, I went to Standing Rock in hopes that others felt similarly, and there was a will amongst many people to reclaim treaty land and to create a permanent autonomous community on the site. Alas, the site wasn’t ideal, both because the Oceti Sakowin/Oceti Oyate camp was on a floodplain, and because it was on a sacred burial ground.

Some settlers will feel uncomfortable with the whole notion of approaching moments of opportunity created by indigenous-led resistance campaigns with any agenda at all. Aren’t non-native allies supposed to take direction from native people? To this, I’ll reply with a story.

Unbeknownst to most people, after the anti-fracking movement in Mik’mak’i (in so-called New Brunswick) was successful and most people went home, the occupation continued. There was a small group of extremely committed people who tried to do exactly what I am advocating here—to turn a resistance camp into a permanent eco-community. Some of those people were native, some Acadian (descendants of French colonists who settled in the area in the 17th and 18th centuries), and some settler. They made it through the winter and the spring. My partner and I were there in the spring and we started a garden with the help of a Mi’kmaq elder. It was a beautiful moment, in a beautiful place. A beautiful dream.

The local support was overwhelmingly evident, if passive. When the camp needed money, they’d simply do a road block fundraiser, allowing cars to pass one at a time and asking for a toll. Most people, native and settler, would donate. One day, in the weirdest busking experience of my life, my partner and I added a fire show to the whole bizarre spectacle. I remember thinking, Goddamn I love this corner of the Maritimes—where else in the world would this even make sense?

In the end, the dream was given up because of interpersonal conflicts, but by that time it had already stopped advancing because the occupiers didn’t have the know-how or the resources to build permanent structures. They didn’t feel that other people, who had been so active in the camp when it was the place to be, cared enough to help them build their dreamed-of community. To them it was the natural next step, and it hurt them that others couldn’t see that. It still saddens me that that dream remains unrealized, and in my memory it will go down as a missed opportunity that strengthens my resolve to be prepared for the next moment of unforeseeable potential.

As a side note, some of the Acadians who were involved in that did go on to start a land project in the woods of Mi’kmak’i, which they started in large part to acquire the skills that would have allowed them to succeed in the first place. That place, located within the legendary Cocagne vortex, is, to me, one enduring legacy of the resistance at Elsipogtog.

Also, realistically, most people who come to a front line aren’t going to decide to live there long-term. For the revolutionary movement that I envision to emerge, folks would have to be willing to actually continue to live in a liberated zone after all the action has died down. This part of the theory’s untested. Do enough people actually want to live in off-grid communities throughout the four seasons?

Well, surely when the crisis deepens and matters of survival become much more pronounced, we’ll do what we need to do. That’s the best hope I’ve got; that we will succeed where so many previous generations of radicals haven’t, not because we’re smarter or braver, but because we have to. The survival instinct is a powerful thing.

As the ideologies of liberal democracy and infinite growth show themselves to be the shams that they are, more and more people are going to be looking for answers. I don’t have many answers, but I see the creation of autonomous zones as a realistic goal. We can start now. Standing Rock is an autonomous zone. The ZADs in France are autonomous zones. Such liberated territories give us opportunities to learn, to experiment, to put ideas into practice, to make connections based on shared values, and to inspire ourselves and others through direct experience. It’s only though experimentation, through trial and error, through blood, sweat, and tears that we’ll learn how to be free. Standing Rock provided thousands of people with hands-on experience in a laboratory of freedom. Such experiences are transformational, and are preparing us for what is to come.

Rapid Response

My goal is to connect the current political moment with the vision that many eco-anarchists hold—that is, the creation of interdependent autonomous communes able to survive and thrive independent of the fossil fuel economy.

So, let’s start thinking about how we might get to that point. What would it take?

At Standing Rock I put a ton of energy building and winterizing shelters, as did many other people. Many shelters were later abandoned and had to be cleaned up. I think that it would make a lot of sense for front-liners to think about acquiring and building mobile homes and various structures that are relatively easy to set up, tear down, and transport. The Standing Rock model is a game-changer, but there’s a lot of room for improvement, too.

When I was at Standing Rock, there was a lack of strategic action undertaken. Many people would probably see this as being due to a lack of leadership, but I see it as a lack of coherent affinity groups. An action plan requires a group to carry it out, and the more elaborate the plan, the better coordinated the group needs to be. A sophistication exercise involving diversion and multiple flanks, such as what would be required to take a heavily guarded site, such as the drill site at Standing Rock, would require multiple teams sharing a certain level of training and confidence.

So when I think about the future, I imagine affinity groups comprised of full-time activists for whom the activities of the group are their primary focus in life. How can we make it more realistic for more people to be able to do this?

We need bases. I think that we need a combination of urban collective houses and rural land projects that eco-anarchists can use to launch actions from. We need a culture of people who see revolution as their calling in life, their vocation. That’s what I think it will take for this movement to become revolutionary.

Where Are We Going as a Movement?

Back to Line 3. Look, it’s a pipeline. You’re against it, I’m against it, and we can stop it. To me, the more interesting question is: What will be achieved by victory? Of course the land and the water will be defended, and that is enough reason to fight—but all of these pipelines, mines, prisons, and schools are but the visible, manifest symptoms of a disease called capitalism. So long as we are dependent on capitalism for our means, we’ll still be biting the hand that feeds us.

The environmental movement is not inherently revolutionary. What can we as anarchists do to nurture the revolutionary tendencies it contains? I’m not interested in making capitalism more sustainable; in helping the machine perfect our enslavement. The fact that it is unsustainable may be humanity’s last chance for liberty. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting different heads of the Hydra unless at the end of the day we’ve fundamentally transformed the way that we live.

So I ask: Where are we going as a movement? I ask, because if we want to make it somewhere, we’d better have a clear idea of where we’re headed. What vision do we have to offer? What can we invite others to believe in along with us? What spirit can we summon forth into the collective consciousness? What songs can we sing with our whole hearts when we’re on the front lines?

Nothing’s more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Look at Standing Rock. Who could have imagined such a thing just a short time ago? Who would have taken this article seriously if I wrote it a year ago? Our movement is growing, it is expanding, it is stronger and stronger by the day. We are winning the hearts and minds of more and more people, and bigger and bigger goals are becoming more and more attainable. It’s time to articulate a program of revolutionary social change that sees resistance to pipelines as a starting point.

Call for Week of Solidarity Against Repression April 1st-7th

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Mar 222017
 

From Standing Rock, to Sacramento, to DC

From It’s Going Down

In cooperation with CrimethInc., Submedia.tv, and others, we are calling for a week of solidarity to support everyone targeted for standing up to the Trump regime and rising fascism. The past four months have seen unprecedented waves of action—from the post-election rebellions and the defense of Standing Rock to the J20 demonstrations, the airport blockades, and the shutting down of advocates of nationalist violence like Milo Yiannopoulos. These efforts have emboldened dissidents from Slovenia to the White House itself, catalyzing global resistance and destabilizing the Trump administration from within. In response, the authorities are bringing felony charges against hundreds of people and seeking to criminalize protest altogether. How effectively we support arrestees will determine how effectively we can continue resisting.

April 1 to 7: Call for a Week of Solidarity

Over two hundred people mass-arrested during the demonstrations against Trump’s Inauguration are facing felony rioting charges punishable by up to ten years in prison apiece. Though these people were arrested simply for happening to be on the same city block, the prosecutor has not dropped or diminished the charges, instead using the court process as a kind of judicial harassment.

Since April 2016, when the Sacred Stone camp was founded, there have been nearly 800 arrests in the struggle against the Dakota Access Pipeline. These include state charges ranging from misdemeanor criminal trespass to felony terrorizing and rioting, federal charges against six Indigenous Water Protectors, and an active grand jury convened to investigate the activities of everyone resisting the pipeline. While the camps have been evicted and the people forcibly removed in a militarized operation, resistance continues.

California Highway Patrol is recommending that felony charges be brought against 106 alleged participants in the clashes in Sacramento last summer that prevented a fascist rally from taking place. Berkeley police are seeking to bring charges against those who clashed with nationalists on March 4.

Meanwhile, Trump and his cronies have been spreading conspiracy theories about protesters, alleging without a shred of evidence that they are being paid to protest. The idea is to delegitimize dissidents by accusing them of the same profit motive that Trump and his cronies are flagrantly pursuing in the full light of day. These outright lies send a message to far-right vigilantes that they will have a free hand to attack demonstrators and dissidents without consequences from the state.

At the same time, the legislatures in many states are seeking to pass anti-protest laws to further criminalize anyone who take to the streets in protest.

In short, the state is opening a new phase of repression. Having done nothing to protect the black people, Muslims, and Jews targeted in an explosion of racist and anti-Semitic attacks, the state is openly carrying out its own attacks on Middle Eastern refugees and immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and now aims to crush everyone who opposes this. The one-two punch of state repression and vigilante attacks is calculated to destroy social movements, softening up America so Trump can force through his totalitarian agenda.

What We Can Do

  • Make sure that everyone who has been arrested has all the resources they need to see them through the court process so they can get back out on the street and active again. Below, you can find a list of fundraisers to support arrestees. Donate right now while you’re thinking about it! What do you want people to do when you are facing charges?
  • Set up benefit events to raise funds for the defendants. You could set up a punk show, a dance party, a cake auction, or a bake sale; you could do the rounds with a donation jar at a bookstore or farmer’s market.
  • Organize an event for the upcoming grand jury resistance tour that the Water Protector Anti-Repression Crew from Standing Rock is setting up.
  • Help people understand Trump’s disinformation campaign as propaganda intended to set the stage for a totalitarian crackdown. This isn’t an issue for protesters alone—everyone’s freedom is at stake here. Any precedents that are set in repression against protesters will be used against everyone else.
  • Identify key figures responsible for this wave of repression and put direct pressure on them, connecting them with the crackdown on freedom. Make it clear that there will be personal consequences for taking the side of oppression.
  • Drop banners, post fliers, set up educational events, and distribute information about the charges and how to support arrestees. Make sure the subject is on everyone’s minds at all times.
  • Refuse to cooperate with state investigations and grand juries. Teach people to know their rights, to remain silent when police and federal agents interrogate and threaten them, to support grand jury resisters.
  • Keep fighting. The best defense is a good offense! If there is a powerful movement against Trump and the forces he represents, defendants from the previous clashes will be more likely to receive the support they deserve. Keep organizing new efforts against Trump, police, nationalists, and the pipelines and profiteering from which they draw their power.

Contribute Events and Report Backs to IGD

  • Have your own poster or sticker design? Send it to us, we’ll add it to this page!
  • If you are organizing an event, let us know by submitting the event to the site here or at info [at] itsgoingdown [dot] org. 
  • Do the same for action report backs. Send us reports of both events organized (demonstrations, educational events, benefits), as well as wheatpasting campaigns, banner drops, and written graffiti slogans. While some of these actions may seem small in scale, when put together they show that we are an active movement with material force to protect ourselves, support our comrades facing repression, and a desire to communicate and interact with those on the outside we have yet to meet.

Fundraising

Publishing the following links to these support campaigns in no way indicates that the defendants in question endorse this call for solidarity, nor that they have ever been exposed to anarchist politics or this site in particular. The point is simply that everyone swept up in these charges deserves support.

Donate to Support J20 Arrestees in DC!

Donate to Support J20 Arrestees Elsewhere around the US!

Donate to Support Standing Rock Arrestees!

Support Shirts!

Revolt in the youth center of Val-Du-Lac

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Mar 222017
 

Last night, at around 10:30, six teenagers at the youth center in Val-Du-Lac, near Sherbrooke, decided to revolt against the authorities of the establishment. They threatened to smash everything inside and refused to collaborate with the intervention team at the center. Unsurprisingly, the institution called the cops. The six teenagers resisted their arrest, and will be charged with illegal assembly, assault on an agent, harassment, making threats, and obstruction of police work.

It’s heartwarming to see acts of resistance faced with these institutions which are put in place to break these youth, both physically and mentally, and which try to reinsert them into society.

Solidarity
-anarchists

The other sovereignty – the Innu

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Mar 202017
 

From The Sling: Montreal Anarchist Journal
Selected excerpts www.littor.al

Praised on both sides of the white world as a turning point in the way of dealing with indigenous communities, a crucial “modern treaty” is getting ready to be signed, should all go poorly. The Petapan Treaty with the Innu communities of Mashteuiatsh, Essipit, and Nutashkuan is the result of 30 years of negotiations, during which six other Innu and Atikamekw communities have ended up withdrawing from the process, leaving a handful of Band Council chiefs to rule on the future of a territory 16 times larger than the Island of Montréal.

Expected to be signed around the end of next March in the National Assembly, the Petapan Treaty claims to recognize “autonomy of governance” of the territory of Innu Assi, supposedly putting an end to the long history of encroachments upon indigenous peoples, and their cultural assimilation and extermination. If this brutal history was certainly conducted by means of treaties, the last on the list would be, they say, of a different kind. Unlike the James Bay Agreement, which allowed for the constitutional integration of not less than 20% of the “Québécois” territory – around 300,000 km² – from the hands of the Cree, the Petapan Treaty does not intend to “extinguish” ancestral rights, but only to “harmonize” them with those of Québec…

Encompassing the watersheds of Lac Saint-Jean, a large part of Labrador, and all of the Côte-Nord, Nitassinan – traditional territory of the Innu and the Atikamekw – extends over close to 100,000 km². This is where animals and fish have found refuge from the reach of civilization – two thirds of Nitassinan are zoned as beaver reserves – and where minerals and powerful rivers have not yet been harnessed. This is what makes this treaty crucially important for a government that never ceases to want to finish off the natural resources.

Beyond these altruistic outward appearances, the Petapan Treaty hides a considerable problem behind this facade. To be sure, the Innu will become the “managers” of their territory – not all Innu, obviously all of this only concerns the duly authorized Band Council chiefs. Managers… This is the term that the government used to designate families who have a certain territory for hunting, up until it was replaced by “area wardens” to avoid any confusion. But if the development projects will have to receive the approval of the Innu people, and if they will not doubt be granted the traditional “vacation pay” of 3% of income, this transfer of territorial management towards the ancestral “owners” does nothing except to force their hand to open it up to infrastructural development. See the trick: at the end of a period of 12 years, the federal government will cease to pay insurance benefits that today it owes to reserves, leaving to the semi-autonomous government, not to say Innu protectorate, the job of raising its own taxes.

Without more assistance from the federal government – compensations for the atrocities it committed – the Innu will have to resolve to open their resources to exploitation, or otherwise simply starve. Especially since the costs already undertaken for the negotiations, what with the huge number of field studies and legal opinions, are up to more than 40 millions dollars… Not counting that the government of Québec had already reserved total and exclusive ownership of water and underground resources, as well as 75% of surface minerals. If it had to change its mind faced with protests, finally leaving the Innu to reign alone over their resources, the territory of Innu Assi that would have been realized by the agreement was then cut by more than half, going from 2,538 km2 to 1,250 km2. In Nutushkuan, a 50-megawatt hydroelectric dam project is already feverishly waiting for the conclusion of the agreement – the 2004 agreement, which is to be the basis for the treaty, takes it for granted, maintaining that “Québec will commit to giving priority to the First Nation of Nutashkuan on the development of hydro power of 50 MW or less in Innu Assi.” Given the dislocation and scattering of Innu Assi’s project territory, one can understand well why it took 30 years to identify and remove all zones of strong geological potential from the agreement.

The resistance

But there is absolutely never anything so easy. Sometimes it is enough for a small rumbling of opposition to ruin a rip-off that’s been years in the making. A number of Innu “area wardens” are currently rising up against the Petapan Treaty, and starting to make waves. In presenting themselves at random selection hearings for the “managers of trapping territories” before forming the “Tshitassinu committee” in order to benevolently advise on the application of the treaty, these opponents are starting discussions that quickly put the entirety of the process back into question. Multiple blockades of roads and forest trails, to which have been added members of Atikamekw communities, simply ignored by the agreement, is putting a non-negligible pressure on a process whose validation relies upon an appearance of ethical purity.

If the opposition to the Petapan Treaty clearly sees right through the game of government, it’s because they have their own established way of life. As far as the eons-old practice of hunting, trapping, and fishing is concerned, the treaty does nothing less than to render this form of life extinct, through the Québécois and Canadian systems of permits, certificates, catch recording, hunting seasons, and game quotas (point 5.7 of the agreement). It is therefore the mode of life the most suitable to indigenous people before colonization – hunting and fishing as the principal means of survival – which finds itself attacked in one of its last holdouts on the continent. There, where one can find the last wild animals able to provide for the needs of a limited population of hunter-gatherers, the covetousness of mine and hydro intends to destroy that which the settler colonies have devastated everywhere else. However, the relationship of treaty-opposing Innu traditionalists to the ancestral practice of the hunt is considered “sacred”. In other words, it cannot be harmonized with white norms without it losing its soul. The hunt, as intended in its full sense, as an inalienable spiritual activity, contains an immemorial relation to the Innu territory, and a knowledge of how to live there more sustainably than with any development. As a occupier-hunter of the Innu territory recounted: Our ancestors have lived on this territory since long before the creation of the Band Councils by the Europeans. They have given us the necessary knowledge to live and do things for millenia in Nitassinan. We don’t need a treaty or a government to control or restrict our traditional practices. The long walk of the Innu has never needed European laws on Nitassinan!

It is thus apparent that this re-emergent indigenous sovereigntism in so-called Québec isn’t the one that speaks in Band Councils and reads agreements. The groups of Innu and Atikamekw hunters contrast real, de facto independence to the legal, de jure independence of the Petapan Treaty, denounced as an incursion of the European concept of the State. So do not hesitate to respond to their call for solidarity if they act to support this indigenous affirmation of an ancestral independence. In recognizing, first of all, how the structures put into action by treaty negotiation are entirely attributable to whites – let’s remember that more 50% of the Essipit Band Council employees are whites coming from Escoumins and other contiguous municipalities; the resistance to their insidious maneuvers is thus as much the responsibility of non-indigenous solidarity as of the concerned communities. Next, in taking seriously the conceptions of the world and of the specific territories of these communities, as the incarnation of a real face of a continued resistance to the civilization of development, at the same time as their privileged target. Which brings us to ask ourselves, concretely, how to recognize their de facto independence, and how to assist their rejection of resource extraction projects. Because this Turtle Island where we are staying contains a number of ferociously sovereign ways of living, which demand to be considered as such. Even if that means dissolving what they have customarily considered as Québec and Canada.

Let’s support the struggle against the Petapan Treaty!

For more information, visit the Facebook page of Regroupement des familles traditionnelles de chasseurs-cueilleurs Ilnuatsh.

Emergency Counter-demo

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Mar 182017
 

THIS SUNDAY, March 19th, far-right group Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens (the same people who organized the anti-M103 demo on March 4th) is attempting to mobilize nationwide for a second demo against M103. These demos are set to begin around noon in front of City Halls across so-called Canada and Québec, and while the interest for Montreal is unclear (looks pretty low-scale judging by Facebook, but it’s hard to tell), Montreal is on their list of locations.

The Resist Trump and the Far-Right action/demo subcommittee is currently trying to organize a response to this potential far-right action on very short notice, and we need your help to get the word out. Regardless of how many far-right folks and groups turn out, we feel it is of utmost importance, especially given the events of March 4th, to have an antifascist presence on the ground and to disrupt their speeches and demo as much as possible. NO PLATFORM for the Islamophobic and racist far-right, whether there are 100 or 6 of them at this demo!

Our goal is to meet up at City Hall for 10:30am. We realize this may sound early, but many of the far-right groups actually showed up much earlier than the scheduled time on March 4th.

We strongly encourage everyone to forward this to friends, comrades, and networks, and to come to City Hall on Sunday morning.

Thanks and in solidarity,
Resist Trump and the Far-Right Action/Demo Committee

Anti-gentrification vandalism in Saint-Henri

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Mar 172017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On March 15, 2017, a dozen or so condo owners in Saint-Henri dug their cars out from under the biggest snowfall of the winter, only to learn that their tires had been slashed while they slept.

We carried out this simple action on the eve of the 20th annual Protest Against Police Brutality, in Hochelaga, to emphasize that the struggle against policing and the struggle against gentrification are one and the same: the creation of a world hostile to social control and all forms of domination.

It required minimal planning and could have been done at any of dozens of locations in the neigbourhood.

Through acting, we reflected on tactical choices in the targeting of individual (if random) yuppies and rich people in the context of anti-gentrification activity. Damaging luxury cars is often named as a desirable way of doing so. It was apparent that a bit under half the cars in the condo parking lots we visited were of luxury brands. We slashed tires of all the cars. Many yuppies decide to display their wealth by other means than a BMW or Mercedes. Regardless of their consumer choices, it’s worthwhile to make them feel unsafe in the neighbourhood by damaging their property. And targeting all condo owners’ or yuppies’ vehicles may make it harder for the cops to catch people in the act, as they will attempt to do if the practice continues to spread, and harder for owners to secure their vehicles, in indoor parking for instance. However, it may be warranted to focus on luxury cars for forms of vandalism that are more visible to passersby than slashed tires, in the interest of actions being intelligible to neighbors and people on the street.

Fuck the police, long live de-gentrification!

March 15 in Montreal: police attacked, kettle broken

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Mar 172017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

A couple hundred people gathered yesterday evening at Place Valois in Hochelaga for the 20th annual edition of the Demonstration Against Police Brutality, organized by the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COBP). It was the day after the largest snowstorm of the year in Montreal, and the mounds of snow lining the streets meant obstacles for both demonstrators and the cops. Refusing the protest framework demanding less brutal police, we carried with us the memory of March fifteenths past and their legacy of anti-police revolt. Also, rocks.

The words of a report-back from the last March 15 in Hochelaga seven years ago still ring true:

“We went to that demonstration intending to attack the police. Apart from all the weapons we brought, we carried with us a desire to no longer see a single cop walk the streets the next day; at least without a limp, a headache and a feeling of fear that no overtime pay could reconcile. We went out into the streets to hit them as if we could actually smack them the fuck out of our lives, with no guilt, remorse or shame about it. While acknowledging that we have yet to realize the depth of our desires (cops aren’t yet running for their lives), we can still move our lives and projects in that direction.”
– Measuring the Meaning of a March, in March, in Montreal

REPORT-BACK

After a speech by the COBP, the crowd set off west down Ontario Street, about a third of which was masked. A dozen black flags and a couple reinforced banners could be seen near the front of the demo, in addition to a leading COBP banner. There were no police marching alongside the demo, as they kept out of projectile range from all directions, and were likely also dissuaded by snow conditions. While some police followed along parallel streets, apparently at least some of the riot squad had to take the metro, possibly due to the storm disrupting their original transport plans. Some rocks were distributed and additional projectiles sought along Ontario, though without much success, as everything was covered in snow. We rapidly and uneventfully crossed Centre-Sud and reached the eastern edge of the downtown core, a firework set off above us to announce our arrival in comfortable and well-known terrain. Individuals in the bloc asked the front banner to slow down several times; it felt like the demo was running after itself, with no good reason to be. This made it very difficult for people running late to join, or the demo to stay tight. We would like to see future demos slow down, or even stop, when there isn’t an immediate threat from police – allowing more smashing, graffing, wheatpasting, barricading, dancing!

Approaching the area around the Montreal police (SPVM) headquarters on Saint-Urbain Street, police in cruisers and on bikes ahead of the demo were attacked with mortar fireworks. As the crowd amassed around the intersection of Ontario and Saint-Urbain, more fireworks were shot at the police mobilizing to defend their headquarters, then at half a dozen police on horseback approaching from the east. “Get those animals off those horses” almost came true as the horses bucked in fear, causing the horse squad to call it quits for the night.

Rather than congregate at the police headquarters and allow the cops to move in, we continued west on Maisonneuve. A few blocks later, more fireworks were shot at cops ahead of us. A photographer tracking and filming a member of the bloc from a close distance had his camera knocked from his hand, prompting a more general confrontation with media at the front of the march. Rocks and snowballs were thrown at a mainstream media cameraperson, who was then charged with a reinforced banner and knocked to the ground, while his hired goon was beaten with flagpoles from behind the banner.

A lone police cruiser was spotted to our left, parked on Union Street. A crowd quickly swarmed and thoroughly smashed it. On the same block, heading south now, display windows of the Bay department store (one of the oldest colonial businesses of Canada) were smashed and tagged with graffiti. After about fifteen minutes of a determined energy translating into conflictual action amongst the hundred-and-fifty-strong crowd, the cops executed an effective dispersal and kettling maneuver. Riot police lines ran up both sides of the demo, while bike cops chased and closed off exits from behind. Many dispersed on side streets ahead of the cops, but a few dozen people were fed east on Sainte-Catherine into a trap at Place-des-Arts, as more riot cops emerged from Saint-Urbain and blocked off the only remaining exit route.

This never should have been allowed to happen; our strength is on small streets that give police less mobility, so of course they funneled us towards the most open space downtown. Turning west on St. Catherine against traffic, and offensively attacking the vulnerable bike police who succeeded in intimidating us towards Place-des-Arts, would have at least allowed for a better dispersal.

Instead, hearts sank as the cops quickly tightened the kettle of thirty people against a side of a Place-des-arts building. But with shouts of “On fonce!” (“Let’s push!”) and an inspiring confidence and swiftness, before secondary cop lines could form, those kettled pushed against the riot cops blocking the sidewalk from the east and broke free. More riot police tried to block off the new exit routes, but there weren’t enough of them, as people raced through snow banks and snow-covered parking lots, for the most part getting away. Unfortunately, around ten people reportedly ended up in a new kettle that formed in the parking lot outside the SPVM headquarters. They had backpacks seized and were presumably photographed, but were let go without any tickets or charges. The demo ended with no arrests.

TACTICAL CREATIVITY

For combatting the police’s inevitable dispersal strategy, with some planning ahead, a reinforced banner crew could have moved to one of the sidewalks to block or at least delay flanking police lines from getting in position (perhaps accompanied by fire-extinguishers that could be discharged to slow their advance). Throwing projectiles at the flanking cop lines has proven ineffective, as most of the crowd is moving too quickly to fight in cohesive units, making it difficult to throw enough rocks to have an impact on police movements. Let’s also bring the lesson into the future that mortar fireworks were somewhat successful in keeping police at a distance, especially in a terrain where more conventional projectiles were hard to scavenge.

In recent years, the prospect that the black bloc could take time and space away from the police on March 15th has felt remote, so yesterday was definitely inspiring. On one of the two days of the year (the other being May Day) that police prepare for year-round, we were still able to significantly evade police controls, and get conflictual with confidence. This speaks to how we should prepare for demos throughout the year with more confidence in what could be possible. It’s clear that we can bring conflict to the streets in a way that doesn’t signal the end of the demo, as we’ve come to expect, but rather the start of something.

We’re also left with some strategic questions in relation to demos that we’d appreciate a conversation around. When the police are intentionally and constantly keeping their distance from the demo, when and how should attempts be made to seek out confrontation with them? What other goals do we have in such situations? How can we use the space and time we have in these moments to better prepare for the eventual police attack?

LET’S NOT GIVE THE POLICE EVIDENCE!

A note to the independent journalists of the city: it can be hard to distinguish you from mass-media, who generate incriminating evidence that they readily hand over to police (and who we are going to attack at every chance we get). Distinguish yourself by your behaviour – only film from a distance, and don’t film the attackers themselves, only the attackers’ targets. Despite whatever good intentions you likely have, if you film people doing crime, it can and will be used to solidify evidence against them (even when wearing a mask, other clothing items or facial features are regularly used by police to identify suspects). You don’t wanna be that guy that actively endangers demonstrators by exposing them to police violence, so please take this seriously.

Two more things: never film at the starting point or in the first fifteen minutes of a demo, to allow everyone who plans to wear a mask to have an opportunity to put it on safely. And before publishing videos, always blur the bodies of people who are masked. Check out this tutorial if you’re not sure how.

We’re encouraged that Document Everything’s coverage of the demonstration uses all of these techniques; individuals in the bloc are blurred, and the targets of actions are filmed rather than the people attacking them. During the swarming of the police car, the screen cuts to black and we only hear the sounds of destruction. 99% Media’s coverage also blurred individuals smashing the cruiser, but we’d like to critique that they released High-Definition close-up footage of unblurred masked individuals shooting fireworks at cops – no-one’s bloc attire is perfect, and footage like this can put people in a jail cell.

Unfortunately, Document Everything, subMedia, and a few other independent journalists who are clearly on our side were attacked by the bloc – we’d like to see people in the bloc be less indiscriminate towards anyone with a camera. Let’s paint and smash the cameras of any mass media without hesitation, but let’s also take the time to explain to independent media what practices endanger us. Conversely, Maxime Deland (whose incriminating photos were later published by TVA Nouvelles, and who seems to be the mass media’s go-to photographer for confrontational demonstrations) went unnoticed within the bloc because he looked like independent media – here’s his face for next time.

AGAINST POLICE, NOT THEIR BRUTALITY

We’re thrilled that this year the COBP decided to stop using the failed strategy of denouncing the most egregious behavior of the police, and instead called for decentralized direct actions against them, while expressing inspiration by several attacks on police and surveillance over the last year. The COBP explicitly supported the conflict with the police in their communique the day after the demo:

“We applaud all the autonomous groups that mobilized for March 15th, and that get organized all year long to build a balance of power against the SPVM and all police forces…”

“…We witnessed a proactive March 15, with diversified, offensive, and effective actions.”

“We salute the way in which militants fight the police state, and this despite the violence of its response.”

We’d like to see this taken one step further by next year’s demo being called as against police, period. This year the itinerary was chosen based on the locations of past police murders, and a symbolic acknowledgment of the struggle against gentrification in Hochelaga. Walking through the residential streets of Centre-Sud for a half hour to meet this symbolic goal of starting in Hochelaga didn’t feel worthwhile to us. We think for future years it makes more sense to prioritize routes that give us fighting advantages, because revolt is the best form of memory.

Frontlines in the Fight Against Islamophobia

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Mar 152017
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On March 4th a series of Islamophobic demonstrations had been called across Canada, by a (probably one-person) group known as the Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens. Ostensibly the rallies were against Bill M-103, a parliamentary private member’s motion condemning Islamophobia (in the wake of the massacre at a mosque in Quebec City earlier this year), which the CCCC framed as an attack on free speech[1. M-103 is an unremarkable standard politician’s denunciation of racism. It is a non-binding motion calling for the problem of racism and Islamophobia to be recognized and uprooted, for studies to be done and statistics collected, and for solutions to be found, but does not actually suggest anything concrete beyond this.]. So the March 4th rallies were officially “for free speech, against sharia law and against globalization,” and internal guidelines specifically told people not to bring white power or openly racist signs (which of course didn’t stop them from shouting “race traitor” at us as they arrived, or giving nazi salutes).

Georges Hallak, the Montreal-based Islamophobe behind the CCCC, seems to have adopted a “throw it at the wall and see if it sticks” approach, setting up facebook events across Canada for pickets and then posting asking if anybody local could bottomline the effort. Not only did this meet with some success in English Canada — in that local racists did in many cities join in and showed up on the day in question (though generally outnumbered and drowned out by antiracists) — but in Quebec the effort was taken up by the province’s far-Right groups, and became an opening for the first coordinated and united far-Right “coming out” here.

Radical forces in Montreal – generally spearheaded by anarchists and Maoists – have consistently shut down every single known far-Right public gathering for over 20 years now; once again, this time these forces prepared to do what they had in the past. Despite the very cold temperatures (-20 c), about the same numbers came out as at the multiple antifascist mobilizations in 2016 (a few hundred), and some people were prepared to do things. However, what was different was that whereas in 2016 there were at most a dozen racists who showed up, this time there were over 100, with a competent and imposing security detail of their own, and coordinating with police.

Superficially in Montreal, our side held the upper hand — we were more than them, a few of their people did get smacked, a few of their signs and flags were taken by force, the police were positioned to “protect” them from us, and when some of us did outflank the police the fascists were moved away and then finally dispersed –but this was really a failure for us. The racists marched through downtown to get to the rally site;once this racist contingent got there, they were able to hold their corner (protected by cops) for over an hour, putting on an impressive display (big flags, signs, etc.). When finally the police were outflanked and some of our forces were able to get to the racists, the latter were not sent running but under police escort they marched in an orderly fashion back to their starting point, from where they dispersed.

The above has been the goal of the far-Right for years, but those groups that tried (most recently, multiple times in 2015 and 2016, PEGIDA Quebec) have not been able to pull it off — each and every time, their forces were tiny, and they appeared as losers. Today from various reports, and from what we could see on the 4th, they feel like anything but.Given that in the past for every person who showed up on their side, there were a dozen who on social media said they would but did not (out of fear of being vastly outnumbered and humiliated or hurt), the fact that they pulled it off may mean they can do even better next time.

In Quebec City — obscenely, the city where five weeks ago a far-Rightist killed six people and seriously injured many more when he shot up a mosque — things were worse. The far-Right mobilized over 100 people;most of those who showed up were middle aged or older, and probably not the type who would have been up to a physical confrontation. However, a smaller contingent associated with the fascist group Atalante were also present, and at a certain point it looked like they might have been looking for a fight. Given the smaller number of antifascists present on the 4th, it is unclear if the police had not been there, who would have been sent running.

(To contextualize the situation in Quebec City, it should be noted that the week earlier there had been a well-attended anti-racist festival and large anti-racist demonstration; it is not a matter of there not being positive developments on the ground, just that for a variety of reasons these did not translate into a favourable balance of forces for us on the 4th.)

In Saguenay, northeast of Quebec City, there were roughly 100 racists who marched, with half as many antiracists. In smaller numbers, similar forces came together in the cities of Trois Rivieres andSherbrooke.

Both far-Right organizational work, and an unhealthy Islamophobic social environment, helped lay the basis for March 4th.

THE PLAYERS

The CCCC’s call had been taken up throughout Quebec by La Meute (“the wolfpack”), a far-Right organization with an impressive internet presence (over 43,000 members of its zero-security facebook group) that had been biding its time waiting for the moment to stage a major public event outside of cyberreality.

Founded in 2015 by two ex-soldiers, ÉricVenne (alias Eric Corvus) and Patrick Beaudry, the group’s first events were in the Quebec City and Saguenay areas. In August 2016 their fliers started appearing in public places, and a few weeks later Venneand other members disrupted an information event organized by a group of volunteers planning to host a family of Syrian refugees.

As is not uncommon with such groups, La Meute claim to be neither far-Right nor racist, just “against sharia law” and “radical Islam.” Furthermore, and still in line with many but not all such groups, their opposition to Islam is partly justified in terms of the latter being sexist and homophobic; Venne even made a point of attending the vigil in Montreal’s Gay Village following the June 2016 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

La Meute’s stated goal is to become a large political force within the mainstream, however it remains a far-Right group, albeit one that does not like to be described that way.In the words of its media liaison Sylvain Brouillette (aka Sylvain Maikan), “Marine Le Pen is a lot closer to us than Donald Trump.” As shown on the 4th, La Meute aims to attract people ranging from conscious far-Right racists to people who sincerely do not think of themselves that way, but who are motivated by a combination of misinformation and fear about Muslims.

March 4th was an important test for La Meute; had it been trounced, this would have been a major setback. The group has been getting a lot of press based on its large facebook membership, but as we all know in and of itself that is a meaningless thing – in other words, for them, it was a “show up or shut up” situation. Smaller groups (PEGIDA Quebec, Soldiers of Odin), boneheads, and others who either don’t choose to, or who don’t manage to, do anything public with real numbers in Montreal, also joined in. So suddenly all of these little scenes with one person here and one person there, coalesced into something we could not shut down, under La Meute’s protection. People are guessing a lot of people came in from outside of Montreal, which may be true, but is a bit irrelevant. Plus, as there were also rallies in other cities, outside forces in Montreal should have been less of a factor than in previous mobilizations.

And remember: outside of Montreal, antifascist protesters were actually outnumbered by the racists.

Quebec City is the province’s capital; it is a smaller, far more white, and far more conservative city than Montreal. Furthermore, for years now it has been stewing in racist “talk radio” propaganda, which often singles out Muslims as some kind of threat to not only “the West” but to Quebec in particular, often in terms indistinguishable from groups like La Meute. In such a conducive setting, several far-Right groups have been able to develop.

Besides La Meute, another group active in Quebec City is the Soldiers of Odin, an international organization that first started in Finland, largely based around setting up anti-Muslim street patrols. In 2016 the group set up several chapters across Canada, including in Quebec. In January 2017 there was a shakeup in the Quebec organization, with leader Dave Tregget replaced by the Katy Latulippe, a hardliner (Tregget has since set up a new group, the Storm Alliance). According to a recent newspaper article, Latulippe “has vowed to return the Quebec branch of the Soldiers of Odin to its Finnish roots and ramp up patrols of the more Muslim areas of Quebec City. The goal, she says, is not to intimidate Muslim immigrants but rather make them aware of Quebec values.”

One other noteworthy group – that was also active in Quebec City on March 4th, along with La Meute, Soldiers of Odin, and Storm Alliance – is Atalante, a third position group which includes several boneheads and former boneheads (the group has been promoted at shows of the band Legitime Violence). Atalante is a part of the most clearly fascist and unselfconsciously racist tendency in the Quebec far-Right, along with groups like the Federation des Quebecois de Souche (more present in the Saguenay area) and La Bannière Noire (based in Montreal).

While small, Atalante has been busy since it was founded; over the past year it has held two public protests in Quebec City, organized a talk by Italian far-Right intellectual Gabriele Adinolfi (himself one of the founders of Third Position politics) and a public Catholic mass with the Society of Saint Pius X (a breakaway Roman Catholic sect with close ties to the far-Right internationally). As part of its third position approach, Atalante organized events providing free food and toys in working class neighbourhoods – but to “neo-French” only.

On the 4th in Quebec City, whereas La Meute formed the bulk of the demo, it was Atalante who seemed at one point poised to fight with our side. That said, their relationship to the broader anti-Muslim upsurge is not without nuance: in a statement they subsequently posted to facebook they criticized the narrow focus on Islam, saying the real enemies were multiculturalism, mass immigration, and the “banksters” system, and condemning as useless any mobilization that shied away from this. In a similar vein, their banner that day was inscribed with a modified quote from Marx: “Immigration — The Reserve Army of Capital.” (This is not the first time Atalante has made a point of criticizing less ideological racists – recently, they also leafleted a book launch of mainstream Islamophobic journalist Mathieu Bock-Côté, urging a more radical approach.)

SOCIAL CONTEXT

Beyond the involvement and organizational work of specific far-Right groups, there are broader social factors behind the stark difference in how March 4th played out in Quebec and in English Canada. Islamophobia and xenophobia in general are less contested in the public arena in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada, and the left’s response to racism (for generations now) has been far weaker and more incoherent than anywhere else in North America. This is because the complication of national identity and Quebec nationalism was never neutralized or resolved in a liberatory manner here. So while in many other places there is a large non-left section of the population who might be hostile to the far-Right because they see them as being somehow extremist, undemocratic, or otherwise unsavoury (for reasons we would consider not left, but which we still benefit from if only passively), in Quebec that section of the population is far more ambivalent and can swing either way depending on how things are framed. It gives the organized racists a larger pool to fish in, and more room to operate in, on the level of ideas. I.e. they are not always considered “beyond the pale.”

Still, it is worth reminding readers that during the period of the New Left, the so-called “long sixties”, Quebec was a progressive pole within Canada, and the Quebec nationalist movement was dominated by progressive forces. While this is not the place to go into an extended history of what went wrong, some of the roots of the problem can be traced back to this “high point”, where an identification with the anti-colonial forces worldwide, led many Quebecois nationalists to dismiss the possibility of their own nation being an oppressor, or of their own movement being a vehicle of racism. It is not uncommon today to find former radicals, left-wing activists and even leaders from that generation, holding openly racist and far-Right positions. What is perhaps different from other contexts in North America, is that these individuals do not always appreciate the fact that they have switched sides.

Add to this a series of orchestrated racist surges in Quebec over the past ten years, as a populist-nationalist right grew and seized upon Islamophobia as a way to increase its support and outflank their political opponents. Once Islamophobia proved a winning ticket, suddenly everyone wanted to have some, and several of the mainstream political parties – including social democrats and “feminists” and even “leftists” – started either engaging in or tailing anti-Muslim fearmongering, along the lines that they are terrorists or sexists or invaders intent on imposing Sharia law. If March 4th represented a significant far-Right advance, it was on a road paved by not only the mainstream right, but by some “progressives” too.

In addition to the above, the massacre on January 29th, when Alexandre Bissonnette (a far-Rightist) shot up a mosque in the Quebec City suburb of St-Foy, actually encouraged the far-Right. (The mosque had been targeted with Islamophobic vandalism multiple times before, including in June 2016 having a pig’s head left on its doorstep with a note reading “bon appetit.”)

While thousands of people came out in vigils after the massacre, and there was a lot of play in the media about Islamophobia for a few days, the aforementioned national-identity-issue in Quebec made it so that within a week not only the neonazis and fascists, but large swathes of the populist-nationalist right as well had reinterpreted the event as one where Quebec was now under attack by the “multiculturalists” and “islamists” who wanted to “exploit” the killings to clamp down on free speech, to humiliate or slander Quebec as somehow being racist, etc. – all as perfectly symbolized by the (meaningless) Bill M-103. These people sincerely feel that there is a lot of racism in Canada against Quebec, and that any talk of “islamophobia” is a smokescreen for this — and it must be said, this is a position that the left has never neutralized here, even within its own ranks.

While the January 29th massacre was condemned by almost all sections of the far-Right, it is not an exaggeration to say that many see the Quebec nation as having been the real victim. Furthermore, the attack clearly emboldened and encouraged other far-Right forces, and everyday racists, not only in Quebec but across English Canada too. It has been followed by a series of acts of vandalism against mosques, an anti-Muslim bomb threat at Concordia University in Montreal, and renewed attacks on Muslims in the media, especially on talk radio.

This is the context in which March 4th took place.

NOT JUST TRUMP

Quebec is a different nation from English Canada or the United States; while “the Trump effect” plays a part in things here, there are also internal processes at work which were leading in this direction regardless. Indeed, pointing to Trump, or to Canada’s imperialist crimes in the Middle East, as the main factor behind Islamophobia here, has become an argument mobilized by certain figures who seek to downplay or simply deny the deep roots of racism in Quebec. By blaming policies that are decided in Ottawa and Washington DC, such arguments leave Quebec once again the innocent victim, free of all blame.

There are many examples of this, but the most outrageous one is probably the article The New World Order Hits Quebec City by Robin Philpot, a long time anglophone apologist for racism in Quebec (as early as 1991, Philpot was writing that the Mohawk Warrior Society in its conflict with the Quebec State was merely acting as a catspaw for either the CIA or RCMP). Philpot’s “New World Order” article, which first appeared on the Montreal-based Global Research website and was subsequently reposted on Counterpunch, essentially argues that the January 29th massacre was a result of global imperialism, not of any particular problem with Islamophobia here. Indeed, covering up numerous mass-based Islamophobic mobilizations in Quebec, Philpot argues that the province cannot be Islamophobic because … there were large antiwar demonstrations here in 2003!

That such arguments lead nowhere can be shown by the simple fact that they fail to predict or explain things like March 4th.

In order to understand things, Quebec needs to be viewed as a distinct nation, but also as one which is embedded within and largely sees itself as belonging to the broader 21st century supra-national identities of “whiteness” and “the West” – not only in terms of the white West’s crimes abroad, but also in terms of social relations “at home.” This makes Quebec in some ways the same, in some ways different from other purportedly “white” “Western” societies. For instance, in terms of the groups discussed here, many of the intellectual reference points are different (i.e. more European, more hardcore Catholic), and even when they are shared (i.e. the European New Right which also impacted the American alt-right) they play a different role because they came here untranslated and through different channels.

The “strategic quality” of a far-Right breakthrough here, for those of you in the U.S., would be difficult to measure, and might not be much. On the other hand, as recent events have shown, any place these people can advance significantly, can constitute an inspiration or a leverage-point for their ilk elsewhere.

One way or another, what is now on the agenda for those of us in Quebec is to determine the meaning of recent events. For antifascists and other progressive forces, the priority is clear: building on our positions of strength, reaching out to new allies, and making sure that something like March 4th does not happen again.

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