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

About Violence: A Communiqué on the Block NATO Demonstration*

 Comments Off on About Violence: A Communiqué on the Block NATO Demonstration*
Nov 252024
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

*This release is based on the journal Block NATO, organised by CLAC and D4P, but it is independent. We will explain here the reasoning behind our actions of the evening of Friday, November 22nd, because we know why we do these things and we believe very strongly in what we do.

Let’s put things first in context : Friday marked the start of NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Montreal. NATO represents the military apparatus of the global north, it’s the biggest military alliance in history. While our governments are already making the life of the excluded and exploited a death circus, NATO pressures Canada to invest 50% more of its GDP into the military. That represents 55 billion dollars. NATO is a major decision-making body that embodies militarist and imperialist interests. It’s also an accomplice in the genocide happening in Palestine.

NATO includes the richest countries in the world, namely Canada, Germany, the United States, France, Italy and the UK, but it also conspires with non-member allies such as Japan and the Zionist entity (Israel). It protects the capitalist interests of the global north, with the United States as a semi-formal secretary. NATO organises the threat and capacity to act in devastating ways to counter any initiative of liberation of the global south. Its interests are imperialist: the States formed and governed by capital aspire to extend their power by exploiting external territories where they steal resources, destroy nature and enslave people through political, economic and/or military domination. It normalises the horror of its crimes against humanity by camouflaging them as humanitarian missions and by splitting the political costs between different countries, maintaining their democratic bases in ignorance or illusion.

The military interventions supported by NATO protect governments aligned with American interests and crush any alternative, keeping the global south under capitalist constraints. NATO’s alliance with the zionist entity is ideologically coherent, as a colonial enterprise, but Israel also provides technologies of control and weapons that NATO states use throughout the world, in their imperialist missions and on their own populations.

And oh by the way, no we don’t support Russia or prefer it to NATO, people typically think NATO is about defending against Russia, but we don’t even care, every fucking colonizer of this world has to be taken down, we hate this capitalist system and its extensions from the bottom of our heart.

The problem we’re fighting here isn’t specifically NATO’s assembly, nor the actions of the CDPQ (which requires every public employee to fund the Palestinian genocide), but they are symptoms of that problem. What the problem really is, is the dominant system which causes all these horrors : capitalism. There is no more time for calm and asking nicely. Resistance is legitimate, the State and the police can no longer have a monopoly on violence – if it’s the only language they’ll hear. We want the illusion to stop and we want to draw light, in the streets and in the media, to the horrors deployed right under our noses. We attack capital, materialised most densely downtown, to oppose symbolically and materially the most odious crimes committed for capitalism:

The windows of the Palais des Congrès, where the NATO summit is happening A car set on fire Riot police covered in paint Businesses’ windows smashed

Our acts are charged with rage born from the horrors we witness and denounce here, but also from our own grief: between climate collapse and housing crisis, inflation and shit jobs, health and education systems in ruins, xenophobia, transphobia, covid and depression, profiling and repression, the rise of fascism, etc. All of which answer to the same system. We have had enough and we are horrified, so we gather and we show our refusal. Our actions have had a symbolic and material impact: they have imposed costs financially, have disrupted and disturbed, have propagated our ideals and made visible this very legitimate and necessary struggle.

Before anything was even attacked, the police charged, pepper-sprayed and hit us. In our fight, we have seen the complicit posture of our governments : police violence is an obvious manifestation of it. To repress our actions, the police, the state’s guard dogs, have used weapons and tactics developed by the zionist entity and other NATO investments. The police have again and always defended the interests of the rich and the State: pepper-spraying, beating, breaking ribs, gassing, poisoning. It tries to choke hopes of freedom for human lives and nature, currently massacred, but we are still standing. We denounce the arrests and many injuries (cracked skull, broken arm, projectiles in the eyes, etc.), but we are still standing. The Fall was warm and winter will burn hotter, because the struggle is all we have left, because we need to do everything we can, because we love our revolutions deeply, because we love our comrades and what we know we can do together.

The media will focus on our violence, they will manipulate our messages, our messages confronting the atrocities perpetrated by Israel and NATO – responsible for millions of deaths. So it is crucial to say again that it is the brutality of the oppressive structures governing us that we fight, that the worst violence is the State’s and that that violence is a direct consequence of capitalism.

LOVE AND RAGE.

-THE BLACK BLOC

Some Initial Thoughts On Unity Of Fields

 Comments Off on Some Initial Thoughts On Unity Of Fields
Nov 232024
 

Anonymous submission to Puget Sound Anarchists

[I am writing as an insurrectionary anarchist in the u$a and speaking to that context]

Unity Of Fields is a counter-info project that emerged in August of 2024. They describe their project as “a militant propaganda front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism.” It used to be Palestine Action US and has since changed its orientation. It has a website and some social media accounts, some of which have are banned at the time of this writing, they seem to be most popular on Telegram. Although it links to mostly anarchist sources for technical knowledge, Unity Of Fields does not seem to be an anarchist project and their political reading and media suggestions are all over the map. They suggest classic decolonial texts by Fanon and Cesaire, Black liberation writings from the BLA and BPP, texts from various Palestinian resistance factions, as well as authoritarian communists like Lenin and Mao among others.

Mostly their website is a clearing house for news, action analysis, and communiques. Many of the communiques posted are original submissions though they also repost from other counter-info projects and from social media. They also post some of their own original writings to their website. The fact that they post sketchy criminal stuff and link to technical advice on how to better carry out insurrectionary forms of struggle is probably a large part of why they are discussed in anarchist circles at all.

What does the emergence of a project like Unity Of Fields mean for us as anarchists? For one thing Unity Of Fields expands some spaces we occupy as anarchists — the combative struggle space and the digital counter-info space. We are clearly not the only ones re-coloring walls, opening windows, and carrying out our little sabotages and then writing about it, though at least for now others seem to look to our collective knowledge and experience for technical guidance. We are sharing a struggle space, one which is not limited to riotous moments and combative demonstrations, with other rebels who have made themselves visible to us. We are being included (at least some of the time) in a dialogue with other rebels through the sharing of our words and news of our actions, and anarchists have shared writings from Unity Of Fields on our own websites.

Local struggles against zionism, imperialism, and colonialism are visibly taking on more destructive, decentralized, anonymous, and autonomous approaches, a long-term dream of insurrectionary anarchists, yet new questions arise for us. How do we want to contend with other rebels with whom we have ideological differences and tactical similarities? How do we avoid getting lost in the vanguardist, unifying, nationalist tendencies that often accompany revolutionary leftist approaches to combative struggle? Are we interested in conspiring with these others outside the spontaneity of spiky demonstrations, occupations (and potentially riots), and if so how?

As anarchists we both seek to expand and connect anarchic forms of struggle yet also hold a healthy skepticism of unity with people who don’t hold anti-authoritarian views of freedom. Our history includes many betrayals by the left and progressives, from peace policing at demonstrations to executions and imprisonment from newly established revolutionary governments. The question of who to coalesce with and why is not an easy one, and one that is best addressed on a case by case basis. The appearance of Unity Of Fields potentially facilitates the dialogues and understanding that can help us better decide if and how we want to team up. As anarchists can often find ourselves isolated from others who we may have some political parallels with, the opening up of a “militant propaganda front” is a bridge to dialogue and learn across. This is not a call to join forces with anyone on the basis of being anti-zionist or anti-amerikkkan, it’s simply a reminder to always be analyzing the changing terrain around us and to think critically as we carry forward our struggles.

“Towards The Last Intifada” and “Towards Another Uprising” seem to be the beginnings of a dialogue among anarchists that address some of these questions. I look forward to more.

Relevant Readings:

Unity Of Fields: Opening Up A New Front

Towards The Last Intifada

Towards Another Uprising

Archipelago – affinity, informal organization, and insurrectional projects

Voices from the Front Line Against the Occupation: Interview with Palestinian Anarchists

PS: Some Thoughts On Spectacle

Many if not most of the actions posted to Unity Of Fields are accompanied by some visual media, usually photos, sometimes videos. I want rebels to consider some pitfalls of spectacularizing our struggles. Every photo or video is another crumb for the state to eat up as part of their investigations. Digital media can offer up metadata about where and when and what kind of device it was recorded on if not properly removed. Footage that shows rebels gives the state valuable information, such as number of participants, approximate time of day, whether any passersby were present, as well as biometric data even when a person is masked. Height, skin tone, gait, approximate weight, and other information can be determined from even grainy footage.

Additionally there are the downsides of understanding our struggles in a quantitative way. This approach may blunt the qualitative changes that participating in struggle can bring us individually and collectively. Of course propaganda is useful, the seductive appeal of revolt is made easier with imagery, and these things must be weighted out, no struggle will be pure. I want to remind us that though this is the path that is being worn into the ground, it is not the only one, and should we choose it let us choose it intentionally.

Sabotage of Ottawa factory producing parts for Israel’s F-35 warplanes

 Comments Off on Sabotage of Ottawa factory producing parts for Israel’s F-35 warplanes
Nov 042024
 

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

Earlier this week a group of people sabotaged Gastops’ factory in Ottawa, the only place in the world where engine sensors are produced for Lockheed’s F-35 combat jets — including the ones dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Gaza. We cut the wiring inside all of the heat pumps on the Gastops roof, locked them out with official Ministry of Health and Safety lock-out tags, shut off the gas, broke the handles for their systems, and cut the lines to their backup communication system on the way out.

The following letter and photos were left on site:

It’s worth noting that we disabled their heat pumps as it begins to get cold here in Ottawa and as displaced people in Gaza and Lebanon plead with us to help them secure shelter, blankets, clothing, as they freeze in displacement camps. Earlier this month an Ottawa neighbour lost her uncle while he returned to his home in Gaza attempting to bring back blankets for the children so they would not freeze to death. He was murdered by air strike while doing so, likely by an F-35 that Gastops supplies parts to.

People growing tired of politicians continuing to support the slaughter of civilians in Palestine and Lebanon will continue to escalate actions seeking peace and an end to these war crimes.

Call to Action Against the PRGT Pipeline

 Comments Off on Call to Action Against the PRGT Pipeline
Nov 022024
 

Anonymous submission to BC Counter-info

As of August 2024, construction work has started on the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline. The project is owned by Western LNG and the Nisgaa Nation, the latter which has allowed for construction to start on their land first, the rural Nass river valley that sits adjacent to the Pacific ocean. State and industry are committed to developing an “energy corridor” through the remote region. The nearly completed and fiercely contested Coastal Gas Link pipeline was the first pipeline in the southern energy corridor, and PRGT is the first pipeline projected for the northern energy corridor. The line is set to end at Ksi Lisims LNG terminal (Nisgaa owned as well) where liquid and natural gas would be stored and prepared for export to international markets by tankers. LNG is being sold as a green alternative for those looking to shift away from coal. But the green transition is a lie. We know that energy, and its current reorganization, is inseparable from domination, capitalist exploitation and the extractivist logic that devastates the land. We propose attack.

Social tension is rising against PRGT. Multiple sites of resistance have been brewing across North-Central BC. In 2016, during the first attempts at construction, the Madii Lii camp was set up to blockade access to the pipeline right of way in the Suskwa valley in Gitxan territory. The camp remains to this day. Northwest of there, another Gitxsan blockade has been set up on the Cranberry Connector, the northern of the two roads into the Nass valley. Gitxsan people have a long history of defending their land, notably some anti-logging struggles in the 80-90’s, and expressing their solidarity with their Wet’swuwet’en neighbors by blockading railways. We stand in solidarity with native resistance, which will likely snowball into more blockades in key areas of the project. Conjointly, as anarchists we have our own projects of destruction. Autonomous attacks allow us to expand the methods of struggle, to engage in conflict at our own pace, how and where we sit fit, and to not compromise our visions and values. We propose an offensive struggle of diffuse blows carried out by affinity groups in dispersed formation, as others have said, to act without forming compact columns, without building permanent indefensible encampments. Instead, we seek to extend diffuse hostilities over a large terrain. 

An autonomous struggle against the PRGT pipeline project begins by looking at the tool and capacities we currently have, identifying what we need to learn and acting from that without delay. The project spans thousands of kilometers, the offices, homes and interests of the companies behind it are spread throughout Canada and beyond. An expansive practice of attack can identify and target these diverse sites. Below are lists of companies involved in the project as well as links to a map of the project’s right of way. More work should be done to identify additional companies involved and the findings should be shared via counter info sites.

Companies involved in PRGT project

  • Ledcor – Is a construction company operating primarily in Canada and United States. Ledcor operates in a wide range of industries, including the construction of buildings and civil infrastructure, technical services such as communication networks, forestry, mining, property development and management, transportation, marine operations, and several energy projects, including oil, gas, and Liquefied Natural Gas. Ledcor is leading the current phase of infrastructure upgrades necessary to begin pipeline construction. Ledcor is currently upgrading or maintaining roads, bridges, man camp sites etc.
  • Bechtel– Is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company. Bechtel is managing the construction of the PRGT pipeline.
  • McElhanney – provides surveying, engineering, GIS & remote sensing, community & transportation planning, landscape architecture, environmental services, and more. McElhanney has been and continues to be responsible for surveying and monitoring of environment for the PRGT project. They have over 30+ locations across Western Canada. A McElhanney office near the PRGT project was the target of an anonymous arson in late September: https://bccounterinfo.org/2024/10/12/arson-attack-in-terrace-bc/

Resources

Block NATO

 Comments Off on Block NATO
Oct 302024
 

From the Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes

From November 22nd to 25th, NATO’s parliamentary assembly will be in Montreal for its mortifying circus. From a military alliance during the Cold War, NATO has today become the armed wing of Western countries, imposing its bellicose policies throughout the world. Faced with these war profiteers, it is imperative that we make our voices heard and combat their destructive logic. 

The impact of NATO on our policies is huge:

  • Increases to military budgets: This summit comes at a time when NATO is pressuring the Canadian government to increase the share of its GDP devoted to the armed forces to 2%, a 50% increase, while the Canadian government has already increased its military investments by 41% from 2014 to 2021. 
  • Destruction in the name of United-Statesian imperialism: Let’s not be fooled by the sterile language of Western forces; NATO’s interventions, far from being strategic and precise, are rather excessively powerful, disproportionate and imprecise. NATO destroys everything in its path, spreading misery and encouraging the multiplication of armed groups, all to preserve the interests of its member states, principally the United States, pillar of the alliance and giant of the military-industrial complex. This imperialist logic keeps the peoples of the Global South poor and dependent on the Global North.​​​​​​​
  • Aiding and abetting the Palestinian genocide: So-called Canada is complicit in the genocide in Palestine by contributing to the supply of weapons, facilitating economic and academic partnerships and, above all, by its unwavering support for Israel, NATO’s central ally. It is through military support for Zionist forces that NATO is able to maintain a strategic foothold in the Middle East, in order to advance the political and economic interests of its members.

Peace will not be won at the point of a gun, but by putting an end to imperialism and capitalism. It is in honor of all the colonized peoples of yesterday, today and tomorrow, here and elsewhere, that we call on your courage and determination to walk the streets with us!

On November 22, let’s take it to the streets en masse to make our anger heard! Let’s unite to remind States the world over that their hands will always be stained with the blood of the exploited, no matter how much they try to hide it in velvet gloves or laughable summits!

Together, let’s block NATO and affirm our rejection of militarism, imperialism and colonialism!

Date and time:
Friday, 22 November 2024 – 17:30

A journal written in 3 weeks in preparation for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from November 22 to 25, 2024. The full document in pdf. Or just the English or French version.

Arson attack in Terrace BC

 Comments Off on Arson attack in Terrace BC
Oct 182024
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On the morning September 26th four vehicles were severely damaged as well as buildings nearby in an arson attack in Terrace BC.

With a little investigation we realized the vehicles attacked belong to McElhanney a company with a large portfolio providing surveying, engineering, GIS & remote sensing, landscape architecture, environmental services across western Canada. Near Terrace, McElhanney is working on the controversial PRGT pipeline, which has seen resistance via occupations and blockades. Further south the company has used GIS data to help plan work for the controversial TMX pipeline. In north eastern BC, McElhanney has worked on providing data and plans for the expansion of LNG well sites and pipelines.

We stumbled across this information via local media’s republishing of RCMP reports. It seems very little information has been shared by the RCMP. They chose to not publish photos or exact details. This is surprising considering the scale of the attack. Perhaps they would like to keep this news quiet.

Call for Autonomous Acts of Rage Against Colonization Everywhere on Monday October 14th 2024

 Comments Off on Call for Autonomous Acts of Rage Against Colonization Everywhere on Monday October 14th 2024
Oct 112024
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

“We will need each other to make sure that the flames, if they were to come, clear the area that we will live in together. We will need to clear it of the fuel that would end up repeating the problems we are currently having. We will need to make sure that the seeds, nutrients and soil are scattered beyond our ability to control.” Aragorn

We don’t just want a cease-fire, we want the Right of Return for all Palestinian people, for water to flow, and the traditions to stay alive. We can’t get back the countless lives lost, but we can honor and avenge them. And we will.

For the end of the struggle that is settler colonialism everywhere. Where the land is stolen, consent violated, the old ways forgotten – let it burn.

We hope that every colonizer who robs the lives and dignity of the land and the people on it understands that their great-grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren’s children are not going to be here because of their violence and indeterminate destruction.

We will still be here fighting for the next seven generations, but we will never forget the slaughter, and we will remember to make sure those grandchildren stay afraid of all that is wild.

The united states government now “recognizes” indigenous people’s day alongside columbus day. We must make this impossible to reconcile. We will remain illegible to them, and unknowable to all but each other and the stars above, the water below, and all that of the earth fighting back. We call out to the brave and the humble – all that is striving towards life, while defying management, capture, and domestication with a strength they could never know.

Find the connections, funders, manufacturers, advisors, politicians, gentrifiers, and all enemies of the people and the earth. You know who they are.

Find some friends and haunt those motherfuckers ghosts.

Montreal Summer Reflection: Liberalism, Its Counter-Revolutionary Dynamics & Peace Policing

 Comments Off on Montreal Summer Reflection: Liberalism, Its Counter-Revolutionary Dynamics & Peace Policing
Sep 162024
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

The summer of Montreal came crashing into full force as the encampment movement bloomed across university campuses around the world. For many of us, it was the first time being apart of something bigger than us, challenging the status quo and experiencing a level of violence both from the institution and state. Even with all of this, and the many strides that were made, the connections that were made, we aren’t without fault and mistakes.

As I write this, I made the conscious decision to submit this piece anonymously both because of fear of being tied to the encampment movement and because of organizational entities that deemed themselves as leaders, who made existing within the camps an increasingly hostile environment. I believe the act of anonymity will allow a more honest reflection.

Liberalism & Counter-Revolutionary Dynamics:

What sets our tactics apart from liberals isn’t simply a matter of “diversity of tactics” that many of us might believe, but rather a fundamental disagreement on how material societal change occurs.

Liberalism promotes change through established institutions and democratic processes, it advocates for reform, with the current existing system that we spend so much of our time protesting and resisting against. The liberal agenda hopes to stabilize and improve the current system rather than overthrowing it.

Contrasting this with our tactics of militancy and a framework built on direct action, we reject the premise of incremental approaches and reform. We are in favour of immediate and significant upheaval, we are driven by the belief that freedom will only come through material radical change. I.e. real disruptive protests, strikes and economic sabotage to name a few.

It’s liberalism that attempts to convince us that the rule of bourgeois law and so-called “democratic institutions” are worth engaging with.

When in reality these rotten, immoral institutions are what brought the indescribable suffering of Palestinians, these institutions are the very tool that finances and supports genocide.

The summer has left a mark of a revolutionary zeal that ought to be put to use. It’s liberalism that comes to us with empty fluffy words, that come to us in the form of three to four letter orgs, these are the entities that attempt to delay us and prevent us from the kind of radical shift that has been needed within the global north since ’48.

We will not be convinced that this system is worth saving. We have no intention to reinforce structures that exploit us and our comrades around the globe by coming to a negotiation table. We have no intention in saving this system, our intention is to overthrow it by any means necessary, exactly what has been asked of us by the resistance in Gaza.

Peace Policing:

What has been a common reoccurring protest method, something that is not unique to Montreal, is the role of Yellow Vest/Protest Marshals. What was originally supposed to be a shield between protesters and police, has now become the first line of offense FOR the police. Myself and many others have witnessed the way yellow vests work in unison with police by giving out protest routes beforehand, controlling the way protesters express their anger and to maintain the dominance of a unelected hierarchal leadership to a specific organization. This past summer, all that the yellow vests have had to offer us is the strangling of enthusiasm, effectiveness and the inability to exhaust police resources correctly.

Orgs and groups who use this method of crowd control offer no protections and no culture of de-arresting. What the yellow vests accomplish is creating an environment that allows the job of the police be done for them. These protest marshals actively sabotage efforts of escalation in the hopes that playing by the rules will have their movements be seen as more “legitimate”. Yet, when has any demand been delivered by legitimacy alone? The mere act of standing against genocide has left a sour taste in the mouths of our enemies, is this who we must legitimize ourselves to?

I will close this section off with questions I have yet to find answers to. Who do the yellow vests protect when their back is to the police as they face the crowd? Who do they represent when they pull people off of sidewalks and pick up the trash cans that were thrown on to the ground, snuffing out our ability to move freely, and who do they mirror when they deicide how we protest?

Closing Off:

These past months have put us in an incredible position, one where we can reorient ourselves not to be stagnant. The movement must come together from many different fronts, where we can stand united not as a single banner but rather a mosaic of resistance, where the final blow against those who stand against us be laid.

My comrades and soon to be accomplices, there is no shortage of work.

With everything we know now, with all the mistakes that have been made, let us embark in the next part of this act, and may we be better equipped to handle whatever is thrown at us.

Reportback on the Disruption of Fierté Montréal’s Corporate Parade

 Comments Off on Reportback on the Disruption of Fierté Montréal’s Corporate Parade
Aug 172024
 

From the F.A.G.S.

On Sunday, the F.A.G.S. and its queer and trans accomplices disrupted Fierté Montréal’s corporate, Zionist, colonialist pride parade.

We gathered at 1pm in drag bloc outfits and makeup in the spectator zone at Place Ville Marie. Nearly a dozen cops with SIS armbands mobilized to surveil our gathering, as clearly a group of queers at pride protecting each other from COVID is cause for suspicion. At around 1:30pm, towards the beginning of the parade, we took to the street as Helem, Mubaadarat, and Independent Jewish Voices’ Queer for Palestine float passed by. By marching behind their float as part of the parade for a short while, we managed to sooth the fears of the anxious piggies.

After briefly marching, we stood in place and deployed an extra-long banner to begin dispersing and disrupting the parade and deliver a speech on Fierté Montréal’s corporate pinkwashing. After this, we communicated with the members of the AGIR float behind us, allowing them and several other community floats pass and continue parading, before blocking the Bubly sparkling water float.

We continued marching and zig-zagging backwards through the parade, largely evading police intervention and briefly blocking various floats tied to Zionist corporate interests. Floats and contingents in solidarity cheered us on and raised their fists as we passed. A small contingent carrying Zionist flags approached. We attempted to block them by rapidly deploying a second extra-long banner, but police brutally pushed us to the side of the road and stole our banner.

As cop presence began to escalate, we decided to switch directions and march back towards the front of the parade, following and protesting the Zionist contingent. After halting the parade several times on our way back towards the front, we stopped at Jeanne-Mance and René Levesque. Here, we blocked the entire back portion of the parade, where almost all complicit floats were located.

During this time, police, Zionists, private security and Fierté marshals attacked and insulted us while bystanders cheered us on and chanted with us. Autonomous members of the Helem, Mubaadarat, and IJV contingent came back to join us after their successful and poignant die-in disruption. Other members of the community responded to our public call for support. Our numbers were boosted to around 150 demonstrators.

As pigs multiplied and donned their riot gear, as prisoner transport vehicles arrived, as Fierté begged us to allow their corporate parade to continue, as Zionists threw projectiles at us, as the hot August sun beat down on us, we stood our ground.

As cops shoved us, pulled us, hit us with batons, tried to steal our materials, threatened us, and brutalized us in front of a crowd of our fellow queers, we remained steadfast and defiant.

We blocked the parade at Jeanne Mance for nearly an hour before police and class traitor Fierté marshals worked together to redirect the parade to the other side of the median.

After the parade went by on the other side of the road, we marched down René Levesque chanting slogans against pinkwashing and police. The vast majority of bystanders cheered us on, while certain bystanders shouted racist vitriol at us, showing their true colours as Zionist, capitalist, colonialist white cis men. We eventually dispersed into the Metro. No arrests were made.

Though we didn’t manage to cancel the parade outright, we consider this action successful.

We blocked corporate floats long enough that many of their potential spectators further along the parade route left out of boredom. We showed queer bystanders and the media that police are not afraid to brutalize queers during a pride parade. We reminded the world that pride started as a riot against the police, not as a parade sponsored by corporate interests. We showed that as queers of conscience in Tio’tià:ke, like in Tkaronto, the Coast Salish territories colonially known as Vancouver, and elsewhere across Turtle Island and around the world, we will not accept a genocide in our names.

Fuck pinkwashing
Fuck Fierté Montréal
Fuck the police
No justice
No peace

Photo: @the_purple_line

 Older Entries  Newer Entries