da Quebec city

["AlessandroGimona"<agimona at libero.it>]

Spero interessi,

Alessandro Gimona



Dear Friends and Family,

         Well, after a 45 minute search of our cars and luggage by 
immigration officials--and a computerized background check on each of 
us--my six friends and
         I made it across the Canadian border late Friday night. We are 
now all back safe and sound from the anti-FTAA protests in Quebec City. 
I have even
         slept--and taken a long awaited shower to remove the last hint 
of tear gas from my hair and skin.

         I¹m sitting in my own bedroom now, while my clothes are in the 
washer, trying to reflect on my experiences over the last three 
days--and to figure out how
         to convey what I experienced, given that what I saw has been 
almost completely edited out of the press coverage that has been 
presented on US TV and
         in most mass circulation newspapers. My own paper, The Boston 
Globe, is a good example. This ³unbiased² and ³objective² news source 
started out with the
         following headline on Sunday: ³Demonstrators fail to stop 
summit; Bush champions freedom.² It then goes on to list the number of 
participants in the
         weekend¹s events at around 20,000, when even the Canadian 
police admit the numbers were at least 30,000 and Canadian human rights 
observers put
         the figure at over 60,000. (Most organizers I spoke to put the 
figure at around 50,000, slightly more than the number of people who 
participated in the
         WTO protests in Seattle.)

         Looking over the last three days of the Globe¹s coverage, I 
find only photos of gas-masked kids creating ³mayhem² and hurling rocks 
and Molotov
         cocktails across the one story high, 2.5 mile concrete and 
steel fence that was used to keep the public from getting near the 34 
heads of states--and, of
         course, their corporate advisors who paid $500,000 each to be 
allowed inside the parameter as ³sponsors² of the Summit. It is these 
people negotiating in
         private and encircled by 6,000 police officers and 1,500 
military personnel armed with gasmasks, nightsticks, water canons, tear 
gas launchers, concussion
         grenades, and plastic bullets--that now want to extend the 
provisions of NAFTA to most of the western hemisphere without the 
consent of the 800 million
         people it will effect. Indeed, the heads of state explicitly 
rejected the proposal to hold national referendums on the FTAA in every 
country effected. Is this
         the ³freedom² that our unelected US president so bravely 
³champions?² 

         Nowhere in the pages of the Globe did I find a picture of the 
festive, huge, completely peaceful, four-hour long Peoples Summit of the 
America march and
         rally on Saturday that brought out around 30,000 trade 
unionists from Canada, the US, Mexico, Haiti, Columbia, Brazil as well 
as over 20,000
         environmentalists, human rights campaigners, feminists, 
community organizers, student activists, and consumer advocates to march 
through town with
         brilliantly colored signs, flags, banners, giant puppets, 
drummers, and chants like ³This is what democracy looks like!² or ³So.. 
So.. So.. Solidarity!² or ³No
         Globalization Without Representation² in English, French, and, 
sometimes, in Spanish.

         This amazing coalition of people marching together was 
awe-inspiring. The march was so big that it took three hours for all the 
marchers, marching
         shoulder to shoulder and crushed tightly together across a six 
lane highway, to move completely move past a single intersection. The 
march went on and
         on and on, cheered by a hundred Haitian activists drumming and 
singing as we moved on by as well as the chanting of the ³Raging 
Grannies,² a collective
         of elderly activist women in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. We were 
even treated to the political and very funny satirical cheers of a group 
of young women
         dressed up as ³Radical Cheerleaders,² complete with lettered 
sweaters, short skirts, and pompoms. We were also waved at and shouted 
to by many
          spectators standing out on their porches and balconies as we 
passed, many of whom flashed us the V-sign for victory.

         This crowd was not the relative handful of purple-haired, 
body-pierced, and scruffy-looking young people that were featured in 
photos in the newspapers
         back here in the States. No, this was tens of thousands of 
ordinary people of all ages--most of them--in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, 
several marching with
         their young children. I remember one ³union² kid, probably 
around nine or ten years old, carrying a hand painted sign in French 
that said, ³End the
         exploitation of child labor now!² That looked like a good photo 
opportunity to me, but according to the Boston Globe, this child and her 
parents simply
         don¹t exist. We were all but erased from the official record. I 
even checked the AP photo database of the Summit protests today on the 
web and, out of
         332 photos, I didn¹t find a single photo of this march--the 
main march of the weekend¹s protest events! Nor was there anything of 
the week-long
         teach-in/conferencef that had precedeed the summit of national 
leaders and brought together thousands of rank and file labor activists 
and members of
         NGOs to study the issues surround corporate globalization and 
"free trade." Ah, a free press is a precious thing. I look forward to 
having one someday. 

         Thankfully, Quebec TV ran almost round the clock news on the 
march, the teach-ins, and various other direct actions, including 
protesters cleaning up the
         streets of downtown Quebec City on Sunday afternoon. They also 
did extensive and numerous interviews with the participants of the big 
march, including
         labor folks and people in NGO¹s like local neighborhood 
associations, the Sierra Club of Canada, and the 100,000 member Council 
of Canadians. Nor were
         these interviews reduced to just soundbites. They let each 
individual explain why they were protesting the FTAA for five or ten 
minutes each! In this
         country, however, it appears that the mass media focused on the 
³hippy looking² youngsters at the wall being teargassed and the reported 
that the
         weekend was nothing but violent clashes with police that were 
³vaguely reminiscent of the 1960s.² 

         Yet, this event was not hardly reminiscent of the 1960s. Think 
about it. During the entire 1960s, when did we ever see an 
international, tri-lingual coalition
         of tens of thousands union people, environmentalists, 
feminists, and civil rights activists challenging officials from 34 
nations at the same time and
         articulating a common agenda that supports popular democracy, 
sustainability, wilderness protection, labor rights, shared prosperity, 
and fair trade
         through out the hemisphere???!!!!?!?!?! This is a new and 
unprecedented coalition that has emerged over just the last few years. 
It is hardly a weird
         historical flashback. This growing and diverse movement is also 
potentially more powerful than the social movements of the 1960s because 
of its
         composition.

         It is also definitely larger than the Globe lets on. There were 
several dozens of support demonstrations throughout Canada, the US, 
Mexico, and in Central
         and South America during this FTAA Summit weekend. None of 
these were focused on in the Globe. Also, the vast majority of protest 
participants in Quebec
         City had not taken part in Seattle. They, like me, were new 
recruits who were inspired by Seattle--and each of them will tell their 
own stories to dozens of
         friends, family, and work associates just like I am doing here. 
This movement is spreading, putting down roots around the world, and 
laying the
         foundations for the possibility of real reform in how we 
organize and conduct our political and economic lives. 

         For one thing, I hardly think that these demonstrators ³failed² 
as the editors of the Boston Globe would have you believe. They achieved 
their objectives of
         mobilizing thousands more people into the global justice 
movement, raising the FTAA treaty negotiations to popular consciousness 
as a potential problem,
         and helping solidify the emerging coalition of labor, 
environmentalists, and human rights activists who now have greater 
capacity to continue working
         together in the future. They also made sure that while the FTAA 
negotiations were conducted in private, they were not secret or outside 
of public
         awareness. Shutting down the negotiations--as at the WTO 
meeting--would have been great, but it was never considered a likely 
outcome of the protests
         or a serious objective of the protesters. Raising popular 
consciousness about the potential threats posed by FTAA rules and 
building the movement were
         the key objectives and that is exactly what we achieved. 
Indeed, several of the heads of states, in their public comments, felt 
compelled--at least for PR
         purposes--to say that the proposed trade agreement should 
address many of the key concerns raised by the labor unions, NGOs, and 
concerned citizens
         represented outside the militarized wall keeping the public 
away from the negotiations--and even George Bush felt compelled to say 
that the agreement
         should be structured so as to foster democracy, labor rights, 
and environmental protection. They even agreed to finally release the 
secret discussion draft
         of the agreement which so far has not even been released to the 
hemisphere¹s elected legislators!

         This is not to say there isn¹t some truth to what the Globe and 
other papers reported in the text of their stories and in their photos. 
It just means they
         tend to leave out the most important parts, focus on the most 
negative and the least significant parts of the weekend, and sloppily 
smear the actions of
         over 50,000 people by confusing them with the actions of a few 
dozen to at most a hundred young people who are either immature, 
ideologically
         over-zealous, understandably angry at police brutality, or, 
probably in some cases, undercover police officers trying to incite 
protester violence.  In
         particular, most media reports did not make clear that the 
vast, vast majority of the 6,000 to 10,000 demonstrators that surrounded 
the concrete and
         steel wall were militant, but nonviolent in their efforts to 
take their protest right up to the wall--which they saw as a symbol of 
the exclusion of NGOs and
         labor organizations from the treaty discussions. 

         This lively group of protesters catapulted stuffed animals over 
the fence, TPed the fence and the trees close to the parameter, tied 
banners to the metal
         mesh of the wall and painted slogans on the concrete base. They 
tried to give flowers to cops, they sang protest songs, beat drums 
loudly, held political
         discussions and meetings right on the streets in front of the 
wall, and drew pictures in chalk in the street. A good five to six 
thousand of these folks
         contented themselves with holding dances and drumming festivals 
near the fence and chanting slogans and flashing peace signs to the 
police and military
         people. Still others attempted to nonviolently blockade the 
entry gates so vehicles had trouble getting in or out of the compound. 
Some of the most
         daring tried to pull down the fences (which they accomplished 
at several places during the weekend). None of this though can fairly be 
called violence.

         Indeed, there was no reported rock throwing at the march on 
Thursday, and only a few dozen protesters threw anything even 
potentially harmful over the
         fence on Friday when the tear gassing started. Some rocks were 
thrown then, a Molotov cocktail, more than a few golf balls, and--being 
Canada--an
         occasional hockey puck. Also, once the police started clubbing 
people, shooting rubber bullets when the first breach of the wall 
happened, using concussion
         grenades to disperse crowds doing nothing hostile or 
life-threatening, and shooting people with water cannon tanks, a few 
people began throwing chunks
         of concrete and about a dozen more Molotov cocktails. As a 
defensive measure, they also threw back the tear gas canisters that had 
been fired at them.
         It wasn¹t until the middle of Saturday night, however, during 
clashes between the police and about 1,500 protesters who remained on 
the street that some
         of these people--eyewitnesses estimate no more than a few 
hundred at most--regrettably started breaking windows in banks, slashing 
the tires of
         corporate media trucks, setting trash cans on fire, and 
indiscriminately writing graffiti on local shops and residences. Things 
got fairly gnarly and
         undisciplined at this point. Yet, the papers don¹t make it 
clear how few people were involved in such activities. Nor do they spend 
any time focusing on the
         demonstrators who were doing other things and using creative 
nonviolent tactics in a very difficult circumstance of a massive police 
attack and arrest sweep
         in the middle of the night.

         I came away with a great respect for the courage and creativity 
of the vast majority of the militant young people active around the 
wall--which local
         residents dubbed the ³Wall of Shame² when it was being built 
last week. In conversations with some of these activists, I found them 
to be smart, deeply
         committed, and fairly disciplined in their nonviolent direct 
action efforts. I could also see this spirit in action when our little 
group from Antioch New England
         Graduate School walked around the Summit wall to see what was 
going on and join in with the peaceful protest actions.

         Still, it is important to admit that there were up to a few 
hundred vandalizing and somewhat violent protesters near the end of the 
weekend. Nor should we
         romanticize them as somehow being more radical or militant than 
the other protesters. They were screwing up, making tactical errors, 
doing just what the
         police were trying to get them to do, and releasing--fairly 
irrationally--pent up rage after two days of fairly extreme police 
brutality and the nearly constant
         tear gassing of the entire downtown area. Dealing with this 
potential weakness in such mass actions will need to be addressed 
directly in future strategy
         discussions within the movement. 

         The tear gassing of the down town by the police, however, 
deserves special notice. This indiscriminate gassing ultimately ended up 
hurting thousands of
         peaceful demonstrators--including myself and my colleagues--as 
well as local residents--and even the heads of state who had to be moved 
to a different
         meeting space because the gas was so thick that it even got 
into their building. Yes, George Bush and the Canadian Prime Minister 
got a taste of their
         own tear gas. That was how indiscriminate the gassing was. Yet, 
it was also quite intentional. Two of our group, for example, saw a 
crowd of two hundred
         protesters a few blocks away from the wall, sitting and 
standing together late Saturday afternoon. They were doing nothing 
provocative. They were just
         playing drums, dancing, hanging out, and chanting slogans. 
Suddenly, they were attacked by the police, who rushed them while 
pounding their nightsticks
         on their plastic shields in unison, and then shot off five gas 
canisters directly into the midst of this small crowd. From reports from 
many other
         demonstrators, we heard similar stories throughout Saturday and 
Sunday. 

         Tear gas is amazingly painful and it was everywhere. We were 
even trapped in a restaurant about a half mile from the wall because the 
air outside the
         restaurant was impossible to breath without choking and 
experiencing searing pain in one¹s eyes. Getting gassed several times in 
one afternoon and
         evening is an experience I will never forget. I can understand 
how someone might snap under such circumstance and engage in 
short-sighted and
         counter-productive activities. What amazes me is not that such 
activities happened toward the end of the weekend in the middle of the 
night, but how so
         very few of the 6,000 to 10,000 militant demonstrators actually 
engaged in such destructive activities even in the face of intense 
police provocation. It was
         actually quite remarkable to watch such forbearance, courage, 
and discipline. A lot of these kids may dress sloppy, have colored hair, 
and perhaps know
         little about the history and philosophy of the anarchist and 
socialist traditions that they seem to identify with, but many, many, 
many of them are smart,
         caring, dedicated, and strategically thoughtful about what they 
are doing. The newspapers would never give you that impression, but it 
is true. And, while I
         might have disagreements about several of their tactical 
choices or the organizing value of their ³alternative² look, which 
strikes me as poor way to reach
         out to most citizens, I was impressed with these young people. 
With more political education and organizing experience under their 
belt, many of these
         folks will grow into becoming inspiring social movement leaders 
in the future. 

         They also know a hell of a lot right now. That should not be 
underestimated. It was this alternative youth culture segment of protest 
participants that
         organized a staff of volunteer civil liberties lawyers to serve 
as direct action observers as well as counsel for arrested or detained 
protesters. They found
         accommodations for over 10,000 people and fed them a free 
(donation requested) breakfast every morning from between 7 and 10. They 
created
         numerous websites and listserves across North America to 
coordinate the organizing of events and mobilizing people to get to 
Quebec City. They
         established welcoming centers and independent media centers to 
counter the corporate media cover-up of what really went on here. They 
trained
         thousands of protesters in nonviolent direct action tactics 
before the big weekend. They also organized hundreds of campus teach-ins 
and conferences on
         free trade and the fight for corporate accountability 
throughout North America in the months leading up to the protests. They 
also worked as a respectful
         partner in a much larger coalition where most people did not 
share their counter-culture ways, their exact strategic orientations, or 
their often youthfully
         extreme and abstract political ideologies. I felt ancient among 
them, but these kids are all right. My experience in Quebec City gave me 
new appreciation
         for this wing of the global justice movement.

         On Saturday night, as I lay in my sleeping bag in a small 
lecture hall at Laval University listening to about fifty young ³freedom 
fighters² sleeping and
         snoring peacefully on the floor all around me, I had an 
interesting thought. The lack of democracy in our society is real. 
Police brutality is real. A
         corporate-dominated media that has a hard time telling simple 
truths is real. Yet, we don¹t live in a fascist police state--at least 
not yet. My friends and
         I--and hundreds of US activists like us--were able to cross the 
border. Ten thousand of us travelers could now sleep peacefully at the 
University in its gyms
         and lecture halls without fear of a police sweep through the 
University in the middle of the night. We did not have to worry about 
arbitrary arrest,
         assignation, or ³disappearing² while we rested for the next day 
of protest and educational activities. We have much more room to 
maneuver than say a
         Mayan Indian activist in Guatemala. There is thus a significant 
difference between an undemocratic, sometimes repressive society and a 
dictatorial,
         authoritarian police state. Somehow that nuance felt good to be 
aware of, even in the midst of the situation in Quebec City. 

         Yet, it also made me realize how fragile our freedoms of 
speech, association, and organizing are and how easily they can be lost 
and compromised--as
         they were in Quebec last weekend. There is clearly much danger 
in the future for further erosions of our basic freedoms as corporate 
interests try to create
         a world without any countervailing powers. The future, if there 
is one--or at least one worth living in--will require that more and more 
of us begin to
         exercise the democratic freedoms hard won by the struggles of 
the many citizens, rebels, organizers, and reformers who have gone 
before us. If there is
         to be any kind of future that we can call decent, we will have 
to stand on these people¹s shoulders and work hard in whatever ways that 
are open to us to
         build democratic social movements that are powerful enough to 
win over the majority of the people and overcome the resistance of 
elitist elements in this
         society who will try to block these movements with ridicule, 
legal repression, and organized violence. It is a tall order, but I saw 
a glimpse of that kind of
         movement maturing in our midst this weekend in Quebec City. I 
would not trade that experience for anything in the world.

         I hope you all are well.

         Best,
         Steve
Alessandro Gimona
agimona at libero.it