Sorry i have not been online for MONTHS. I feel ashamed to have deserted this awesome forum and i want to start by saying a big THANK YOU to the mods who kept doing the job while i was away (especially Punkmar77 and Butcher : THANK YOU GUYS).
So obviously, i was very busy during the past months. First of all you probably heard of the student general strike going on in quebec - this is an historical movement here in Canada - the longest and the biggest we've ever had. A LOT of anarchists are involved in this general strike. There are protests everyday, and many of them turns out in riot. I'm going to try to give you some news from the struggle going down here but so much things has happenned that i would need to write 20 pages to explain everything.
I also have other reasons why i was busy, lot of personnal stuff happenning (girlfriend, work, family, etc) and i'm also involved in another very big activist project but i want to keep my involvment confidential and i am not going to say anything about it here - sorry.
Student General Strike
During the past years a lot of student activists were preparring for this general strike. A lot of anarchists are behind it and are responsibles of it's creation - they were the one spreading propaganda and motivating student to go vote in their general assembly.
The strike officially started in febuary 2012. It's been 5 months now, making it the longest student strike in the whole history of Canada. It's also the biggest strike in our history : more that 300,000 students were involved.
The students are organized in three big federations. Those federations are grouping together a lot of smaller associations
FECQ (Collegial Student Federation of Quebec) - Fucking idiots collaborationist. They don't care about other students on strike, they only defend their own interest. They are the less activist federation and they're the one who want to make compropise and negociate with the government and without others
FEUQ (University Student Federation of Quebec) - They have an history of being backstabbers collaborationists but in 2012 they always stood up together with the CLASSE. They're not very radical but at least they never accepted to negociate without the CLASSE
CLASSE (Large Coalition for a Student Syndicalist Solidarity) - This is the "large coalition" of the ASSÉ which is an organisation built by anarchists after the Summit of Americas in 2001. They are the most radical organisation and the only one fighting for FREE education. The name says it : they are literally for uninionism combat and their strategy is to build a solidarity with unions. A LOT of anarchists are part of this organisation. One of the three main spokesman is an anarchist part of the UCL (Libertarian Communist Unity), an organisation i am fighting with very often. A lot of people hate them because they are too radical, but the other students can't fight without them since they have become the LARGEST student organisation, representing over 40% of the students on strike.
The CLASSE works with anarchist principles : they don't have leaders unlike other student federations - they work with direct democracy, self-management and the spokesman are just applying what the students voted for through their popular assemblies. It's just a federation of dozens of smaller student associations, some of them being clearly anarchists (one of them i won't name here are organizing the black block in the protests)
You MUST watch this excellent speech by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the main spokesman of the CLASSE. It's in french but the text is translated in english
The student strike is now called "quebec's spring" in reference to Arab Spring.
Reasons of the strike
The main reasons was because the liberal government want to raise the tution fees by 1750$ each year. And don't tell me it's worse in america : WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK. America is not a model. We have dozens of countries where education is FREE and we should take example on them instead of saying "it's worse in america".
But now the struggle is way larger, especially since the government started repression against protests and they are restricting the right to protest with Law 78. Montreal passed laws against masks to criminalize black blocks, Quebec City passed laws restricting protests, etc...
Police and abuse of power
I have NEVER EVER seen so much police brutality in my whole life. Cops are fucking crazy here, even on peaceful protesters. At one protest they arrested 700 persons for NO REASON. This is worse than the october crisis back in 1970 when the FLQ was doing armed struggle for the independance of Quebec. Almost more arrestations than the G20 in toronto.
In Montreal a peaceful student lost his eye because a fucking cop shot him in the eye with a stunning grenade. At Victoriaville a girl had her jaw destroyed by a rubber bullet. In Montreal a teacher almost died because he was beaten by cop. An anarchist had his skull broken 10 times at May Day in Montreal. An old man had his leg broken at Plan Nord Salon. And i could list dozens more examples...
The United Nations blamed Quebec for the repression many times. They also condemned the anti-protest Law 78. The "rights & liberties league" also condemned it. And many other pro-rights organisations did the same time
Cops has also been accusated of doing "political profiling". They are arresting and searching everybody wearing a red square (it's the symbolism of the student strike). They even arrested a 5 years old kid wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
Worst story i heard is the cops who took advantage of a student striker going to the funeral of his sister. They arrested him on the highway and detained him, preventing him to assist to the funeral of his sister. His sister died of a suicide, and he's the one who found her. The student did nothing, he was just present at the occupation of an university.
Here's a nice compilation of police brutality scenes during the students protest. You won't see that on TV :
Support
Strikers got an HUGE support here in Quebec. The biggest unions are supporting student strikers and even funding their organisations. Many other organisations were created to support the strikers :
- Seniors against the hike
- Teachers against the hike
- Workers against the hike
- And many others
Using laws to break the strike
This is what the government and anti-strikers has been trying to do since the beginning. Basically they are going to courts and getting injunctions against the strikers. Then the court order the strikers to cease the strike and let the student enter the schools. It never worked because the students are very united and each time a court orderred a strike the students would just organize together and block the access to the schools
This is totally anti-democratical ! The students VOTED for the strike. If a minority if against the strike, they have to follow what the majority voted for. THIS IS HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS.
Law 78
Worst thing that happenned during the whole strike. After the government realised the injunctions were useless because the students were united and they would just block access to the schools, the government passed one of the worst law in the history of Quebec. The law was voted in the national assembly in less than a few hours. The government wanted to pass it as fast as possible to avoid debates. This is clearly anti-democratic and just prove how stupid our system is. The deputees had to stand up the whole night to vote the law in the assembly, and finally it passed.
The law is very large but basically it restricts a lot the right to protest :
- Protesters has to warn the police 8 hours before a protest. It's up to the police to decide if they can protest or not, when and where.
- The path of the project must be declared in advance. It makes it impossible for spontaneous to happen.
- Protesters who block the access to a school can be fined by a ticket of $5000 per day
- Group leaders organising illegal protests can be fined by $250,000 per day
- As soon as a group of 50 persons or more is walking down the strike, it is considered as a protest and they can be arrested because they didn't declarate their path
- Worst of all : anybody encouraging to disobey to the law can be arrested and reconized guilty just like they did the thing they were encouraging to do. So if i encourage people to organise an illegal protest, i can be forced to pay a fine of $250,000 per day. If i say we should throw rocks at cops, i can be arrested just like i thrown rocks at cops
Like i said, MANY organisations are fighting against this law, and even the United Nations critised it. This is one of the worst thing to happen in the history of Quebec. We have not seen a law like that since at least 60 years.
Riot in Victoriaville
Was here. Shitload of blackblock. It was the biggest riot since the start of the strike. It was a protest against the congress of the Liberal Party. The congress was planned to happen in Montreal, but they were scared of the protests, especially since what happenned the last time the government did a congress here (it was to promote the Plan Nord, a project by the government that will destroy the environment and encourage big industries to come here in Quebec and make money with mines and shale gas. An HUGE riot happenned).
So they moved the congress at victoriaville, a small town far away from Montreal. But hundreds of protesters travelled here and an huge riot happenned.
Watch this video and see what happenned to this fucking cop bastard who was beating an anarchist a couple of second before. The dude on the ground is a cop, he was beaten by dozens of black block anarchists
Think it is too much ? Too violent ? Oh really ? Well maybe if you'd see that with your own eyes, you would be angry at the point of fighting back against those fucking bastards :
This girl : broken jaws, broken teeth and many other serious injuries. Had to go to the hospital to get a surgery.
This one is the second student to lose an eye because a cop shot him a rubber bullet. He stood inconscious on the ground for about 1 hour BECAUSE THE FUCKING COPS WERE BLOCKING THE AMBULANCE AND DIDN'T WANT TO LET THE MEDICS TAKE CARE OF HIM.
(This video is also in english)
Secret Agency after the anarchists
After Victoriaville riot, the canadian government decided to send the Secret Services (SCRS / SCIS) after the anarchists, especially the CLAC (anti-capitalist convergence) and the UCL (libertarian communist unity). THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS. Since i am fighting with the UCL, i am now officially a fucking terrorist, thanks to the stupid canadian government. AND THEN THEY WONDER WHY WE MASK OUR FACES. Oh well, we can't mask anymore since it is now FUCKING ILLEGAL.
An article about that can be found here, by the ridiculous Sun News who don't even know what the CLAC is really.
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2012/05/20120507-152354.html
CUTV
CUTV is a student news television channel broadcasting the protest live on internet. They are fucking awesome ! They show what's really happenning, they show the true face of police brutality unlike other TV stations. It is something that is really needed here in Quebec since only ONE big corporation (Quebecor Media) control almost ALL of the TV stations and newspaper. Don't expect them to provide true facts since the president of this corporation is the richest person in Quebec and it is also a close friend of Jean Charest, our prime minister. They are against the strike and their medias are continuously spreading anti-strike propaganda.
And guess what ? We, Anarcho-Punk.net and Ni-dieu-ni-maitre.com t-shirt shop decided to support them financially. Their equipement cost a LOT of money and we want to help them to keep going. We engaged ourselves to give them a donation of $75 per month.
More information about that (and about CUTV) can be found here (just translate it with google) :
http://www.pirate-punk.net/message.php?t=23569
CUTV's website (broadcasting protests LIVE almost every night) : http://cutvmontreal.ca/
The police don't like CUTV because they are showing true facts unlike the medias who are just repeating government propaganda, not talking about police brutality and just talking shit about the protesters. CUTV team got pepper spreyed many times and they even got arrested a couple of times.
Teachers
Most of the teachers are supporting student strikers. A lot of them were arrested. Most of them are against the Law 78 and they're saying : just imagine the climate in the courses - you got half of the students against the strikes and the other half are pro-strike but they're forced to go back to school by law. A lot of students are angry against the other students who are anti-strike and went in court to get injunctions to force them to stop their strike. A teacher can't give a course with this climate. Way too much tensions.
Lots of teachers grouped together to condemn the fact that they are forced by law to give their course and they explain it isn't a climate in which they can give a course.
Collaborationist protesters
This is a dangerous problem here. The fucking pacifists who are against violence are now collaborating with the police to arrest Black Block members. We saw that happen many times : pacifist protesters surrounding black block and helping cops to arrest them because they don't want anarchists to smash windows. But when the cops attack peaceful protesters, we don't see them, wtf ? They prefer to protect windows rather than human lives.
Government refuse to negociate
The government always refused to negociate with the students organisation. First they wanted to force them to openly condemn violence. The CLASSE refused to do it many months. Then they finally condemned "useless violence against persons" after the student assemblies voted for it. So the government was forced to negociate with them, but they always refused to talk about the student hike. Fucking useless circus just to give them a good look.
Next they told the other organisations that the government would agree to negociate with them is they dissociate from the CLASSE. But other organisations refused. And then after months of strike and after the riot in Victoriaville, they agreed to negociate. But all they could suggest was a reduction of less than $100 on the $1700 hike - WHAT A JOKE !!! We want NO hike not a reduction. So they ended the negociations and just blamed the students for the failture.
Resignation of Line Beauchamp
After realising she failed, the minister of education (Line Beauchamp) resignated around 2 months ago. A nice victory for the students, but the minister was just replaced by another one who's even worse.
Corruption
This is seriously the worst fucking government we had in Quebec since MANY MANY years. They have links with the mafia !!! The minister of education (Line Beauchamp) organised a fundraising for the Liberal Party and a lot of italian mafia leaders were present and gave money to the liberals.
Since the past months, nearly 10 Liberal Party leaders were arrested for corruption and for having links with criminal organisations. Currently an HUGE protest is going on.
Search on google for "quebec liberal party corruption", you will find a lot of informations
So what's going on now ?
The government decided to suspend all course until the autumn. Their strategy is to make a war of attrition and hope that the student strike will just slowed down and die by itselfs. It is summer time so there are less protests, but the students are continuing the strike. Lastly there was the Formula 1 Grand Prix and there was HUGEEE repression. Hundreds of people were arrested on the street for NO REASON. They even arrested journalists. The Anti-Capitalist convergence organised many protests which turned into riots, but there was so much police everywhere that we couldn't do anything.
Recently a whole new movment started : the pans protests. Inspired by what happenned in Chili, hundreds of protesters are going down the streets and making noise with pans. Brought something new to the movement.
We will see what happen this autumn. La lucha sigue !
Seriously, there is A LOT more things to say but i don't have enough time. I will end this post and try to write more later. Please don't move this topic, i will try to give news.
Quebec is now officially a POLICE STATE (some people are even talking about a fascist state)
