May Day in Montreal

BLOG POST posted on Mai 8, 2012 by Margaret Orlowski

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You’ve probably heard that there is a massive mobilization happening throughout Quebec, which began about 12 weeks ago. But unless you’re keen, or francophone, you probably haven’t heard a lot about it. This short article is my attempt to share a bit of what I’ve learned about the situation after spending two days, including May Day, in Montreal.

Thousands of people take to the streets in Montreal every day. For over a week, there have been night demos that begin at 8:30pm and go until people are tired or they are dispersed by cops, about 1am.

On Monday, April 30, I arrived late and ran for blocks to catch up with the quick-moving night march. The group of roughly 2000 or 3000 people – mostly young or students – was lively, energized, and fit. There were instruments, firecrackers and flares, pots and pans, drums, and voices. Many of the chants were playful, calling out and taunting Charest, the Quebec Premiere, even whistling “yoo-hoo” for him, or were determined songs about revolution, and the strength of students. There were also many radical and anti-capitalist slogans and songs.

This particular march was called with a masquerade theme, in anticipated resistance against an impending law banning masks at protests. Perhaps one third of people wore masks, balaclavas, face paint, or costumes.

Sometime after 11pm, cops announced that the march would be declared illegal if it moved westwards, past their lines and into the financial district. So we found ourselves veering south. By around 12:30 or 1am, those remaining were planning to take a bridge, but finding only a few hundred marchers left, decided not to do so, in order to avoid arrest and participate in the May Day march the following afternoon.

The 4:30pm Anti-Capitalist May Day march had around 3000 or 4000 people. The black block was large, with well over 500 people entirely in black, and about half of the demo wore masks. There was also a baby block for parents with children, as well as other visible groupings of people. The most amusing group was a dozen donut danglers, who taunted lines of cops with donuts tied with string to the end of sticks.

The ideology of this march was viscerally anti-capitalist. It was in solidarity with the student movement, and was attended by students, but didn’t focus only on that. The call-out, put out by CLAC  (http://www.clac-montreal.net/en), drew the large numbers and variety of people present. During the march, the attitude towards government, business, banking, and police was clear through people’s chants, black/red flags, and masks, as well as minor acts of vandalism.

Shortly into the march, some of the black block smashed a wall of bank windows, and cops in helmets ran through the demo and attacked people wearing black. People fought them off and de-arrested the marchers who had been tackled, doing their best to avoid pepper spray, flash bombs, plastic bullets, and tear gas, but it seems that a couple were still arrested then.

Around this time, lines of cops at the back shot tear gas canisters over the 2000-or-so remaining marchers, who began to run forward, splinter, circle back on the cops, avoid cop violence and weapons, and disperse. In the end, a remaining 70-or-so marchers were kettled and arrested. 

Meanwhile, a thousands-strong May Day labour and union demo meandered slowly for several blocks far from the downtown, and closed with some speeches. And again at 8:30pm, there was the nightly student demo, which marched quickly through downtown streets, followed closely by cops. Since I was tired from taking the streets for only 9 hours over 2 days, instead of getting fit over 12 weeks, I left early.

The scale and degree of these marches is profoundly different from anything I have seen in Vancouver over the last 5 years I’ve been here, and probably ever.

The size of the demos in Montreal are huge: since the farcical “negotiations” between student union representatives and the Quebec Education Minister Monday, April 23, thousands march every night. Before that, hundreds met every morning at 7am to disrupt business as usual in Montreal. While class was in session, tens of thousands of striking students picketed their classrooms and campuses, occupied buildings, and marched at demos, for weeks on end.

But beyond their size, there is a tremendous feeling of power. Cliché as it is, the people are not afraid of the government, the government is afraid of the people. Even though there are people in Montreal who support tuition hikes, and there are financially conservative people, many many people of all ages in the downtown support the strikes, as symbolized by the red squares they wear on their shirts, bags, skateboards, or put up in their windows.

And this is happening in towns and cities throughout the province, wherever there is a university or CEGEP that has a department or association of students on strike. The students are not going to back down.

It is important for the rest of us, far on the west coast, to know that this is not some Francophone separatist movement, not some spoiled students, not only some radical anarchist block, but an informed and strong-willed population acting out of their agency, and operating with their collective autonomy. Working professionals, unions, anarchists and various non-student adults support the strike, and join the 175,000 students in dedicated defiance against a disagreeable government. While there are still shortcomings and problems with the movement around nationalism, lack of an indigenous analysis, and gender and ableist dynamics, it is still powerfully positive in many ways.

Those who march and demonstrate, and those on strike from classes, know that they will be villanized, infantilized, misrepresented, and bullied by police, mainstream media and government spokespeople no matter what they do. For Quebecers today, it goes without saying that these are the powers that be, and this powerful elite will protect its dominance by any means possible. But there was also the sense in Montreal that their power will not hold: the power is in the hands of the strikers.

What is beautiful, and what I felt in the crowds and in the streets, is that people are fully aware of this reality of elite power and manipulation, know it to be unjust, and defy it daily. I’m grateful that I had the chance to walk and run with so many who stood up for themselves, and I hope their courage and dedication will spread across the continent so that we may also confidently mobilize against injustices and against our governments.

For more good information on what’s happening, see “News from the 2012 Quebec student general strike” on facebook, http://www.tuitiontruth.ca/, http://www.stopthehike.ca/, http://www.mcgilldaily.com/, and http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/.