Communist
30th January 2010, 03:56
[Note: Last month, Canada's Conservative Prime Minister
Steven Harper shut down Parliament to halt the
investigation of the Afghan detainee torture issue. The
following articles discuss the popular response from a
largely social-democratic, but also labour, point of view]
-----------------------------------
A Great Day for Democracy in Canada (http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/judes/2010/01/great-day-democracy-canada)
By Judy Rebick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Rebick)
January 24, 2010
It was magnificent. After three weeks of online and off
line organizing, tens of thousands of people across
generations and political persuasions took to the
streets in 65 cities and towns across the country and
around the world to stop the erosion of democracy in
Canada.
Organized mostly by activists in their 20s, using the
tools of social media to reach each other across the
vast distances of land and political discourse. they
found that tens of thousands of Canadians really do
want their voices to be heard in the democratic
process. Prime Minister Harper made the mistake of
pride and arrogance so often the downfall of autocratic
leaders by saying that Canadians wouldn't care that he
shut down Parliament. That's what really pissed them
off.
The protests had enough of an impact that you have no
doubt seen the TV news and reports from mainstream
media, as well as on Facebook, Twitter and rabble.ca.
But I am enough of an old leftie to think an analysis
of its significance is useful.
As I said in my speech to the Toronto rally [see Rebick: 'Never in my life seen a spontaneous protest that built like this' (http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2010/01/features/rebick-never-my-life-seen-spontaneous-protest-built)]
the method of organizing this rally was completely
unprecedented in Canada. Activists in Europe have been
using networking through social media and text
messaging for a few years now. Some of the most
important protests we have seen in Europe lately have
been organized this way. What the networking does is
allow for individuals without organizational or
institutional support to organize in a new way.
The Facebook group started by an individual student at
the University of Alberta grew exponentially and
allowed a space not only for 210,000 people to indicate
their anger at Harper's proroguing Parliament but also
a for activists to begin organizing protests. In all my
years of organizing, I have never seen a truly
spontaneous protest like this.
Moreover, in a country like Canada, organizing a
national demonstration without resources has been
almost impossible. Even in the pro-choice movement in
the 1980's, the most powerful movement of my life in
Canada, we would not have been able to organize
simultaneous protests in so many cities. It is the
decentralization, the low level of entry, and the
ability of anyone to call themselves part of the CAPP
(Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=260348091419)) as long as
they oppose the Prorogue that makes it possible. So
there were protests in dozens of small towns, a few
cities around the world and even a single protester in
Oman. The protests were organized differently in each
city. In Toronto, there were no politicians permitted
to speak, in Ottawa, the leaders of the Opposition
parties were featured but the message was similar
developed through online media. Social networking, this
time through live reports on Twitter, also allowed the
organizers to control the message including how many
protested, more than 25,000.
Secondly, a new generation of leadership emerged
through CAPP. Christopher White who started it all is
an Anthropology grad student from University of
Alberta. In Toronto it was three student activists, all
three people of colour. In most places, it was
individuals rather than organizations who organized
events. The political parties came to support it late
in the game with the exception of Elizabeth May (http://www.elizabethmay.ca/) from
the Green Party (http://www.greenparty.ca/) who is the only leader who seems to
understand social movement politics, followed by the
Liberals (http://www.liberal.ca/) and finally the NDP (http://www.ndp.ca/). The leadership was young
but the participants were all ages.
None of the usual suspects were involved. The unions
came to support it near the end; although some union
activists did. Even then there was little effort from
the labour movement to really mobilize. The organizers
in Toronto included the labour movement on the
platform. Marie Kelly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKSWKulS8Q), the new secretary-treasurer of
the Ontario Federation of Labour (http://www.ofl.ca/) gave an excellent
speech as did John Cartright of the Metro Labour
Council (http://www.labourcouncil.ca/), which was the only union group to really
promote the rally, and there were small clusters of
labour activists but not very many.
Hard to understand given the negative impact these
protests have had on Harper's popularity. From being in
striking range of a majority, the latest polls put the
Tories in a dead heat with the Liberals and that was
before the protests. It is the first real damage anyone
has been able to inflict on Harper in some time.
Talking to one union leader, it became clear that they
thought it was a Liberal front so they held back,
probably the same reason the NDP did. This reflects a
failure to understand the new politics that are
emerging with this generation and in particular how out
of touch both the unions and the NDP are with how
social networking operates. A few minutes on that CAPP
Facebook group made it very clear, even early on that
this was no Liberal front. First the Liberals are not
that good or they would be doing better and second
given the personal connections people use to spread the
word on Facebook, it would have quickly become clear
that it wasn't what it appeared to be.
But neither was there any visible presence of what we
might call the Left. A few days ago I was at an
organizing meeting for the People's Summit against the
G8/G20 next June. I saw very few of those people at the
rally and no sign of their organizations. It is true
that the rally was not very radical. Demanding that
Parliament get back to work is not the most
revolutionary of demands. But the reality of the
depoliticization created by neo-liberalism means that
the biggest obstacle to any political or social change
is the passivity of ordinary people. The fight for
citizen participation in democracy is progressive.
Bringing people into the streets again in these kinds
of numbers is radical in the present context.
The leadership of these protests was very clear that
they wanted the broadest possible mobilization,
including conservative democrats. That is the nature of
a mass movement. The environmental movement, for
example, includes a broad political spectrum from
direct action anarchists to staid conservationists. The
women's movement, especially in its early days,
included Tory women like Laura Sabia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Sabia) as well as
youthful radical activists. And any movement for
greater democracy will include a broad spectrum of
political views.
It is not clear yet if what will emerge from this is
what I hope, a broad movement for more participatory
democracy that would include reform to Parliament, as
the NDP is proposing, reform to the electoral system as
Fair Vote Canada (http://www.fairvote.ca/) proposes and more citizen
participation as we are seeing throughout Latin
America. I have argued for some time that deepening
democracy will provide a path to more radical social
and political demands so of course I was very excited
about yesterday's protest. Not to mention that I
haven't been able to give one of those rabble rousing
speeches in a long time.
But it is certain that the young people who so
brilliantly organized these rallies will not stop. Once
you get a taste of people's power, it's hard to turn
back from it. There is already a Facebook page on next
steps.
- Judy Rebick (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1840475.Judy_Rebick) is the Canadian Auto Workers-Sam Gindin
Chair in Social Justice and Democracy (http://www.ryerson.ca/socialjustice/) at Ryerson
University in Toronto. (http://www.ryerson.ca/home.html)
_____________________________________________
===============================
=======================
===============
----------
------------------
Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.
Steven Harper shut down Parliament to halt the
investigation of the Afghan detainee torture issue. The
following articles discuss the popular response from a
largely social-democratic, but also labour, point of view]
-----------------------------------
A Great Day for Democracy in Canada (http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/judes/2010/01/great-day-democracy-canada)
By Judy Rebick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Rebick)
January 24, 2010
It was magnificent. After three weeks of online and off
line organizing, tens of thousands of people across
generations and political persuasions took to the
streets in 65 cities and towns across the country and
around the world to stop the erosion of democracy in
Canada.
Organized mostly by activists in their 20s, using the
tools of social media to reach each other across the
vast distances of land and political discourse. they
found that tens of thousands of Canadians really do
want their voices to be heard in the democratic
process. Prime Minister Harper made the mistake of
pride and arrogance so often the downfall of autocratic
leaders by saying that Canadians wouldn't care that he
shut down Parliament. That's what really pissed them
off.
The protests had enough of an impact that you have no
doubt seen the TV news and reports from mainstream
media, as well as on Facebook, Twitter and rabble.ca.
But I am enough of an old leftie to think an analysis
of its significance is useful.
As I said in my speech to the Toronto rally [see Rebick: 'Never in my life seen a spontaneous protest that built like this' (http://rabble.ca/rabbletv/program-guide/2010/01/features/rebick-never-my-life-seen-spontaneous-protest-built)]
the method of organizing this rally was completely
unprecedented in Canada. Activists in Europe have been
using networking through social media and text
messaging for a few years now. Some of the most
important protests we have seen in Europe lately have
been organized this way. What the networking does is
allow for individuals without organizational or
institutional support to organize in a new way.
The Facebook group started by an individual student at
the University of Alberta grew exponentially and
allowed a space not only for 210,000 people to indicate
their anger at Harper's proroguing Parliament but also
a for activists to begin organizing protests. In all my
years of organizing, I have never seen a truly
spontaneous protest like this.
Moreover, in a country like Canada, organizing a
national demonstration without resources has been
almost impossible. Even in the pro-choice movement in
the 1980's, the most powerful movement of my life in
Canada, we would not have been able to organize
simultaneous protests in so many cities. It is the
decentralization, the low level of entry, and the
ability of anyone to call themselves part of the CAPP
(Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=260348091419)) as long as
they oppose the Prorogue that makes it possible. So
there were protests in dozens of small towns, a few
cities around the world and even a single protester in
Oman. The protests were organized differently in each
city. In Toronto, there were no politicians permitted
to speak, in Ottawa, the leaders of the Opposition
parties were featured but the message was similar
developed through online media. Social networking, this
time through live reports on Twitter, also allowed the
organizers to control the message including how many
protested, more than 25,000.
Secondly, a new generation of leadership emerged
through CAPP. Christopher White who started it all is
an Anthropology grad student from University of
Alberta. In Toronto it was three student activists, all
three people of colour. In most places, it was
individuals rather than organizations who organized
events. The political parties came to support it late
in the game with the exception of Elizabeth May (http://www.elizabethmay.ca/) from
the Green Party (http://www.greenparty.ca/) who is the only leader who seems to
understand social movement politics, followed by the
Liberals (http://www.liberal.ca/) and finally the NDP (http://www.ndp.ca/). The leadership was young
but the participants were all ages.
None of the usual suspects were involved. The unions
came to support it near the end; although some union
activists did. Even then there was little effort from
the labour movement to really mobilize. The organizers
in Toronto included the labour movement on the
platform. Marie Kelly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKSWKulS8Q), the new secretary-treasurer of
the Ontario Federation of Labour (http://www.ofl.ca/) gave an excellent
speech as did John Cartright of the Metro Labour
Council (http://www.labourcouncil.ca/), which was the only union group to really
promote the rally, and there were small clusters of
labour activists but not very many.
Hard to understand given the negative impact these
protests have had on Harper's popularity. From being in
striking range of a majority, the latest polls put the
Tories in a dead heat with the Liberals and that was
before the protests. It is the first real damage anyone
has been able to inflict on Harper in some time.
Talking to one union leader, it became clear that they
thought it was a Liberal front so they held back,
probably the same reason the NDP did. This reflects a
failure to understand the new politics that are
emerging with this generation and in particular how out
of touch both the unions and the NDP are with how
social networking operates. A few minutes on that CAPP
Facebook group made it very clear, even early on that
this was no Liberal front. First the Liberals are not
that good or they would be doing better and second
given the personal connections people use to spread the
word on Facebook, it would have quickly become clear
that it wasn't what it appeared to be.
But neither was there any visible presence of what we
might call the Left. A few days ago I was at an
organizing meeting for the People's Summit against the
G8/G20 next June. I saw very few of those people at the
rally and no sign of their organizations. It is true
that the rally was not very radical. Demanding that
Parliament get back to work is not the most
revolutionary of demands. But the reality of the
depoliticization created by neo-liberalism means that
the biggest obstacle to any political or social change
is the passivity of ordinary people. The fight for
citizen participation in democracy is progressive.
Bringing people into the streets again in these kinds
of numbers is radical in the present context.
The leadership of these protests was very clear that
they wanted the broadest possible mobilization,
including conservative democrats. That is the nature of
a mass movement. The environmental movement, for
example, includes a broad political spectrum from
direct action anarchists to staid conservationists. The
women's movement, especially in its early days,
included Tory women like Laura Sabia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Sabia) as well as
youthful radical activists. And any movement for
greater democracy will include a broad spectrum of
political views.
It is not clear yet if what will emerge from this is
what I hope, a broad movement for more participatory
democracy that would include reform to Parliament, as
the NDP is proposing, reform to the electoral system as
Fair Vote Canada (http://www.fairvote.ca/) proposes and more citizen
participation as we are seeing throughout Latin
America. I have argued for some time that deepening
democracy will provide a path to more radical social
and political demands so of course I was very excited
about yesterday's protest. Not to mention that I
haven't been able to give one of those rabble rousing
speeches in a long time.
But it is certain that the young people who so
brilliantly organized these rallies will not stop. Once
you get a taste of people's power, it's hard to turn
back from it. There is already a Facebook page on next
steps.
- Judy Rebick (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1840475.Judy_Rebick) is the Canadian Auto Workers-Sam Gindin
Chair in Social Justice and Democracy (http://www.ryerson.ca/socialjustice/) at Ryerson
University in Toronto. (http://www.ryerson.ca/home.html)
_____________________________________________
===============================
=======================
===============
----------
------------------
Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.