CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
THE HISTORY OF NEFAC IN QUÉBEC CITY (PART 8):
This is part eight os Molly's translation of an article from the Québecois anarchist journal 'Ruptures'. As previously mentioned the original French can be read in its entirety at THIS LINK on the Anarkismo website.
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The fight against the right:
The fight against the right:
In the month of December 2005, our collective produced two anti-electoral propaganda posters ("Politicians expect nothing from them only the struggle pays. Our power is in the street, not in the ballot box ") in anticipation of the federal election of 23 January 2006. Hundreds were put up in downtown Quebec. The campaign was backed up elsewhere in Quebec by other groups of the federation. Unsurprisingly, Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party took power at the head of a minority government. The Quebec region elected a majority of Conservative MPs . A few months before this, Andrée Boucher had managed to win the municipal elections, without even campaigning. The least we could say is that the populist right had the wind in their sails. Reflection began within our group on the social and political conditions and the rise of right in the Quebec region. New people were joining the group and, quietly, we constructed a theoretical and tactical unity on the subject.
In the month of May 2006, the 6th edition of Ruptures came out. It contained a dossier on the involvement of anarchists in the popular movement, as well as articles on the status of the student movement one year after the strike and a review of the SRTT (Workers Solidarity Network ). On May 16, 2006, we welcomed an anarchist former member of the International Brigades George Sossenko. The conference took place at the premises of the CSN. Forty people were present in a strange atmosphere, where admiration was mixed with some discomfort (when George answers were completely off the subject on some questions ). In spring, we decided to get involved in organizing the 4th Self-Management Day which took place on June 4, 2006 in the Youth Park in the Saint-Roch quarter. The Self-Management Day , as its name indicates, is an annual event dedicated to exploring the concept and practice of self-management. Each year, members of La Nuit delivered workshops and hosted a literature table. But before the predicted demise of the Self-Management Day (because of exhaustion on the part of the organizing committee members), we choose to invest more in planning and organizing the event. Ultimately, the experience was not really conclusive. Workshops and debates attracted relatively few people. A certain feeling of deja vu settled in . There was to be no sequel in 2007.
In fall of 2006, La Nuit took charge of the production of Cause Commune. A new layout and new sections changed the appearance and content of the newspaper. We also organized several public events. On the 23rd of September two members of the collective traveled to the Regional Social Forum 02 (in Métabetchouan, Lac-St-Jean) to present workshops on self management and anarchist ideas at the invitation of a friend who had recently returned to live in the region. We believed we could help form a new collective, without, however, succeeding. On November 4, La Nuit held a conference with two members of the CIPO-RFM (8) at L'Agitée as part of a tour through Quebec coordinated by our Montreal comrades. This public event would serve as an impetus to a coalition which, a few weeks later, organized a demonstration in Quebec City in solidarity with the insurgents in Oaxaca. due to lack of time, we did not participate in its activities, nor with those of other coalitions which would develop later (Guerre à la Guerre, L'Autre 400).
In the winter of 2007, La Nuit took part in the "We won't vote for anybody"campaign . Despite some hiccups, we managed to paste hundreds of posters and stickers in the downtown. In contrast cons, links with the RAME (9) remained non-existent before, during and after the campaign. Unlike what happened in Montreal the RAME remained in an embryonic state in the region of Quebec. Its dissolution didn't affect our group. In May, we organized two public events that gained a certain success. A comrade with whom we had been in contact with since the month of September 2006 invited us to present a lecture on anarchism in Trois-Rivieres on the premises of the UQTR. More than 40 people came out. A group took shape in that city. On May 29 we hosted a launch for the 7th edition of Ruptures at the Agitée. We take this opportunity to present a panel with two members of No Pasaran on the rise of the right in Quebec and France. The objective was to publicly present the conclusions we had arrived at on the political situation and bring libertarians to debate these issues. About 25 people took part in the discussions. On June 22, we participated in the NEFAC contingent in the demonstration of the anti-militarist coalition Guerre à la Guerre. The visibility obtained by the contingent was is excellent. We took the opportunity of the demonstration to distribute hundreds of copies of Cause Commune to bystanders and passersby along the route. Some months later, la Nuit Night attempted to stage another anti-militarist protest in conjunction with Guerre à la Guerre. Substantial differences with some activists of the coalition led us to a cul de sac. We decided to hold the event on our own on March 28, 2008, inviting various "progressive" groups to support our approach. About 300 people answered the call and demonstrated in the downtown to mark the 90th anniversary of the riots against conscription and their opposition to military intervention in Afghanistan. We drew a very positive review by this.
Since the early fall of 2007, our collective had more and more confidence in its abilities. Several projects were relatively successful and resulted in the arrival of new members. In September, we officially launched a blog and a radio program entitled "Voix de faits" (10). In early October 2007, we took the initiative to organize a demonstration for abortion rights in conjunction with the libertarian feminist collective "Ainsi squattent-elles". We came to raise five times more people than the "pro-lifers". We repeated the experiment in October 2008 with better results. These initiatives were part of our "permanent" campaign against the populist right in Quebec.
