CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
THE HISTORY OF NEFAC IN QUÉBEC CITY (PART 9- THE CONCLUSION):
Here it is. Part 9, the concluding chapter of Molly's translation of the History of NEFAC in Québec City. I have to say that I am quite pleased at finally coming to the end of this task. I will later correlate all the pieces into a complete article.
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A balance sheet?

While it is too early to draw a comprehensive balance sheet of NEFAC (in Québec City, and in the province of Québec), one can nevertheless find some items that are food for thought.







In the first place , the presence of an anarchist group active for almost ten years is perhaps not spectacular, but it is in itself an important achievement, at least in our political context. The present libertarian current is not the first in Quebec, but it suffers from a flagrant lack of continuity through time. Through its various mutations, NEFAC has managed to grow and renew itself before, during and after several moments of important social struggle in which we participated, from the Quebec Summit and Youth through the Summit of the Americas to student , trade union and popular struggles in recent years. This continuity has allowed the group and its members to develop, and to gain experience and political maturity.







The commitment of many libertarians, including members of NEFAC, in social movements has acted to demystify anarchism to many activists, particularly in popular groups in the region of Québec. The production of a weekly radio broadcast and website activity, the distribution of tens of thousands of leaflets, newspapers, posters, books and brochures, as well as holding dozens of conferences and workshops have certainly helped raise awareness of anarchism and libertarian principles significantly in different mileaux. Several campaigns took off like that on the issue of theft in the popular neighborhoods or those on the elections (which were particularly numerous!).







But we must face the obvious: such activity is not sufficient to gain the support of many people for a political organization like ours. The "turnover" remains important, even on our (small) scale. Various factors may explain this phenomenon. What is requested of members is rather demanding, we thus plunge into a vicious circle: the less we are numerous the more each and every individual must compensate to achieve the goals we set ourselves. Moreover, our current structure does not facilitate the involvement of many people. The quasi-clandestine and affinity group nature of some of our activities that has characterized our operations for several years is an example. For the rest, reading the texts of Phoebus and Julie will bring out more relevant answers.

And Afterwards?

The least we can say is that the process of refounding NEFAC Quebec aroused great interest and curiosity. We can not fail! We must therefore take the time to do things right, especially since the "failure" of NEFAC has affected the functioning of the regional union in Quebec. After ten years of agitation, propaganda and organization, our current has taken an important place in the landscape of the anti-capitalist left. But these achievements are fragile. The potential is there to us to seize opportunities when they arise!

Notes

1) The process that led to the creation of the NEFAC dates back to 1999. The group Emile Henry (Québec), founded the previous year, was involved. NEFAC was officially founded at a congress held in Boston in 2000 where two delegations from Québec (one from Québec, the other from Montreal) were present.

2) The idea of a infokiosque is not born "spontaneously". Creating a space like that had germinated in the minds of some members of NEFAC several months before. It lacked a space - free - and a good dose of organization to make it a reality.

3) As for example in the demonstration against American intervention in Iraq on November 17, 2002, we set ourselves apart by an internationalist position which rejected the "pacifism" of the official organizing committee. Our leaflet entitled "Quelle connerie que la paix sociale" (Social peace is a con game -?????Molly)was decorated with a beautiful dove clutching a molotov cocktail in its claws...

4) We relayed the word of a general strike against the FTAA in Québec on 32 October 2002 alongside Dada à Faim and the Collectif des Bas-Quartiers.

5) Red and Anarchist Skinheads

6) We returned three more times to the CEGEP Garneau to give lectures on libertarian education, "masculinism" and the Zapatista uprising.

7) We were thus approached by people Jacques-Cartier Community Center to organize a workshop on racism and the extreme right with the trainees. The RASH also published a fanzine ( "class against class") and organized many concerts where music and politics made a good mixture.

8) Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca "Ricardo Flores-Magon"

9) Anarchist Student Network

10) Before "La Voix de Faits", members of la Nuit had hosted several radio programs on CKIA and CKRL (Level with the Daisies, Free Zone ...). But this was the first time a show was "officially" produced and presented by the collective.

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A text excerpted from the special edition of the journal Ruptures (May 2009)

CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
THE HISTORY OF NEFAC IN QUÉBEC CITY (PART 6):
The following is part six of Molly's translation of the article in the Québecois anarchist journal Ruptures on the history of NEFAC (now the UCL) in Québec City. As before you can read the full article in French at THIS LINK. The following section takes us into the spring of 2004 when tensions with other Québec libertarians were cooling and joint projects became possible.
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Joint mobilizations:
In the spring of 2004, La Nuit organized several actions with other Québec libertarian collectives . After two years during which tensions with other anarchists were sometimes been strong , our group made its "self criticism" and changed its attitude. We launched the idea of holding regular meetings bringing together members of different groups to develop common action. An internet list ("Intercollectif ") was set up for members of the "Assembly of Quebec Libertarians". On 14 April, on the first anniversary of the coming to power of Jean Charest, we broadcast a call to mobilization ( "generalize the resistance") along with La Rixe, Dada is hungryr and other "Québec libertarians". " We announced our participation in the "Block Charest " action organized by the REPAC at the corner of Charest(No, it's an old name; the bugger doesn't yet have streets named after him-Molly) and Langelier streets. The appeal was also signed by a half-dozen groups in Montreal.







The Assembly of Quebec Libertarians also mobilized for the mass demonstration on 1 May 2004 in Montreal, which brought tens of thousands of workers (close to 100,000) against the anti-social Charest governement . At the initiative of the CLAC (including the NEFAC-Montreal) and the Assembly of Quebec Libertarians, an anarchist contingent of several hundred people formed the tail of the event. Without waiting for the union march to begin (which was nearly four hours late!), we took to the streets, preceded by a PCR contingent, to assemble at Parc Jarry . On that site, the riot squad charged the anarchists and Maoists, but we had to retreat because of pressure from protesters .







In parallel, we continued to develop our contacts in the 'region' by participating in lectures on anarchism in Joliette and sending, on a regular basis, the journal Common Cause to a contact in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, who distributed them in Rivière-du-Loup and Cabano. On the 28th of June 2004, the 4th issue of Ruptures (a special issue on nationalism and the extreme right) was launched at the Dorchester Tavern on the evening of the federal election. The article on the extreme right in Quebec aroused many reactions. The PCR reacted strongly to the fact that its members were associated ,in the article, with a National-Bolshevik group and with the MLNQ, which was nevertheless the case. A few months after the release of this issue of Ruptures, it was the turn of Pierre Falardeau to attack us in the pages of Quebecers and Du Couac. Falardeau claimed that NEFAC was being paid by the RCMP, especially because we were associated collectives in the United States and Ontario and that we were against nationalism. This charge is so outrageous that many people take upon themselves to shut him up without our being obliged to do it ourselves!
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Molly Notes:

The item above teems with local references that would be hard for an outsider to understand. I'll do my best to explain them here, but I hope that Québecois comrades will lend a hand where my ignorance is obvious.

First of all, the CLAC (Convergence des Luttes Anti-Capitalist) was a Montréal general assembly of various activist and other anarchist groups which attempted to coordinate actions in the Montréal area. To my knowledge it is defunct, but I have little idea of when it was formed and when it died.

"National-Bolsheviks" are a bizarre recruiting tool of fascists and Neo-Nazis desperate for recruits. They are most prominent in the USA (where pretty well every other weird thing is most prominent as well). Today they are minor compared to the oxymoron "national anarchism". There are, after all, more anarchists and therefore more weak minded anarchists today than there are Leninists(outside of Québec where the Leninist live off an historical inheritance). Molly's Blog was recently visited by one of these fascists crying the blues about how I didn't give his so-called "ideology" the dignity of a "critique". Quite frankly, aside from the cynical manipulations of the leaders I find little to "critique" in the political expression of personal inferiorities. One can hardly take this sort of thing seriously.

The Mouvement de Liberation Nationale du Québec (MLNQ) is an ultra-nationalist group founded by ex-FLQer and convicted murderer Raymond Villeneuve. One can easily imagine that the whole operation is a scam to enable Villeneuve to avoid actually having to take shit jobs-the only ones a convicted murderer could get- to survive. Whatever the above article may imply the MLNQ is a "left-wing"sect rather than a fascist group. In that it is similar to its occasional supporter Pierre Falardeau, also mentioned above. Falardeau is a Québecois film directer and general commentator. His "style" is such that he is best compared to someone like Rush Limbaugh with socialist pretentions. For long term anarchists another analogy would be "like a Bob Black with talent and ambition". To say the least such a personality who thrives on being outrageous for his income is hardly worried about being refuted. On to the next target in his schedule. It was actually a coup for NEFAC to be denounced by him, with his bizarre accusations. That's publicity you could never buy.

Here is where I get a bit hazy. I presume that the "PCR" refers to the "Parti Communiste Révolutionaire". The group that bears this name, however, was only founded in January of 2007. I do seem to have a memory of a previous group bearing this moniker, but aside from the fact that it was Maoist, and annoying, I cannot remember any details. One thing I will say for sure, the world of the left wing sects is an ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly (did I mention it was ugly ?) miniscule world composed of tiny gangs of generals without an army who substitute for their actual lack of effect with grandiose pretentions to having some grand overarching theory of both how society is, how it should be and the way to get there. In the "anarchist world" the picture is even more stark as the ambitions of some who are detached from reality extend to such crackpot dreams as "abolishing civilization". But the commie world is ugly enough. One thing I can guarantee for certain. There is an infallible guideline to the success of any left-wing organization, anarchist or otherwise. The more effort is devoted to either attacking (or "cozying up to") real political actors (such as the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québecois in a Canadian context)and the less to the nuts(anarchism) or the sectarians(Leninists) the more succesful such an anarchist organization is. The first requirement of any small aspiring political group is realism, and this means recognizing one's actual small size and not trying to pretend to have all the answers in one's pocket. Fail to do this and you will never progress beyond the level of a sect.
I hate to disagree with my Québecois comrades on this, but I suspect (never having read the original article) that they were rather wide-ranging in describing some commies as "right wing". I say this as someone who knows that communist tyrannies have a far worse historical record than fascist ones. In terms of mass murder Hitler was retail to Stalin's wholsesale, and Stalin in turn was a minor player compared to Mao. In sheer per capita murder the Kymer Rouge of Cambodia outperformed any example known in history. Québec had the unique historical chance of Maoism actually achieving significant numbers in a developed country. As such it is not surprising that one should meet the strange example of Maoists willing to associate with others (such as the MLNQ). Given enough penetration you can develop something as strange as a "friendly Maoist" (sorta like a polite wolverine to the rest of us). I don't think it is fair to describe the commies in the same way as nut-jobs such as the "National Bolsheviks" nor such outfits as the MLNQ who, only occasionally, let their racism slip by with off the cuff comments. If nothing else it is a sweeping generalization that obscures reality rather than illuminates it.
Be that as it may I stand ready to be corrected by others in Québec who have a better knowledge of its local politics than I do.

CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
THE HISTORY OF NEFAC IN QUÉBEC (CITY) PART 5:
This is another installment of our translation of an article in the Québecois anarchist magazine 'Ruptures'. As previously mentioned, when the full text is translated it will be collated into a complete article. There is a lot to be learned from the experiences of our Québec comrades for all of us who hope to build an organized and effective anarchist movement. The reader will note the change in the title above. A commentator pointed out that what follows is more of a history of NEFAC in Québec City rather than in the whole of Québec. Duly noted.

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The election of Jean Charest:

On 14 April 2003, Jean Charest won the provincial election. The Liberal Party took this momentum to announce a series of measures designed to "modernize" the state (the famous "re engineering") and make the Québec economy more "competitive". Throughout the fall, we would be on the front lines in the many demonstrations against the government. The culmination of this mobilization would be the day of action on 11 December 2003. That day, tens of thousands of people went out on the streets and paralyzed Québec. We were involved in blocking the Port of Quebec where one of our comrades worked along with the the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Something unexpected was happening before our eyes: as if the labor movement finally woke from its sleep? Unfortunately, the general strike promised after the holidays by the union leadership did not materialize, killing in the bud the movement which was radicalizing. However, this upsurge of fighting unionism vividly demonstrated that the working class has the power to undermine the state and the capitalist system .. Of course it wants and decides to act against the advice of its leaders.







Also in December, the 21st issue of the anarchist newspaper "Le Trouble" came out. Produced entirely in Quebec, it was the culmination of a long process that aimed to merge this journal with the NEFAC newspaper. For several months, we wrote texts and distributed the newspaper in Quebec (up to 500 copies per issue). Members of La Nuit were also involved in the editorial committee. A little anecdote: at a demonstration of the popular movement, a "progressive" priest with whom we were discussing on the occasion pulled $50 out of his pocket for so that we could give out copies of Le Trouble to demonstrators ...






The merger process was going to fail for various reasons. There were several people in the " Le Trouble" collective who disagree with the merger. The arrival of a group of former NEFAC activists in collective definitively ended the process. NEFAC needed a newspaper to fulfill a role that Ruptures could not play : making agit-prop on a regular basis. In March of 2004, NEFAC launched its own newspaper, a 4-page publication entitled Cause Commune . The launch of the first issue took place in Quebec in "Le Lieu" gallery on the rue du Pont. We took the opportunity to show a film on the participation of anarchists in the Algerian resistance and anti-colonial struggles. Some forty people were present, including a small group of Maoists from Montreal and some anars from Saint-Georges-de-Beauce who had organized a new NEFAC collective during the summer of 2004. The federation was now present in four cities in Quebec (Montreal, Sherbrooke, St-Georges and Quebec). South of the border, NEFAC developed rapidly, as well as in Ontario. In Quebec, the collective remained the same: the question of our single sex membership(See Molly Note) had remained entirely the same for nearly two years and we failed to break out of this impasse.
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Molly Note:
Occasionally, when doing this sort of translation, I come across a word, local reference or figure of speech that completely mystifies me. This was the case with the word "mixité" in the original French of this article. I'd never heard this word before, and my trusty old Larousse (it's a pocket version) gave me no help. Various online translation services gave either null results or the translations "coeducation" or "mixed". I had to wing it on this one and assume that the term referred to a previous observation that there were no women in NEFAC Québec City at that time. Even so I couldn't find a convenient and succinct English word, or even phrase, that would translate the idea exactly. Hence my rather free translation of the last sentence above. If any francophones could suggest a better alternative, or point out where I have made a mistake, I would be happy to edit the above. Another thing that I have noticed while doing this translation is the writer's habit of using the present tense for events in the past. I presume that this is common usage, but I have taken the liberty of rendering the text using the various English imperfect, preterite and past perfect tenses as was appropriate. No doubt the original is more readable in French, but using the proper tense in English makes it more readable in English.

CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:

THE HISTORY OF NEFAC IN QUÉBEC-PART FOUR:

This is part four of Molly's translation of the History of NEFAC in Québec article from the journal 'Ruptures' of the Québecois UCL (see our Links section under 'Platformism' for links to the various UCL locals in Québec). When this task is finally completed I will collate all the translations into one article. Many thanks to the francophone who pointed out a couple of errors in the previous part of this series. They have been corrected. Hopefully I won't make too many more.

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Struggle on Three Fronts:

The new orientation taken up by NEFAC was to mark the activity of the collective in its second year. While we continued to participate in the mobilization of the political left (3) or the libertarian left (4), our action would take place mainly in the field of anti-fascist struggle and solidarity with workers.

Towards the end of the summer of 2002, a new section of RASH (5) would appear in Quebec, involving several members of La Nuit. We were aware of the Nazification of part of the punk scene of Quebec and decided to intervene in our own way. Meanwhile, increasing evidence suggested that groups of boneheads were active in the western suburbs. Our group was contacted by a group of students from the CEGEP F.X. Garneau. The activists invited us to present a conference on 2 December 2002 on the issue of racism and extreme right within the institution (6). As written by Red Roady a few years later in the pages of Ruptures: "What was our surprise to see arriving at the gates of the conference a dozen neo-Nazis who were obviously going to harm the good running of the event. After a battle, the young racists went stuttering back in their bourgeois suburb. " This was the beginning of a long series of altercations that continued for more than 5 years with different groups of extreme right (Quebec Radical MLNQ, boneheads, NSBM, nationalist skins ...). Such a climate did not favour new members ... The debates with most of the libertarian left who simply could not see the necessity of the anti-fascist fight "in the streets" and / or disapproved of some of the means used were sometimes lively. That which these militants refused to see was that is that we also did popular education in settings where the left is absent (7). But in retrospect, I think we fell several times into a certain machismo, notably during debates about tactics to be used to fight against the fascists.

On 24 January 2003, our group began one of the largest campaigns of its short history. For some weeks weeks, nearly 800 workers of car dealers in the region of Québec were locked out. Their employers wanted to break the union and impose significant new rollbacks in working conditions. This conflict occurred in a climate of general indifference, partly because of the union affiliation to the Centrale des syndicats démocratiques (CSD). We decided to go to the picket lines, and then write a text explaining the causes of conflict and calling for solidarity with those locked out. A worker also contacted our group to obtain copies of the text for distribution to clients and customers of the garages (which remained open despite the conflict). On 15 February 2003, we are organized a libertarian contingent, along with other collectives, in a demonstration against war. Rather than distribute a text on our opposition to imperialist intervention, we choose to distribute our newsletter "La Nuit" with the text on the lockout. Throughout the conflict, we increased our visits to the picket lines. We contributed within our means to publicize the issues of the conflict to the people of Quebec.

The third issue of Ruptures came out in March 2003. In particular it had a history of social class and a debate on revolutionary strategy with Maxim "Tony" Fortin, a Quebec libertarian who a few months earlier published a pamphlet criticizing the analysis and the strategy of NEFAC. The content and tone of this issue of Ruptures reflected the mindset of NEFAC at this time: a certain "siege mentality " in terms of the rest of the anarchist movement and a strong penchant for quite incantatory formulas . A little awkwardly, we tried to emphasize the importance for anarchists of leaving the activist "ghetto" militant popularizing anarchism within the working class. But we were often the only ones who thought that way and criticisms of our so-called "Workerism" were numerous. The relative success of our campaign with workers in their struggles seemed to confirm the correctness of our positions. Over the next two years, we would try again with new experiments in developing other solidarity campaigns (groceries, daycare, etc..) with variable results.

In May, our group organized two events for which we produced a magnificent "colour poster", a first for the NEFAC. On May 1, we held a "red and black" demonstration in which about forty people took part in a pouring rain. A dozen anarchists from Saint-Georges, members of Uraba (Union of self-resistance of the Beauce) walked with us, as well as members of the local Communist Party of Quebec (?????-Molly ). Two days later, we were organizing a conference on the premises of the CSN with two syndicalist NEFAC members from the United States as part of the tour "Anarchy at work" coordinated by our colleagues in Montreal. Barely a dozen people participated in the encounter ... which was a failure. It was far from our successful crowd of the previous year. One fact became obvious: the new direction taken by the NEFAC was not "taking" as easily as topics related to globalization or the mobilizations against the summits.