CHAPTER 2: A TRIP TO QUÉBEC CITY

Herein lies the story of my first trip to Québec City. One strange thing about the months leading up to the FTAA actions was how our imaginative landscapes were constantly flipping back and forth. When Jaggi and his friends were in town everything was about Québec City and the wall there. After about a month of meetings in New York, all that had become ghostly, insubstantial; Cornwall, Mohawks, border actions, all seemed tangible and real. Over the next weekend, that all reversed again, and I came out of it utterly, completely determined to make it to the Summit. This determination was to create considerable strain with some of my friends, at certain points, but I never abandoned it.

Friday, March 23, 2001

The day was mainly spent driving. Me, Emma, Sasha, all from Ya Basta!, and Dean, from the Free CUNY Collective, set off from the city fairly early in the morning with a supply of vegan food and large collection of music cassettes.

Technically, Sasha, the filmmaker, was not actually going to the consulta but to an Independent Media Center conference going on a few blocks away at the same time. He also had the inestimable quality of enjoying day-long stints of driving, which was good because I didn’t drive at all. Emma, who was spoking for Ya Basta! despite the fact that she was going to do Black Bloc, was a budding artist, also in her twenties, known for installations around the city. A dedicated vegan, she worked in a health food store in Lower Manhattan. Dean was a grad student in sociology, tall, clean-cut, looking vaguely like a young Montgomery Clift. He started the trip famished, convinced us to stop for a considerable breakfast, and soon after started complaining of car sickness. I pulled a Dramamine from my medicine tin. He took it, nodded off almost immediately, and ended up spending almost the entire trip from the Hudson Valley to Montréal dozing in the back seat.

We made the border crossing without a problem, trying to look as clean-cut as possible. (Emma attempted to cover up the green parts of her hair with a little stocking-cap, and pulled a hoodie over the grungy Clash T-shirt, but we wondered if it was even necessary. American punk rockers, as Sasha pointed out, are quite regularly allowed entry into Canada.) Sasha, in the driver’s seat, explained that we were going to an Independent Media Conference, a claim made infinitely more convincing by the large expensive video camera sitting next to him (he had been occasionally stopping to do panoramic shots of the countryside). The border cops waved us on. We skirted through Montréal, staring at a gigantic folding map to the music of Professor Longhair, getting lost only once, marveling at the billboards advertising vacations in Cuba (the first dramatic evidence that we really are in a different country), and started the final, flat, rather dreary run to Québec as the sun began to set. We hit the city itself by early evening.

We Arrive

Navigating our way through the city itself is not easy. The city planners seem to have seen nothing wrong with putting three or four one-way streets in a row, all going in the same direction; they also didn’t seem to feel it was very important to put names on said streets, at least anywhere one might be able to see them. There’s also the fact that the CLAC driving instructions we’re using are exceptionally bad. Finally, we manage to locate our first stop: the Independent Media Center.

Actually, the IMC is a pretty standard first stop when you come to a new city because the place is almost never empty, and full of information. Technically, the building at which we arrived was not exactly the IMC but the CMAQ (Center des médias alternatifs du Québec; it was pronounced “smack”), run by an NGO-funded, SalAMI-allied media group called Alternativs. This, at least, is what we learn from Madhava, sometime of the New York IMC, sometime camp counselor in Poughkeepsie, who we discover sitting hunched over a computer scratching a scruffy blond beard. “The nice thing about Alternativs,” he says, “is that they have money. Oodles of it. We’ve got equipment coming out of our ears. The not-so-nice thing is they have an extremely traditional, top-down idea of journalistic organization: beat assignments, desk editors…that sort of thing. Of course, give us time,” gesturing towards the other old IMC hands huddled in a small meeting on the other side of the room. “We’ll democratize things.”

He introduces us to a tiny, slightly pixieish woman named Isabel, who then gives us directions. The next twenty minutes are spent trudging up a steep hill to the CLAC/CASA Welcome Center, in a beautiful old building with extremely heavy wooden doors, only to discover that the Welcome Center is really only a place to find housing and we actually already have housing lined up (everything had been arranged by phone with the CLAC people before we set out). Finally, around 10PM, after securing what we think are adequate directions, we return to the car and set off to meet our hosts.

Our Hosts

Our hosts, as it turned out, lived in an extremely beautiful neighborhood, all cornices and chimneys and tiny shops set in the corners of nineteenth century apartment blocks. It looked vaguely like the West Village, but much less pretentious—partly, I thought, because positioned as it was across an insanely steep hill, it had never been seriously gentrified. I was later to learn this was the heart of Jean Baptiste, one of the few “popular” neighborhoods left in the high part of the town near the old, walled city, now mostly full of hotels and convention centers.

“Welcome, my revolutionary friends!” beamed the young man who greeted us at the door. He was surrounded by five or six young people practically piling on top each other to show their happiness at our arrival, but throughout the night, he did almost all the talking—presumably, because he was the only one with any sort of command of conversational English.

All in all, the group looked almost exactly like one would imagine a group of revolutionaries should look—at least, if all you knew was that they were from a place that was in some ways sort of like Europe, but in others sort of like Latin America. The one who first greeted us was tall, almost emaciatedly thin, with a beret and Mephistophelian beard. Soft-spoken in his uncertain English, he otherwise looked almost exactly like Leon Trotsky. His companion with a dark beard pulled off a plausible Ché Guevara; a third man, named Pascal, with a long pony-tail and Ché Guevara T-shirt was harder to call. He didn’t seem to correspond to any revolutionary hero I could remember, but I couldn’t help thinking, if there wasn’t one, there really ought to have been. (I asked myself: why do we assume that if someone has spent a good deal of time and energy ensuring they look exactly like we think a revolutionary should look, that in itself makes them somehow inauthentic? Most capitalists spend a great deal of time and energy into ensuring they look exactly like we assume capitalists are supposed to look like. No one suggests it makes them any less a capitalist.)

There were also two teenage girls in the living room who appear largely ornamental: they never say a word in our presence, even in French, though they invariably started talking the moment we leave the room. Later, we’re told they are both around seventeen years old and embarrassed by their lack of English.

The apartment contained two bedrooms, a large hammock, and several mats already spread out for sleeping bags. Our hosts were obviously used to multiple houseguests. Actually, it was a pretty typical student activist apartment: endless bookshelves, all the books in French, volumes of cartoons and poetry scattered around on secondhand furniture, mock religious posters, leftist magazines, a refrigerator largely full of left-over takeout. “You are hungry?” asked Trotsky. Emma asks if they have vegan food and Trotsky, assuring her there is, heads to the kitchen to find some.

“I shouldn’t have asked that,” she realized, as we stand around smiling at our silent companions. “I bet this is like Poland. If you ask people in Poland for vegetarian food, they think that means, not much meat. If you ask for vegan, they think that means ‘actually is vegetarian.’ Real vegan they’ve never even heard of.”

“Maybe we should have picked something up on the way,” said Dean.

“We probably wouldn’t be able to find anything at this hour anyway.”

Ché fetches wine, Trotsky brings out bread and charcuterie. It’s all extremely tasty. Emma samples some bread, looks suspiciously at the rest; later, when our hosts aren’t looking, sneaks off to another room, pulls out her backpack, and produces a giant vat of organic peanut butter and some pita bread.

Over wine, we explain we’re all anarchists, working with CLAC/CASA. Trotsky—actually, his name is Sebastien—explains that, yes, they understand that we’re connected to CLAC. Here, they are all Trotskyites—but, he’s quick to add, “not part of any sect.” They’re with GOMM (Group Opposed to the Globalization of Markets) and Sebastien is also with OQP (Opération Québec Printemps 2001), which was organizing logistics for the protests (it was pronounced “occupée,” appropriately enough considering they were planning various campus occupations). GOMM’s position is that it is critical to take part in larger social movements, even if they are reformist, so as to radicalize them. “Of course,” he continues, “in Québec, owing to the political situation, every group has to take certain positions: either you are for immediate independence, or you are for some kind of autonomy in coalition with working-class groups in English-speaking Canada. So we had to take a position. We are for complete independence. But we work mainly with student unions,”—which in Québec, Sebastien explained, is a slightly unusual situation because of the extremely weird form of the educational system here. In the 1960s, the longtime old-fashioned right-wing governor who’d ruled Québec for twenty years was finally voted out. He had felt no more than twenty percent needed higher education. The new Governor raised it to sixty or seventy percent. However, he took his model from California: not the system they have in California now, but a bizarre model used in California between 1954 and 1964 or so, where they take one year from High School and one from University to create a two-year Intermediate School. These Intermediate students, he explained, are actually still the most radical, much more so than the University students. And they will all be on strike for the FTAA. (Some will be occupying the colleges too.) They could turn out as many as fifty thousand, for the protests, if they mobilize fully. Probably they won’t. Well, they’ll definitely turn out at least twenty thousand. (The two silent girls represent this stratum.)

As the evening continues, more food appears, and effects of hunger are replaced by those of the wine. We all discover that we are really quite fascinated in the dynamics of Québécois socialist politics. Sebastien is happy and chatty. Others pop in and out. Talking to Sebastien is sometimes a little frustrating, owing to his typical Trotskyite habit of using the term “we” (“we don’t like to work with this group,” “we take a strong position on that”) without ever actually telling us what “we” meant. Usually, it didn’t seem to refer to GOMM. It seemed to refer to a much tighter Marxist organization that saw GOMM as part of a broader popular front, which, of course, it was their duty to build up to be as broad as possible. Therefore, they didn’t want to be too radical or too militant. But we never heard its name. Not that it really bothered us. Sebastien explained GOMM was not working directly with CLAC and CASA or attending their spokes (they seemed to be going to the SalAMI spokes instead), but planning its own action, a classic nonviolent civil disobedience, Seattle style, with lockdowns and blockades. They did, however, want to coordinate with CLAC to ensure they found an appropriate spot, which could be reserved for classic nonviolent civil disobedience. The best would be to blockade the one highway that leads up to the perimeter. He points to a map on the CLAC/CASA information pamphlet already lying on the corner of the table. “You see, here, in Zone H.”

“You mean down at the foot of the hill there?” Dean asks. “It’s extremely steep, isn’t it?”

Sasha confirms: “Yes, I think we passed through it five or six times when we were getting lost earlier in the evening.”

“Yeah. It’s far too steep to be appropriate for red tactics. It would be suicidal to try to charge up there.”

Sebastien wants us to put in a good word at the spokescouncil, and we, of course, agree. Conversation shifts back to the complex dynamics of anti-FTAA coalition building. Pascal produces a Xeroxed page with a kind of flow-chart, illustrating the three or four different labor confederations, umbrella groups, full of circles and arrows and alliances. The thing is you have such widespread unionization in Canada, compared to the US anyway, and so many unions are so militant. “Which, actually,” I say, “makes me think of some possibilities. Has anybody thought of talking to the hotel workers in the place the Summit is actually going to be held?”

Sasha nods vigorously. “Or more relevant, perhaps, the food handlers union.”

Sebastien smiles. “Yes, actually, there were some people talking to organizers for some of the workers in the Conference Center about the possibility of maybe putting laxatives into the big feast. It wasn’t even a serious discussion, just like putting out silly ideas. The very next day, the Summit organizers publicly announced that they would be using their own special caterers and all food would be flown in from another province.”

CONSULTA DAY 1

Saturday, March 24

After breakfast, we drop off Sasha at the IMC and head to the spokescouncil, which is being held below the old city, in some kind of adult education building along a broad avenue called Réne-Lévesque. The spokes is only just getting started. The antechamber is a long hallway with vending machines, a little niche for drinking coffee, and a vast table full of activist literature.

The Table Outside

On the table, endless stacks of papers. Arranged in neat piles are all the handouts one always sees, in any action: Legal Information, Medical Information, resources for independent journalists. There are also various calls for border actions, one for a feminist action, numerous informational broadsheets about the FTAA itself and the damage it will do to labor and environmental rights, replete with dramatic headlines and cartoon illustrations. Most are bilingual; a few are only in French. There are beautiful “Carnival Against Capitalism” posters available for a suggested ten-dollar contribution, unattended, with a bowl in front for the money. I pick up two, leave twenty bucks American. Towards the very end of the table is a priceless ten-page pamphlet called “The Summit of the Americas …. From the Bottom Up.” It explains who CLAC and CASA are, with a Plan of Action, Tour Guide for politically minded visitors, transportation information, URLs, and, crucially, a map of the city with an outline of the security perimeter, divided into zones. This is the one that was sitting on the table last night. I take two of them.

There’s also an enormous bowl full of homemade stickers, apparently free:

FTAA: free trade accords menace our forests.

FUCK Cars.

Don’t Fear Technology. Fear Those Who Control It.

No Government Can Ever Give You Freedom.

A Rich Man’s Heart is a Desert. An Anarchist’s Heart is a Kingdom.

It Didn’t Begin in Seattle. It Won’t End in Québec City.

HOLY SHIT! We’d better do something… End Corporate Rule! (with a cartoon of a gas mask)

THE MOST FUN YOU’VE HAD SINCE SEATTLE: QUÉBEC CITY. (with another cartoon of a gas mask)

Get Your Hands Off Our Bodies. (with a picture of a naked female torso)

Armed and Dangerous. (with a cartoon image of a scary-looking cop)

No Matter Who You Vote For, I’m Still Here. (with a cartoon image of an even scarier-looking cop)

Along with these are a variety of tiny colorful buttons, suggested donation of fifty cents, with CLAC’s lovable raccoon mascot, fist in air. (Anarchists have a thing for small furry animals, particularly if they live underground.) No T-shirts, though. Dean picks up a couple buttons. Then we go in.

The Room Inside

Inside is a very large room which seems to normally be used for dance recitals, or maybe gymnastics. There are polished hardwood floors and one wall is made entirely of mirrors. There are already about a hundred fifty to two hundred activists sitting in a giant circle amid endless piles of coats and other gear. Near the door is a registration table, attended by a young woman with a box full of squares of colored paper, who assures us that the meeting has only been going on for at most twenty minutes. Whispered clarifications: anyone attending the meeting can speak, but only spokes can actually vote. Each collective or affinity group is allowed up to two votes, indicated by paper squares. Have our groups empowered us as spokes? Yes? She hands us our two pieces of paper, one red, one blue. “Oh yes,” she says, “I almost forgot. None of you are working journalists or in any way connected to law enforcement?”

“What do you think?”

“Well, you know, we have to ask.”

As the spoke from NYC DAN, Lesley has already joined the circle, along with her ride, an activist named Lynn, also from New York, who works with Rainforest Relief. Hugs are exchanged all around. The two have already constructed a little nest of documents, coats, sweaters, thermoses, and the like on their section of the floor. I take out my field equipment, which consists of a cheap CVS three-subject notebook and a very expensive rapidograph (technical pens: I like them because you don’t have to apply any real pressure in writing so your hand doesn’t cramp even if you have to write for hours, which, in such meetings, I usually did). I unpack a couple of cashmere sweaters to be used as pillows, my contribution to the nest, and everyone starts whispering.

The first question is inevitable. “So what’s all this about voting? What kind of process are they using here?”

“Well, that’s interesting,” explains Lesley. “CLAC is kind of weird that way. As for CASA, they’ve never organized a spokescouncil. I mean, I think they’re doing really well for people with no experience.” Basically, she said, activists in Québec City have had, until very recently, no real experience with consensus process at all; they’re learning this completely from scratch. But they’d already made enormous progress, having moved in the last few months from using a majority vote system to a sort of semi-consensus system, in which, if they fail to find consensus on the first go, they move to seventy-five percent super-majority vote. It ends up working about the same as full consensus would. Most of the people facilitating this meeting are from Montréal, however, and some of them are very experienced facilitators. “CLAC also uses a rather unusual system for taking turns—it’s a little controversial—where they insist on strict gender equity. For every contested proposal, they alternate between one woman speaking in favor of the proposal, one man in favor, one woman speaking against the proposal, one man against. In practice, it turns out a little bit more a rule of thumb than a strict practice, but it’s a useful way to make sure no one can forget the underlying principle.”

The process, she goes on to explain, is a bit more formal than we’re used to. This is, in part, because this is technically a consultation, not a spokescouncil properly speaking: the local organizers are coming up with the broad framework for the action, but they want affinity groups coming from outside the province to give them some advice. Also, they want to get some idea of what those outsiders are intending to do. Therefore, the plan is to move quickly from the general meeting to a breakout session, where we’ll divide into small, manageable groups and each take on a series of questions provided by the organizers. At the end of the breakout, everyone will explain just what their affinity group was thinking they would actually be doing during the Summit. This will become the basis on which the facilitators can construct a list of different sorts of action (blockades, street theater, etc.), which, in turn, will then allow for a further breakout, allowing people to consult in small groups with those who intend to do roughly the same sort of thing. After which there will be dinner and a party, and the next morning we’ll reconvene for a final plenary.

In most spokescouncils, there are two facilitators: one male, one female. In this one, there are four. This is mainly because of the language problem: the local CASA folks seem to speak only French; the Montréal activists switch back and forth according to no logic I can decipher; everyone else is speaking English. So, there are four people sitting on chairs at the head of the circle: two, apparently, who are actually facilitating, two just to translate—though, in practice, I observe (I have my notebook out most of the time, scribbling observations furiously) they seem to periodically switch. Except for Jaggi, who is clearly trying to keep himself in a merely auxiliary role.

As we came in, the facilitators were fielding a request by a radical video team to record part of the proceedings; after hearing the usual objections, the proposal is reframed: we will invite them to come back later in the afternoon, when we are not discussing action plans but only logistics, and then put it to a vote again. (In the end, of course, there is too much opposition.) A woman from CASA, who I think was called Celine, began by summarizing the information already printed in the handouts.

Celine[6]: These color blocs are not fixed, and they will not necessarily be physically separate, though we will have one area reserved for the Green Bloc. They are:

The Green Bloc is the more artistic, festive style of demo, where there is no risk of having to defend themselves.

The Yellow Bloc is obstructive. This is classic nonviolent civil disobedience. It is defensive, nonviolent: blockades or attempts to occupy ground, for example, which involve a definite risk of arrest.

The Red Bloc is disruptive. This is the disturbance bloc, which will try to disrupt the Summit, where participants should be aware of a high risk of repression and arrest. We are expecting creative, diverse styles of disruptive action here.

We emphasize “disruption” because, from early on, CLAC and CASA came to the conclusion that, given the constraints of the security fence and massive police mobilization, attempting a repeat of Seattle and actually trying to shut down the meetings was a strategy unlikely to succeed. We decided on an alternative strategy, which combined efforts to disrupt the Summit, with efforts to create Temporary Autonomous Zones, liberated territories throughout the city.

CLAC and CASA have developed a series of proposals about the actions themselves that we would like you to consider. [She begins translating from a page in French]:

On Thursday, April 19^th, we are proposing a spokescouncil at 3PM, of everyone who’s here by that time, to finalize details of the action. That same night, we are proposing we hold a torchlight parade. This will be a Green action, our goal is not to be arrested before the 20^th, but to welcome the Summit, as it were. We just want to specify again: this is a demo, not a confrontation. It will stop as soon as the cops appear. Just a way to say “hi” and begin to mobilize our people. Those are the only goals for that day.

[Various people have questions.]

Facilitator: Can we go through the whole schedule and only then go to questions?

Celine: On Friday the 20^th, the Carnival Against Capitalism march will assemble on the Plains of Abraham at noon, and then people can choose where we go. At roughly 2PM, everyone will disperse into their own blocs and types of action; there may be a march but we have not organized one yet because we don’t know what the security situation will be like.

Now, bear in mind: everything we’re presenting here can be modified. These are just proposals. Right now, we are also proposing that at 6PM Friday the 20^th we hold an assembly to go over the day’s events and plan for the next.

On Saturday the 21^st, we will participate in the big labor demo as an explicitly anti-capitalist contingent. We will however, respect the organizers’ parameters during the march. So, this is not, itself, an occasion for direct action.

That evening, a lot of demos and diverse actions could go on, and of course jail solidarity actions.

Sunday the 22^nd will be the same: there will be space for different actions, but also for prison solidarity.

So… back to the 20^th. What CLAC and CASA have sort of organized is two different demos, Yellow and Green. If you look at the handout, you will see, on the right of page two, both proposals. Both assume the existence of a free zone, in which there will be very limited risk of arrest [some skeptical laughter], a place for Green, creative demos. It will be a fixed location, a free place where everything will be beautiful. At the moment, assuming we assemble on the Plains of Abraham at noon, we have two possibilities. It’s a little vague because we don’t know where exactly the security perimeter will be, but basically, one is that the Yellow Bloc will break out of the Plains and march directly to carry out a carnivalesque action in front of the security perimeter; the second is that we begin together with the Green Bloc on the Plains of Abraham and carry out a much longer march which would snake through the city, allowing the Green Bloc to split off, and then arrive in the same place some hours later.

In either case, the ultimate goal is a gigantic, marvelous carnival, with both small affinity group actions and bigger collective ones—we need all of you!

Oh yes, and for the longer, march—we could also rearrange its path depending on smaller actions, to be in solidarity with them.

Again, we urge people to respect different blocs and decisions of people taking part to ensure a level of unity and solidarity.

Question: During the breakout sessions we are having after, could you ensure there’s one person from either CLAC or CASA’s action committee in each workshop to answer questions?

Celine: Yes, we’ve already arranged for that.

Facilitator: So, does anyone have any clarifying questions about any of these proposals? We will be alternating between men and women.

There were, of course any number of questions: about the actual extent of the security perimeter, roads from the airport, the possibility of preemptive arrests during the Thursday torchlight parade. (Answer: this sounds like an important concern, but we’re doing clarifying questions now.) Was the organizing committee aware that the official opening of the Summit might be moved to 1PM?

Man: I’m puzzled. What sort of solidarity can the Red Bloc expect from the other blocs? It seems like this whole issue is being left out. I need to report back to people in Toronto and I have no idea what to tell them.

[Lesley to me: “That’s my question too.”]

…as they’ll be the ones needing support. It seems to me this whole bloc idea needs to be fleshed out a bit more.

Celine: I agree we need to do this. That’s why we’re here.

Facilitator: I don’t want to be a castrator [laughter] but we have twelve people on stack, this is the time set aside for the technical questions on the plan of action, not theoretical questions.

The problem was that it was almost impossible to answer any of the technical questions without having a more precise idea what this color scheme would look like on the ground. And clearly it had not been thoroughly hashed out.

Man: A point of clarification. The Green and Yellow Blocs have specific marches. Do I understand the Red does not?

Celine: Yes. CLAC and CASA are working on organizing the Green and Yellow Blocs, but the Red Bloc actions should be discussed in small affinity groups, not general assemblies of two hundred people like this.

Woman: In the introduction, you referred to the blocs not as geographical entities, but as attitudes. But a lot of the questions I’ve been hearing make it sound like they really are going to be separate groups in separate places. Is this just a product of confusion? Or has this been completely worked out? [A pause as the facilitator asks for more detailed translation.] That is to say, if the Red Bloc were near the perimeter in a geographical sense, and the Yellow Bloc wanted to do some kind of nonviolent direct action… well, clearly, people will want to do that near the perimeter too. So it raises a question about the zones. Will we be dividing up the map of the city by color?

Celine:: Well, the Green Bloc will be geographically delimited. It will be relatively far away from the perimeter.

Nicole [a CASA person, the one who was in New York, steps in to clarify]: The Yellow Bloc will be more mobile than the Green, delimited not so much in space as in the types of action it can engage in. The best way we’ve found to help those who intend to be in the Red Bloc is to organize the Green and Yellow as best we can, so the people who’ll want to do Red will know our plans and arrange to do their actions elsewhere.

Woman: The problem as I see it is, if Red and Yellow Blocs are mobile and defined by attitude, how will people know what Bloc they’re even in? Will there be separate marches, armbands, some equivalent of marshals who can tell you?

Nicole: That’s definitely something we should try to clarify. Remember: Yellow doesn’t confront, but is defensive. But that also depends on the attitude the cops take. If the police carry out an all-out assault, if they begin attacking everyone indiscriminately, then presumably everyone could end up in the middle of a de facto Red zone.

Celine: We cannot make any absolute assurances to anyone about what anyone else will be doing. But we’d like people to call out what sort of actions and demos they intend to be carrying out, what color code best fits that, and will expect them to try to stay that color as well as they can. But we know Yellow can slip into Red.

Nicole: I’ll add that this is where affinity groups become crucial. If this happens your affinity group could decide collectively to leave the area. Communication will be very important here.

Conversation continued in a similar vein for another fifteen minutes. No one was quite sure what all this would really look like, and it seemed the planners had left large parts of the picture intentionally vague. The CLAC plan was, essentially, to solicit our collective advice to fill in the details. Hence, the structure of the meeting. After the first plenary, where we just got to ask clarifying questions, we were to break up at noon into randomly selected smaller groups of roughly twenty people each. These smaller groups would be given the same list of issues to discuss; each would be provided with someone from the CLAC or CASA planning team to answer informational questions. The results would be written down and serve as a resource for the local working groups. Finally, everyone at the session would explain what role their affinity group was planning on taking on during the actions themselves: whether they were coming as artistic groups, support groups, flying squads, and so on. These would be used as the basis for a second round of breakouts, in which everyone would get to coordinate things with representatives of other affinity groups intending to do roughly the same thing. After that, we’d go home for the evening and hold a final plenary Sunday afternoon.

Lunch was on the fly. We grabbed plates, scooped out some sort of large casserole and salad, a cup of cider, and took it with us to the rooms where the breakouts were being held downstairs. We were mostly assigned different rooms, of course, though somehow Lynn and I both ended up in the same one: Group Five.

12:10PM, First Breakout Session

Downstairs were a whole series of small rooms that had the feel of seminar rooms, big tables, fluorescent lights, mostly without windows.

I will include a fairly long extract from my notes here. Hopefully, they’ll convey something of the texture of a consensus meeting—particularly, of the somewhat swirling quality conversation takes when stacking speakers ensures participants rarely reply directly to one another’s points, and discussion seems to circle around its object rather than immediately attacking it. What follows is pretty typical of such discussions. I will label individuals roughly as they appeared in my notes, since for the most part, I did not write down their actual names. Also, though the conversation was bilingual, with translations provided—I’ll restrict myself here to English, only providing the translations of statements originally made in French.

According to my notes, Group Five originally consisted of twelve men and ten women, though two more women later drifted in. The CLAC person assigned to our room was named Radikha, a willowy young woman of South Asian descent. She was already seated as I came in, chatting with a friend who worked with the Toronto IMC.

Radikha: So, the facilitators have asked each group to consider three questions in this first break-out session. First, the protection of the Convergence Center. Second, the attitudes each bloc (Red, Green, and Yellow) will take towards the police. Finally, what sort of actions your affinity group is thinking it will take part in.

Bob: Hi, I’m Bob from the Toronto IMC. Is it okay if I facilitate, so as to leave Radikha available for answering questions?

Radikha: That would be just fine with me. I guess then I can be the notetaker, too, since the organizers want to have a record of everything each group comes up with.

Meredith: Also, do we want to set time limits on each agenda item?

[Many nods and affirmative noises]

Should we select a time keeper, then, or does everyone have a watch? [Various people do not have watches]

Another Woman [to Meredith]: Would you be willing to do it?

Meredith: All right then, I’ll be time keeper.

Facilitator: So, what do we have, until 1PM? That’s forty-five minutes. Shall we say ten minutes for the Convergence Center question? [To Radikha] Is there any background we should know?

Radikha: Well, within CLAC, we came to a decision to create a Convergence Center, a place to hold meetings and for people coming in from out of town. We also decided to organize some kind of defense in case the police attack. The question is how to organize that, and how to let people who want to leave get out. For example, will there be surveillance outside? And… well, also I guess some of us have been talking about some sort of surveillance inside to prevent police provocations inside the Center. How do we organize this? We don’t have much experience with these things and we were hoping some of you might be able to help.

[The facilitator is taking stack as various people around the table catch his eye, nod slightly, or otherwise indicate they wish to be put on the speaker’s list. He calls on people, pointing mostly, since few of us know each other’s names.]

Woman: So, CLAC did make a decision. Now you just need some advice?

Older Guy: My question is: before we talk about vigilance and protection, shouldn’t we also be talking about decentralization? What exactly is going to be happening at the Convergence Center? Are people there going to be covering everything from finding people housing to press conferences to food or providing art spaces? And if so, is it tactically wise to concentrate all those functions in one place?

French Guy: When will the Convergence Center actually be set up? [We all start looking at the handout, but there’s no indication.]

Radikha: In response to the centralization question: by “Convergence Center” we mean a meeting place to hold spokescouncils, also to welcome people, place them in housing, that sort of thing. We haven’t decided what other functions the place might serve. As for the date, we don’t know that yet, but it certainly will be up and running by Wednesday the 18^th.

Younger French Guy: What about the giant puppets? Will they be made in the same place?

Radikha: I think some smaller puppets may be made there, but the larger puppets will be someplace else.

Facilitator: This is a small group so I’m not going to be using the strict one man, one woman rule here, but I’ll still try to maintain gender equity. So let me skip ahead in the stack now… the woman in the red scarf?

Red Scarf: My affinity group is intending to give direct action trainings before the Summit: will it be possible to do that at the Convergence Center?

Radikha: I imagine the Convergence Center will be available for trainings.

American: At J20 [the inaugural protests], we had not one but a series of very decentralized Convergence Centers, and that worked really well. Also we had signs up everywhere saying “No Drugs or Bombs Allowed,” that sort of thing, which apparently—I know it sounds stupid—makes it a little harder for the police legally to just crash in. Also, we were very careful about hiding the puppet warehouse.

Radikha: So, I’m hearing a lot of concerns about the puppets. Do you think we should have an entirely separate place for puppet-making?

Lynn: I’m actually fearful about using the inauguration protests as our model. At the inauguration, it was pretty clear the police didn’t want arrests; several cops actually told me that after they detained me.

Someone: If they didn’t want arrests, why did they detain you?

Lynn: I took off my clothes at the inaugural ball with a slogan across my chest. But even then they just let me go after half an hour or so.

Someone else: Jeez, how did you get tickets to the inaugural ball?

Facilitator: Um, maybe we should bring ourselves back to the proposal: what shall we do about defense and evacuation?

Anglophone Guy: It seems a little silly to devote a lot of resources to defending an empty building, Maybe it’s important—if we really do want to defend this space—to ensure there’ll be something going on there all the time, I mean, when the spokes aren’t meeting. Otherwise, you’d just be tying people down. Perhaps we could offer continual trainings, for example.

[Brief problems with translation. We pause to make sure the French speakers on one side of the room are caught up.]

French Guy: It seems to me that the major reason law enforcement has invaded convergence spaces in the US is to destroy the art and puppets, so as to kill the message the protesters wish to convey. They haven’t messed much with spokescouncils or meetings. So it seems to me what’s really important is to defend the puppet space—wherever that will be—and if the puppets aren’t being built in the Convergence Center, then maybe we shouldn’t be defending it at all.

Facilitator: Can I just check for consensus: we seem to be talking about how and what to defend, not whether…? So: are we agreed on that? Any disagreement that we do in fact want to defend the space? That this is even a priority?

Suzette: My name is Suzette and I’m with the student movement. We’re going to be on strike during the Summit, and we need our people in our own space…

Facilitator: I’m sorry, Suzette, we still have a stack here. You’re talking out of turn.

Suzette: Oh, sorry. I guess I’m just saying sure, let’s defend the space, but don’t expect the Québec Student Movement to be able to dedicate any resources to this.

Second French Guy: I like the idea of ensuring people will be able to leave if the place is besieged. But: is it a Yellow defense or a Red?

Facilitator: Can I have a time check here?

Meredith: We’re actually fifteen or twenty minutes over time already.

Facilitator: And we have five people left on stack. Shall we make these the last comments and then move on?

[nods]

Red Scarf: Can’t we make some of the puppets in the Convergence Center, and some elsewhere? Just to be on the safe side?

[General twinkling][7]

Facilitator: So it seems we have consensus on that.

[More twinkling. Radikha is scribbling rapidly.]

Lynn: In LA, we made a very successful legal move beforehand to defend the Convergence Center. We knew that, when the cops attacked our spaces in Philly and DC, their excuse was that the places were fire hazards, so that was part of our defense: we asked people not to bring certain things, which they could say were fire hazards, but most of all, we got legal assurances beforehand that they wouldn’t come in.

Francophone Guy with Sideburns: Wait a minute: are you actually suggesting we could get an order of protection from a judge, and that would make it legally impossible for them to make a preemptive attack like they did, say, on the puppets in Philadelphia?

Lynn: There was a legal injunction.

American: I really can’t see how that could work. After all, at A16 and Philly, the cops didn’t exactly say, “We think this is a fire hazard” and close us down. They claimed there were molotovs and bombs inside. It’s not like there actually were any. They just lied. So, I don’t see why we’re assuming that whether we actually have anything dangerous in there has anything to do with it.

Facilitator: I think we’re having serious process problems here. People are jumping stack and anyway we’re long since over time. Radikha, do you have an answer to his question? Has anyone looked into legal possibilities?

Radikha: Actually, no. We haven’t looked into any of that yet, since we’ve been too busy locating a space. Anyway, the laws are different here.

Meredith: Maybe we should have legal people on hand. In Philly, there weren’t any legal people around when they attacked the puppet space—and, anyway, the puppet space was a huge warehouse out in the middle of nowhere with no other buildings anywhere nearby, so there was no way to do a blockade. So, if you’re still looking for a space, that might be something to think about. We can also make sure there’s material for a lockdown on hand here. Also: a way to get the media down there immediately if something happens.

New Englander: You do realize we’ve only got twenty minutes left for the whole session and we still haven’t got off question number one? I’d also like to suggest that the language being used here—Red, Yellow, the vagueness—is a real impediment to action. Perhaps, for the sake of time, we should just come to consensus about what we’ll actually do if the cops do attack us. That might actually help us move on to the next topic—wasn’t it supposed to be, attitudes towards the police in the different blocs? Come to think of it, we really should have addressed that first, then moved on to talking about the Convergence Center.

Radikha: Well, the organizers sort of took it for granted we wouldn’t really be able to do all this in an hour. I want to add that Yellow is supposed to be characterized by a “defensive attitude”: blockading is Yellow. If your group does not intend to respond to police orders, you’re Yellow. Of course, your affinity group can decide for itself how to act when cops attack, there’s no code saying “all Yellow affinity groups have to do this.” Red is more… targeted.

Older Guy: Though not necessarily violent.

Radikha: No, not necessarily.

Red Scarf: In the interest of moving on, I propose we classify the Convergence Defense as Yellow. You know, technically, we’re not supposed to be planning Red actions here anyway.

By 12:45, we concluded that this was about as far as we could go without even knowing where the Center was going to be or what it was going to be used for, so we finally moved on to defining the blocs. One woman said her affinity group was intending to come with plexiglass shields. Would this still count as Yellow? Radikha assured her it would, since shields are by definition defensive. Lynn claimed that, in America, cops had definitely been known to interpret defensive gear as weapons.

The problem with the blocs, it turned out, was whether to interpret them geographically. A Green zone made no sense unless it was physically separate. You need to give people a safe space, far enough from the action that they’re not in danger of being mistaken for combatants, close enough that they’re clearly part of the same event. To mark off a specific space for a red zone, on the other hand, would be clearly suicidal. You might as well put up sign saying ‘police, here are the ones to arrest.’ So we were stuck with one Green zone, in some specific area out of the action, and the rest of the city a vast Yellow zone, any part of which might turn Red at any time. But if so how would it be possible for anyone to do classic civil disobedience? You can’t claim to be engaging in a nonviolent sit-in if, at any time, someone else might pass by and chuck a brick over your head. Out of a sense of obligation to our Trotskyite friend, I suggested that perhaps certain zones, maybe of a block or two, might be set aside for purely Yellow actions. I was a bit startled to hear loud and vehement objections. For a couple of minutes, I found myself cast as the reactionary, with many of the local activists—including the woman from the Student Movement—angrily rejecting any notion that Red tactics would be declared off limits, anywhere. I withdrew the suggestion: “Well, probably groups will simply cluster spontaneously. Maybe we don’t need to actually formalize any of this.”

Facilitator: Let’s move to the third question: specific action ideas. Anyone have any objections to just doing a go-round here? [None are indicated]

Suzette: We’re not supposed to be talking about Red stuff here?

Facilitator: Yeah, that’s my understanding of the situation. Only actions we would be able to discuss in a completely public space.

Older Guy: I’m with the Pagan Cluster, which is concentrated in Vermont, and we’ve come up with a proposal for an action based on the Cochabamba statement, about access to water as a basic human right. We want to create a Living River of people that can flow through different zones in the city, trying to cause as much disruption as possible as it does so. That might include actions around the central zone near the wall, where we assume things will turn the reddest, but it’s basically a Yellow sort of action we have in mind here.

Radikha: I’ll skip my turn as basically I’m going to spend the weekend doing support work for protesters. (You know, I’m with CLAC.)

Olive (French student with rainbowish hair): I don’t know if my affinity group will be doing an action or support.

Sideburns: We want to disturb the summiteers as much as possible. We have nothing specific beyond that yet, but we’ve been throwing around the idea of blockading the highway to the city.

Jane: My name’s Jane. I’m actually spoking for two different groups. One group is from Carleton University and will be doing disruptive street theater—clowning sorts of things. We’ll show up and wander around, and we have these little skits we can put on the moment we see something. The other group is the SSSA, from Ontario. That’s a group of secondary school students. They’ll be doing drumming with found instruments and blockade sorts of thing.

English Guy: I’m representing two affinity groups based in the University of Toronto that are also doing theatrical skits, but want to be in the Yellow Bloc, not the Green. Also, in Toronto, we have the Guerrilla Rhythm Squad. Some of them want to get involved in any possible airport actions but don’t know if those are still on.

David: I’m with New York City Ya Basta! We have four or five ideas for action scenarios, none of which can be discussed here. Well, I guess there’s one we can discuss. Some of us had an idea to come out, suited up in our padding and chemical jumpsuits, and get a really large ladder, and just kind of wander around with it right next to the wall. If nothing else, it would work as a diversion. We find that whenever we show up in the suits, cops tend to follow us wherever we go.

Young Québécois Woman: I represent a popular neighborhood committee in the neighborhood of St. Jean Baptiste—this is a neighborhood that is going to be cut in half by the wall. We’re planning a series of actions on the 17^th and 18^th having to do with that. Can we discuss those here?

Facilitator: Sure, why not?

Young Québécois Woman: Well, this is still in the planning stage, but one idea is that people in the neighborhood will save their garbage for a week, and then throw it along the wall to show this is what consumer society produces. And there are two more. One is putting lines of old clothing along the perimeter (the theme of waste again), the other is noise. So as to disrupt the Summit, twice a day everyone will put on music as loud as possible—something really annoying, and all at once, to try to drive the delegates crazy.

Young Francophone Guy: We are planning to take part in border actions at Akwesasne, but nothing concrete beyond that.

Plexiglass Guy: My collective in Toronto is organizing communities to do massive border actions, too. After that we’re coming to Québec with our shield wall. We might actually help with the Convergence Center defense if people really do end up needing that.

Lynn: I’m with Rainforest Relief in New York. We have some people coming from Ecuador, Nicaragua, who can talk about the potential effects of the FTAA on their communities. We’re hoping to do a panel and then take them up to the Mohawk action—though I’m worried whether we’d be putting them in danger if we actually try to cross. In Québec itself… well, my hope is that we rush the wall in some way. Maybe completely nonviolently. I have this very powerful image in my head from the movie Gandhi of all those people marching up to the soldiers, and getting clubbed down, but then, more people keep coming and though each one ends up getting hit, they just keep coming anyway… Or maybe like that except we’re climbing.

Bob: I’ll also be doing Indymedia, covering the heavier actions.

Man in Blue Bandanna: I represent Québec Medical, and we’ll be giving support before, during, and after the actions. We are trying to work with people to make sure we have medics at each of the border actions as well, but that’s a little more complicated.

Older Woman: I’m also from the Vermont Mobilization. Our aim is to move folks across the border, but we’re also trying to come up with scenarios for what to do with people if they don’t make it.

Facilitator: Okay, time’s up.

Someone asks if we are also supposed to be discussing the march: whether we’re going directly from the Plains of Abraham or snaking through the city for an hour first? “Well, no,” says Radikha, “but it looks like a lot of breakout sessions are still going on (yes, we flagrantly lied about the time). People aren’t going upstairs yet, so we could certainly talk about that a little if people want to.” Sentiment is clearly leaning towards the longer march (is it really a good idea to have everyone about to do a direct action assemble and just hang out in one place for several hours before they do anything?), when someone comes downstairs to tell us the breakout sessions are over.

In the hall, I run into Lesley. We compare notes. Most of her session was also wasted on meandering discussions of Red and Yellow. Only at the end did anything useful come out. Dean had a similar experience. Emma appears to have vanished. As I head upstairs, several people point me out as the Ya Basta! delegate—I’m getting the definite impression there’s a feeling this is going to be the big new innovation for this action: shields and padding and defensive tactics. (As it turns out they’re wrong; it won’t be. But it was kind of fun being a de facto celebrity.)

1:45PM, Back to the Plenary

A brief, abortive effort to find myself a cup of coffee ended when I remembered I still didn’t have any Canadian money, and there were no obvious ATMs. Still, it gave me a chance to step outside. After hanging out a little in the antechamber, where there had been rumors of a Montréal Gazette reporter, I returned to discover the newly rotated facilitators busy synthesizing. Having gone over the written reports from each session, they were now drawing up a list of ten different sorts of action to be addressed in the next breakouts, writing them on huge sheet of butcher paper taped to one wall, sparking occasional chuckles at some of the evocative not-quite-English circumlocutions:

1. Festive and Arts groups

2. Protectors of the Convergence Center

3. Blockaders of Streets and Boulevards

4. Blockaders of Outside Specific Buildings

5. Occupations of Buildings

6. Walking/Advancing on/Visiting/Moving towards the Wall

7. Redecoration of the Urban Scenery

8. Food and the Reappropriation of Different Things

9. Flying Squads/Support Groups

Halfway through, a woman from the Pagan Bloc asks “can I propose one more? I think you’ve heard our proposal for a Living River…”

“Would that not be considered a kind of flying squad?”

“No, it’s not a flying squad. It’s a whole bloc unto itself.”

“All right then.” He writes:

10) Riviere Humaine

The facilitators are trying to get some sense of the consensus on the Convergence Center and color attitude questions; tell us if anyone absolutely missed lunch there’s still some food on the table; and then introduce representatives of various working groups: Legal and Medical, Housing and Finance.

The Legal collective (they seem to consist mainly of English-speaking students from McGill) handed out information sheets and explained that each affinity group should name one member to serve as legal contact. That person should strive to avoid arrest, and keep track of where everyone is at all times. They said the legal contact should probably attend at least one legal training, especially if they come from the US, as laws are different here. This is also the person who knows what needs to be taken care of if any member of their affinity group is arrested: who’ll need someone to feed their cat, lie to their boss, etc. They will be adopting the system used at mass action in the US: members of each affinity group will be asked to fill out a form registering their real names—or at least, some letters of their real names—along with their action names, and these papers will be guarded assiduously by the legal team. That way they’ll be able to keep track of who’s in jail as the names come in, and make the information available on a special legal phone number. “And don’t everyone call at once about people missing if there’s a mass arrest! Only your legal contact person should call the number.”

Someone asks: “Does this mean we’re not doing jail solidarity? Should we bring IDs or is everyone going to be refusing to give their names once arrested? A lot of this hasn’t been completely worked out yet.”

The medics explain that no one should assume that, if injured, they will be able to rely on official paramedics and ambulances. Usually ambulances will refuse to go anywhere near an action. Therefore, the medical team will be providing three levels of medical infrastructure during the action: a clinic with trained professionals, probably somewhere near the IMC; several street teams of experienced action medics with proficiency in first aid, hypothermia treatment, and dealing with tear gas and pepper spray, and, finally, each affinity group should name one person as their own medical monitor and make sure that person attends at least one medical training.

As questions begin I step out into the antechamber, do a quick interview with a reporter in exchange for a cup of coffee, take a stroll outside. We’ve been meeting for five or six hours. When I stroll back in, Jaggi, representing the financial team, is explaining the organizers are currently about $20,000.00 in the red. Then, they ask for volunteers to facilitate the next round of breakout groups. I end up in the “approaching the wall” group (assuring myself this is because that’s what my affinity group is intending to do and has nothing to do with the fact the facilitator, a young blond woman looks strikingly like a punk rock version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Dean joins me—along with Emma, who has spent most of the session making friends with some Black Bloc types on the other side of the circle. Lesley says she’s going to cruise out with Lynn to find the place where she’s supposed to stay.

4:30PM, Breakout Session

The final meeting of the day was a little frustrating. In theory, it was the most militant session—though we still couldn’t discuss militant tactics explicitly. It was also a strange mix: there were twenty-six of us (fifteen men, eleven women, as I duly set down in my notebook), mainly anarchists but also including representatives of the ISO, IAC, and other Marxist types with whom anarchists don’t usually feel comfortable discussing militant actions. Everyone seemed a little uncertain how much they could say. Spokescouncils are by definition not truly secure environments, most of us didn’t know each other. Anyone might be a cop.

We start by examining our maps. A local woman in her forties with green streaks in her hair and a prominent nose ring explained some of the background for out of towners:

Punk Woman: I’m not sure how large the perimeter is going to be. When they first announced it, it was going to be 2.8 kilometers but now it seems to have become smaller. We’ve been asked to stay away from the zones marked 2 and 6, which is a working-class neighborhood called St. John Baptiste where the local community group has come out in strong support of us, but is also hoping to avoid any provocations that might cause the police to tear gas their neighborhood.

Zones 4, C, and B will be the most difficult areas as there’s in effect a natural stone wall, with cliffs all around. We can pretty much forget about approaching the wall from there..

If there is anyone here who knows this part of the city better than I do, they should probably step forward to help us. But I think we all agree that coming in through a working-class neighborhood that will be hurt by the FTAA should be scratched off. So, that pretty much leaves Zone 3, an approach from the west. The problem is that zone is also going to have the most police as it’s the main entrance.

Gray Beard: Yes, it’s going to have to be Zone 3. If we’re going to attack the fence, I’d assume that would be in a fairly large group. Not only are all the other areas less easily accessible, there’s no place to retreat (even if we could get up on the cliffs, we couldn’t run down them again if the police started pushing us back). Areas C and B are below the river—no place to retreat either—so maybe only Zone 3 is physically possible?

Facilitator: [also staring at her map] …which is the one where these big streets are?

Gray Beard: Yes, I think so.

Someone: That’s the northwest section of the wall?

Someone else: Will there be many entrances to the perimeter, or just one or two?

Facilitator: They said there would be nine but they haven’t announced where they’ll be yet.

Craig [anarchist type with giant earplugs]: Do we know what kind of fence it’s going to be?

Someone: Not for sure. We know it’s going to be a chain-link fence with concrete base, and then barbed wire on top. A small stretch of it has already been put up on the Plains of Abraham, near the cliffs, but I’m not sure if anyone has seen it yet.

Suzette: Zone 3 was the site of a big demo and battle last year around this same time of year, around school reform. It ended with a pretty big victory for us in an open field. I heard Zone E is Touristville, if anything should go wrong it should be there, perhaps between residential areas

Punk Woman: Hitting two places at same time might be a good strategic move, also, if we’re talking about Zone 3… might it be easier to advance on (what kind of language are we actually allowed to use here? Visit? Attack?) a place where the wall opens and closes. Another possibility might be not to actually attack the fence at all but to shut down the main entrance; maybe by locking down to it. That would effectively shut the cops in and away from the rest of us. A third option (perhaps something to do at a different location) might be to get grappling hooks and actually haul the fence down with lots of people. Would that be possible? I don’t actually know if the concrete part will be cemented to the ground but probably it won’t be.

Lesley: Not until now!!

[Much laughter and glancing up at invisible microphones in the ceiling]

Young French Girl: Do we know if the security forces will completely surround the fence? Or might there be gaps in their lines?

Gray Beard: Well, we know there’ll be five thousand riot police to protect maybe two, maybe three kilometers of fence. I’m not sure how that translates.

Presumably they won’t be evenly dispersed, They’ll have large units at the gates, small squads here and there

Facilitator: Does anyone have a proposal for anything to put on the formal agenda? Because, you know, we don’t actually have an agenda yet.

There seems little point and we decide to keep it informal. So: What would be the best day to try to breach the wall? CLAC has only been talking about Friday, the 20^th, but the big labor march was on Saturday and that would be at least forty, fifty thousand people. As always, the union leaders were doing everything possible to keep their people away from the action. The march would begin at a location fairly far away from the Summit and then proceed in the opposite direction. Still, if it would be possible to divert even a fraction of the marchers towards the wall itself, it would completely change the balance of forces. Many people remark on the unlikelihood of such a thing. Since Seattle, union bureaucrats have become remarkably good at ensuring this never happened. Others remark that Canada is different. Finally, we all end up yielding to the authority of an old man in a fisherman’s cap and scraggly beard who had been largely silent until now. He explains, in French, that he grew up in the old city, and might have some insights others don’t. After a little bit, seeing that the out-of-towners are paying rapt attention, he switches to English:

Fisherman: It’s true, we do not know where the police will be, but we can assume they’re not just going to be inside the perimeter—to get near it might be a battle in itself. If so, if we are going to be under fire from tear gas and the like as we approach, I think we should not approach from our own neighborhoods. There are two broad thoroughfares: one is Erné Lévesque, the other Grand Allée, which runs parallel to its south. These are the streets of the bourgeoisie. They are both streets where top bureaucrats and wealthy people live; so this would be a good area from which to advance on the perimeter.

David: What my affinity group has been wondering is: if by some miracle we do get inside the perimeter on the 20^th, well—then what? We’ve heard talk about disrupting the opening ceremonies, if only by our being there, or somehow cutting off the media control center.

Dean: Once inside, will we be able to mix into the crowds? Will there be guards checking for people with passes?

Fisherman: It’s not clear. A lot depends on how much of a threat they think we are [glancing up again at the imaginary microphone]. If, after this spokescouncil, they feel the perimeter is insecure, they will make the area smaller, and more easily defensible. As a result, there will be fewer ordinary citizens inside. That will mean they’ll be better able to see who’s who (that is, there will be more suits, less people dressed like us); but, then, we’ll be able to see who’s who as well. If they end up having to make it a capitalist ghetto, even if that means they can do what they want inside, that in itself is a big victory for us—and an attack on that space, even a purely symbolic one, would be a great victory as well.

Gradually I realized what was going on. As I mentioned, in any such meeting, one had to assume someone in the room was a cop (the references to microphones were mostly a way of being polite). Therefore, the only person who was completely comfortable talking was the one man who actually thought it was tactically advantageous for the police to know our plans. Everyone else was beginning to look increasingly fidgety and uncomfortable. Finally, someone suggested we’d gone about as far as we could, and we broke for dinner; with Emma and some others passing word that those who were really serious about the project, and had someone who could vouch for them, would meet later at the CASA party that night to reconvene. Meanwhile, we will write in our official report that it’s too soon to come to any real conclusions, but we need to convene a spokescouncil to plan this specific action a few days before the summit, when we have some idea what things will actually look like.

8:00PM, Scanner Party

The party was held at a place called the Scanner Bistro, a “multimedia club” with an Internet café and bar downstairs, along with a small bandstand. Upstairs there was another bar, a pool table, foosball, a Judge Dredd pinball machine, and scattered monitors and speakers on the wall that enabled one to see and hear whatever live act was on stage downstairs. As our crew came in—about twelve of us from the wall breakout group, including most of the New Yorkers—two women were on stage, performing some sort of spoken-word piece in highly colloquial French. Later, there was a man who I think was a comedian; we were told a band was going to be coming out later, but by that time none of us were paying much attention. We ended up upstairs, looking for a table, because, finally, someone had found a proper map.

Or almost all of us. Dean went straight for the pool table, where he was soon engaged in a long conversation with a lanky, sandy-haired fellow with whom he was, ultimately, to have a tumultuous six-month romance.

We found a spot in the corner, in an area where the free dinner had been earlier. We pushed together a couple tables and made short work of the remaining food, which consisted of a huge tub of rice, a dish with beans and veggies in tomato sauce, and some loaves of French bread and oleo. The vegans wouldn’t touch the oleo, but everyone was munching bread for the first half of the parley. Large maps of the city were spread across the surface of the table and taped into place. Everyone huddled, and the parley continued for hours, with pitchers of beer periodically appearing out of nowhere, always to another collective toast of “smash the state!”

It was the perfect meeting, except, perhaps, for the fact that we were right below the speakers, and combined with the ambient noise of dozens of festive conversations, it made it a little difficult to hear. So the real meeting was always the seven or eight people in the center at any given time, who could actually hear each other, usually with several others hanging at the edges waiting to get in. It never took all that long. Someone would always be taking off to fetch beer or smoke a joint or use the bathroom, and then have to wait at the fringes when they came back. Still, we kept it up for something like three hours, a little bubble of activist intensity, almost completely oblivious to the increasingly rambunctious dance party that eventually encompassed us and, later in the evening, began to die away.

It was here we finally planned the attack on the wall. It didn’t take long to go through the possibilities. Even if it did prove possible to enter the security zone, there was no obvious thing to do once we were inside. A banner hang would be possible, but it would probably require the collaboration of homeowners inside the perimeter—there doubtless would be some, but they could hang the banners themselves. We could occupy a building, but it would lead to absolutely certain arrest, and it was not clear what would be the point. There was only one thing for it. We had to destroy the wall. Doing so would be utterly legitimate. We would be providing a public service. The heads of every state in the Americas were coming to this city to set up fences right through people’s neighborhoods; we anarchists were coming to take them down. The question was how, and most of the next three or four hours was spent going over possibilities: grappling hooks, wire clippers, tactics, tools, diversions, angles of approach. Normal wire clippers are not, in fact, strong enough to cut through the chain-links of a security fence; they are, however, strong enough to sever the wires that connect the chain-links to the upright posts. Once severed, it was a matter of weight: at least one person had to climb to the top of the fence and lean backwards as others pulled. Alternately, fences could be taken down by a small team armed with grappling hooks and cables. Probably the best approach would be not to start all in the same place. We should have several columns. Ideally, three, each with their own peculiar tactics. Ya Basta! could come down one big avenue, the Black Bloc down the next, the CLAC/CASA people (none of whom were actually present) down a third. Each would thus approach a different section of the fence, but all be in sight of one another. Each would also have its own particular style: the CLAC people more militant, Ya Basta! more silly, Black Bloc more mobile. Members of Toronto and Montréal Ya Basta!—two groups of which I had hitherto heard only the vaguest rumors—promised to lead any other Yabbas into action, since they knew the territory.

In fact, we discovered that there would be four different Ya Basta! contingents: the two from Canada, one from New York, and one from Connecticut. The latter was represented by a young woman who everyone just knew as “Kitty from Connecticut,” a music student at Connecticut College, who I knew as an activist with the CGAN (the Connecticut Global Action Network). Kitty had just gotten into town and had missed most of the spokes, but gravitated directly to the Scanners meeting. I was really gratified to see her; she was a talented facilitator and all-around impressive activist (CGAN had already scored two major victories, over the last year: the first when they blockaded downtown Hartford with an alliance between anarchists and janitors, the second when they almost single-handedly managed to force Hartford airport to settle a strike with their restaurant workers, by proposing an action to support the picket line, which apparently left management convinced they were about to face a hoard of rampaging Black Bloc’ers.) At the moment, though, she was mainly interested in finding someone who could roll her a joint. She disappeared, someone from the Prince Edwards Islands slid into her chair, and Sasha, fresh from the IMC, took the position that person had had sitting on a nearby table.

The conference continued. If American Ya Basta! didn’t manage to get through the border, we’d have to reduce it to two columns. We kept having to remind each other though that we probably wouldn’t be able to just walk up to the fence; we’d more likely have to have to fight our way up the last three blocks to even get in a position to start using wire cutters. And once we were there we’d need at least four to six minutes to bring down a fence. So, the plan would only work if larger numbers of other protesters join us. Probably what would end up happening was that half the Yellow Bloc would be inspired to join in, the other half run away. Whether there would be enough of them to let us fight our way to the wall depended on the total numbers and no one had any clear idea what those numbers were likely to be. Columns might be anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand. Really it all depended on the local students. They certainly seemed militant enough. But would they come through?

By about 1AM, after what must have been the sixteenth round of “smash the state!,” we ended up composing a call to action—called, since it had a certain ring, “the Scanner Accords.” It began: “We are all calling for everyone who feels hemmed in by walls to come to Québec City.” Only a paragraph, really, but somehow it was only by releasing it that the meeting seem complete. We wrote out five or six sentences, on a sheet of paper, edited it collectively, posted the text anonymously on an IMC web page somewhere in the United States, with a note saying it was to be forwarded everywhere. Then, we went outside and set the sheet on fire. Sasha offered to film the ritual, but someone objected, just in case high-tech means could be used to gather fingerprints from the close-ups of our hands. (This seemed to almost everyone else kind of ridiculous, but one learns that, on matters of “security culture,” it is usually best not to argue.) We went home agreeing to meet at 1PM the next afternoon, as the spokescouncil was winding down, to investigate the areas where the first advance on the wall was likely to take place.

CONSULTA DAY 2:

Sunday, March 25

Our group slept through the official CLAC/CASA tour of the city, which was supposed to be in the morning, but we managed to make it over to the spokes by around 11:00AM—for a change, just as it was getting under way. (Actually it was supposed to have started at 10AM but we seemed to be dealing with a serious case of “activist time.”) Numbers were smaller than the day before, but not much. Lesley, Dean, Lynn, and I reconstructed our little nest—now with Sasha and Kitty joining us—Emma was off with her new Black Bloc friends. The CLAC team had rotated too: Jaggi was no longer translator, but was actually facilitating this time, along with an older woman I hadn’t seen before.

11:00AM, Plenary Meeting

The meeting began with report-backs from the breakout sessions the night before; afterwards, we would consider a series of concrete proposals. The report-backs are worth documenting, I think, because they give some sense of how, through such open-ended and sometimes apparently unproductive discussions, action plans really can take form. In each case, the idea was to create a summary of ideas that spokes could take back to their affinity groups across North America to see which they would like to develop and plug into, and to provide the means to stay in touch with one another (usually by email).

1) The “festive artsy sort of group”

We decided to make sure there were events happening all over the city. One idea: to have festive performances that would support blockades without actually being a part of them. Another was to turn the wall into a sort of art show (um, before it was attacked that is). We can animate, decorate it. We spoke about the need to make very large objects like puppets well beforehand, and to ensure we have a space in which to do this. As for supplies: fabric, scraps, a lot of things can be made out of found objects. We’re asking everyone to start putting aside anything they find that can be used for costumes, props, or construction projects.

We’d also like to make a couple small points: we heard a lot of ideas about drumming, street theater, puppets; we’re expecting a lot of that. Some suggested the idea of perhaps also sectioning off some area for an ongoing silent or unmoving vigil, to represent the voices that are silenced by this kind of summit.

2) Protectors of the Convergence Center

We decided Convergence Center defense is indeed a priority, and that we’ll employ three methods:

a. continual surveillance inside and outside

b. organizing evacuations of people and materials if attacked

c. organizing active resistance to any police provocation or attack.

3–4) Blockading groups

In the end, it didn’t seem to make any sense to have two different blockade working groups, so we merged.

Most of us are in favor of blockading highways, but we’re not at the point of being able to make concrete proposals as to which. There is also the question of how to bring up the kind of equipment (for example, lockboxes) that would be necessary to maintain a really effective blockade. The border is a big problem for people from the US who would otherwise have access to such things; also CLAC/CASA is too busy to organize this. We suggest affinity groups should make arrangements in advance with friends elsewhere in Canada, for instance the Maritimes, to get things delivered—if they were sent here, they would probably be intercepted. We decided that the city should be divided into zones, to ensure that everything is covered.

There’s also a specific proposal from the GOMM for a plan they have to organize a festive-style blockade with three hundred people or more near the center of the city.

There was some discussion of the possibility of a blockade of the airport, possibly motorcades of some of the heads of state, but no specific proposals were discussed.

Another idea was blockading off particular symbols of capitalism; like trains, or shopping centers. Someone proposed an organizational meeting regarding that at 3:30 this afternoon, after this meeting. It was 3:30, right?

[Woman in Spider-Man T-shirt: 3:30, that’s right.]

Finally, there was the idea of blockading some major media outlet and demanding that they play a prepared tape, setting out some of our principle objections to the treaty.

5) Occupations of buildings

There are three colleges here in Québec City and one of them is already occupied by OQP. For the other two, we’re discussing whether and how to occupy them.

6) Walking/advancing on/visiting/moving towards the wall

Many affinity groups expressed a desire to pay a visit to the security perimeter. There was clearly a strong willingness to undertake this, and a feeling there were multiple goals to be served by this: to disrupt the perimeter, disrupt the Summit, possibly even penetrate it. But that’s about as far as we can go in this context. A lot of information still needs to be clarified, and most of the logistics still need to be worked out. We would have to decide on official visit points and the means to be employed to make any adjustments to the wall that might be required. Shall it be through a mass mobilization, or separate affinity group actions? Since there’s so much to be considered, and so much depends on numbers, information as yet unavailable, we suggest that a spokescouncil be convened a few days after the fence is actually put up to make final decisions.

7) Redecoration of the urban furniture

Or, I guess that should properly be, “urban scenery.” (There were certain translation problems. Mainly they seem to be referring to the judicious use of spray paint and other artistic materials.) We didn’t have a formal meeting, really, but just said hello to each other and then all went off to join other groups. We recommend that these issues be left to each individual affinity group. There’s nothing that really needs to be coordinated on a city-wide scale.

8) The reappropriation of food and other items

There are all kinds of means that can be used by the Red, Yellow, and Green Blocs to reclaim things. Our idea is to do some advance scouting of potential sites for food commandos (commando du boeuf). A Food Manifesto will be written to explain why this type of action is taking place.

As a sidenote: Montréal Food Not Bombs is currently preparing a large amount of food that will be frozen and brought in for a collective feast, perhaps to be held underneath the highway on Friday or Saturday night.

9) Flying squads (groupes mobiles)

The purpose of flying squads is to provide support for hot points during the action; also, to take advantage of opportunities that might open up suddenly. All this, of course, depends on having accurate information on what’s happening. A comms system is essential, and we’re not sure what sort of communications infrastructure (radios? walkie-talkies?) has already been set up. We are imagining numerous relatively small groups of three, four, or five people, well-coordinated with each other. They will decide for themselves which of the three blocs they will be supporting, what calls to respond to. The coordination already being organized.

10) The living river

We decided… well, this action is organized with Vermont pagans. [There are five of the Pagan Cluster in attendance: four women, one man. Starhawk isn’t with them. All of them are sitting, somewhat incongruously, on chairs. They’re mostly older, I note, so it might just be bad backs.] We will be taking the St. Lawrence as an ally, and using it, along with generally using water as a theme to represent what we’re fighting against and what we’re fighting for, as a form that will let us move easily back and forth from one action, or one kind of action, to another.

We are asking people who would like to participate to bring blue material, ribbons, clothing. The idea is to create a sort of Blue Bloc…

[This is translated. “Oh no! Yet another Bloc,” sighs one of the facilitators. Everybody laughs.]

…that way we won’t be stuck to one zone or style of action. People can join, rivulets can split off, streams will flow back together again. If people want to stay at blockade, they can do so; others can perform ceremonies or offer support for other groups.

Male Pagan: If folks want to join, they are encouraged to join affinity groups beforehand. Not necessarily to join as individuals.

Oh, yes: our other theme is free access to water for all people, inspired by the Cochabamba declaration. In consequence, we’ll be providing bottled water for everyone, and are encouraging people to bring samples of water from your particular homes to contribute to one great ritual that will take place at the same time as the opening ceremonies of the Summit.

Facilitator: We have a very brief period for questions—just five minutes, because otherwise this can go on forever.

Flying Squad Spokesman: Oh, the flying squad group forgot to add: we’ll have a listserv, to talk about communications equipment too, as that’s very important for this. You can sign up through the CLAC website.

Bearded Man: Also, one idea that came out of our first breakout concerning the Convergence Center was to do like LA and seek a legal injunction stopping the cops and firemen from coming in. We want to make sure Legal is aware of that.

[Few questions follow, but lots of announcements of listservs being set up, contact information, and so on.]

Facilitator: Let’s pass to new proposals, then. I’d like to remind people we have to be out of here by five.

The first proposal was, once again, the Convergence Center defense. It was not clear to any of us why this proposal had to be restated—it was, in fact, the exact same one CLAC had made earlier. Presumably, it was some kind of formality. In theory, each proposal was supposed to be followed by five people speaking in favor, five against, but since no one proved interested in speaking against the proposal, it was considered consensed on and we moved to the next.

The next was much more interesting, because it brought in an element of sharp conflict. It also gives an example of how consensus decision making actually operates (because, despite the formal rules, we were effectively using a system of “modified consensus”), most of all because the conflict never explicitly came to the surface. Objectionable proposals are rarely shot down. Even when any one person in theory has the right to veto (“block”) a proposal, it almost never happens: instead, there is a process that could almost be described as killing with kindness.

The proposal was brought forward by a young woman in a big white cableknit sweater and pink woolen cap:

Pink Cap: Among the blockade group, we decided it would be really useful to form a tactical committee.

Such a committee would consist of people here willing to come up early, and also, of course, CLAC/CASA folks as well. That way, it would be able to scope out the city as the wall goes up, figure out what hotels, or other important spots need to be hit to disrupt the Summit as much as possible. So, when the various people come to the Convergence Center on Wednesday and Thursday we’ll have a plan so we can direct people to the best places where they can make an impact, disrupt, even stop it. That’s what the 3:30 meeting will hopefully be so please come if you have any insights, or just are willing to help in any way.

Older Facilitator: What is the proposal, then? To create such a group? Are you just asking people to come to your meeting or making a formal proposal?

Pink Cap: We feel we need the help of locals to pull this off. So we want to know: is this an idea embraced by the group? Because, if not, we can’t do it. The idea is to take account of past experiences, thinking what’s worked out and what hasn’t at Seattle, in DC, and so on.

Older Facilitator: So, on the proposal, are there any clarifying points or questions?

Woman in Rainbow Dreads: Is this a call from one group, or a decentralized call, open to all? Because in CLAC/CASA we have been trying to develop a process that will ensure that not one single group ends up dominating coordination. We feel that’s very important.

Pink Cap: We are envisioning different people, people from many affinity groups, people from different parts of the US and Canada, who come together with an idea. It would be like a spin-off of spokescouncil. To ensure that when thousands of people come, we can really close down the city, really make an impact on the Summit.

Older Facilitator: I see one more clarifying question.

American Woman: This is not a question, but: if all this is centralized only around street blockades…

Jaggi: Um, we’re only asking for clarifying questions at this point.

Another American Woman: Actually, I believe the facilitator called for “clarifying points or questions.” So I have one of those, too. This proposal is being made by people who come from the blockade group, and while we all consider that important, we also hope any such committee would take into account the tactics of other affinity groups so as to help us coordinate the action as a whole collectively, without its being centralized. It would be useful if it were a conduit for information, so people know where to get tactical information to make actions as effective as possible.

Older Facilitator: Please don’t make interventions—we’re asking for clarifying points or questions. A question from a man?

Man: All right then, I’d like to clarify whether the committee will just gather information, or make suggestions. Or will it have any other functions? That is, would it have functions other than as an information bank?

Pink Cap: It would be both. So when people come from out of town, they will have some idea where the important places are—as they might not be familiar with the city…

Older Facilitator: A question from a woman?

Kitty [who had her hand up before]: No, I pass.

Older Facilitator: The woman in the gray hat then.

Lesley: I thought there already is an action committee, created locally. I would like to know what their role will be in relation to this new tactical one.

Pink Cap: There’s an action committee? Where is it, then?

Nicole: There is an action committee within CLAC/CASA, created to deal with logistics and propose actions. We haven’t discussed it yet but if we did we would probably feel we’d be happy to share experiences as it would help us to do our work.

Woman in Spider-Man T-shirt: Yes, I also think it’s a great idea.

Pink Cap: I really feel this is something where we can work together to really make an impact on the Summit.

The interesting thing about this conversation is the delicacy with which it was conducted. At the time, I had only an intuition of what was going on. Certainly, I found it a bit odd that the woman making the proposal kept using the same phrases (“really making an impact on the Summit”) over and over; and, later, that her chief supporter, the woman in a Spider-Man T-shirt, was using remarkably similar terms. Normally, the word “committee” would have been a tip-off as well. An anarchist would have said “working group,” but we were in a foreign environment so it seemed unwise to read too much into word choice. As time went on, it became increasingly clear toes were being stepped on, but such was the non-confrontational ethos that no one was willing to express the fact directly. Rather, almost all the responses were highly constructive, at least in tone.

Woman: In the flying squads group, a lot of us observed that in the past, there has been a problem with unreliable information: Flying squads end up going to someplace based on rumors that turn out not to be true. Would this committee give assistance to communications for us?

Spider-Man: Yes, absolutely

Pink Cap: Yes.

Medic in Blue Bandanna: And will this committee be responsible to the spokescouncil? If so, how would that work in real terms?

Spider-Man: The answer to first question is yes—it would provide information for whoever’s at the spokescouncil. To the second: it depends on who’s participating, but judging from previous actions, maybe it will end up dividing the city into sections. So if an affinity group comes and people say, “We want to go do Yellow Bloc, we want to find a blockade, but we won’t resist arrest,” we can say, “Well, we know they need another fifty people here in this sector.” The group can also help facilitate gathering equipment.

Older Facilitator: We’ll let conversation continue for fifteen minutes, which is the maximum we decided to allow for specific proposals, because at the rate we’re going now, it won’t be possible to make decisions. Let’s move from clarifying questions to concerns.

Eric: I’d actually still like to clarify something. This sounds a lot like what we were talking about in the flying squad group, because people didn’t seem to know what was already in place for communications or tactical. We need to figure out somehow how CASA/CLAC tactical and communications and flying squads are all supposed to work together.

Rainbow Dreads Woman: I find the idea of a strategic group interesting, but I want to ensure that there’s not a reduplication of work here. CLAC/CASA has recently formed a communications group, so I want to ensure this committee will be just coordinating blockades.

Spider-Man: We invite you to join the group.

Pink Cap: We want to work with you.

Kitty: I am a little concerned this new group is undertaking to do too much, and might get overwhelmed. Perhaps it would be better to decentralize, divide up the responsibilities a little.

...

Jaggi: Perhaps it’s time we move to straw poll, to get a sense of the room. If we have consensus, we can move on to something else; otherwise we can have a full debate. Remember: this is just for spokes, people empowered by their collectives or affinity groups, who have the little red or blue pieces of paper.

Man: One last question before we vote: this is a committee just to coordinate blockades?

Blue Bandanna: Wait, isn’t it a general tactical committee to coordinate the action?

Many: No! No!

Not only were the proponents of the committee leading a coordinated effort, they seemed to be intent on pushing it as far as it could go. That is, the proposal had started as a committee to convey information about blockades, and seemed to be morphing into something with much broader powers.

Lesley, who had been watching attentively, jabbed me when I reached for my paper. “Don’t vote ‘yes’! Every one of the people pushing for this proposal, they’re all ISO. It’s an ISO coup!”

Which would explain it. When it cames to a vote, we were the only ones who voted no, but there are about fifteen abstentions. This was unusual in itself.

It was not entirely clear to me what would happen next, since CLAC was not, technically, using a consensus process. If this were DAN, we would have blocked, and that would have been the end of it. Or, alternatively, if the facilitator was sufficiently skillful, it would have been clear earlier that some people felt strongly enough about the issue that they would block, and therefore, if the proposal was not simply withdrawn, it would be altered: various people would suggest “friendly amendments” until all the concerns had been addressed. CLAC however was using a system of modified voting: in theory, we were to proceed to debate, with one male speaker for, one male speaker against, etc, and finally, a vote requiring a 75% majority. But, in fact, what happened is precisely what would have happened if this were pure consensus.

Jaggi: So now, since we don’t have complete consensus, we pass to debate. First let’s see if those who voted against wish to clarify the reasons for their opposition; then we’ll take three speakers for the proposal, and three against.

Lesley: I’ve been on tactical committees before…

Someone: Could you stand up please? It would be easier to hear.

Lesley: Yes, sorry. I’m Lesley from NYC DAN. I’ve been on tactical committees before and my experience has been that they don’t tend to work out very well. In Seattle, remember, there was no central coordinating committee. Everything was done by consensus between affinity groups, even on the streets. At A16, though, we had some problems, some gaps in the blockade and, therefore, during the convention protests in Philadelphia and LA, the organizers decided to create tactical teams to provide overall coordination—really more in the way of an experiment than anything else. What we found was that, in Philly, the cops were able to pick off members of the team fairly easily and that caused more disruption than if we hadn’t had any centralized coordinating at all. I wasn’t in LA, but from what I heard, the tactical team quickly became a power structure unto itself, the LA DAN folk ended up being treated like gods and it completely stifled any kind of independent initiative.

Finally, I have some concerns that creating such a team might end up centralizing power away from the local organizers. So, I oppose it, as I believe it’s important to ensure we maintain a very clear commitment to keeping power in local hands.

Jaggi: And the other no vote?

David [interrupted in the process of scribbling notes]: Who me? Um, similar concerns.

Jaggi: Well let’s open up the floor then.

Old Punk: I’d like to propose that as a friendly amendment, the committee be put together in such a way as to ensure that as many affinity groups as possible are represented.

Jaggi: [to Pink Cap]: If that is a friendly amendment… Is it?

Pink Cap: Yeah, okay.

Man: I would also propose it be clarified that the committee not be a decisional body, but one that will gather information and suggest possibilities for action. I think that should be added as a friendly amendment too.

Another man: When we were first talking about this proposal, we formulated it just as a strategic committee specifically to coordinate blockades. Since the straw poll, it seems we are talking about something that will coordinate the entirety of the action. So, there would seem to be a bit of confusion here—it is not clear to me which this is. Creating the first would be great. If it’s the latter, there are groups created to do that already. I would be for it if it is former.

[Brief consultation between the facilitators]

Jaggi: The language we have says “strategic committee to coordinate with other groups,” keeping in mind the friendly amendments…

Of which more quickly followed. By the time it was over, we had a strategic committee committed to a principle of decentralization, to coordinating with CLAC/CASA, and that would have no more than one representative from any specific affinity groups and as diverse a range of such groups represented as possible. When it did finally come to a vote, interestingly, there were a few no votes, but also a good deal of applause—a kind of mutual appreciation for having resolved the issue—and the threat of any sort of central committee emerging had been decisively defanged.

After the vote, Lesley and I went up towards the front, to confer with the CLAC people. Helene—that was the name of the woman with rainbow dreads—thanked us warmly for our opposition. “There is, of course, a strategic committee,” she said, in somewhat uncertain English. “But we didn’t want to seem like we were excluding them. Still, I did see the ISO people there…”

What happened was also, I might note, an excellent example of another key principle of consensus decision making: that one must never question the honesty or good intentions of another activist. In fact, to have even mentioned the ISO in the discussion would have been seen as almost shockingly confrontational.

We take some air; though I end up coming back pretty quickly because it’s still freezing outside and I’d left all of my sweaters in the meeting. I find some coffee and come back just in time to catch the only major incident in which the careful surface of mutual respect and generosity actually begins to break down—predictably enough, around the issue of nonviolence. The issue had, apparently, been the almost exclusive topic of the first spokescouncil a month before. Now, someone is trying to return to it. I am not sure who the man was, but he was a big, bearded, Anglophone fellow in a lumberjack shirt, with a sheet of paper in his hands and a small squad of supporters behind him, His aggressive gestures seemed to mark him immediately as one of those classic activist stereotypes: the belligerent pacifist.

Lumberjack: I would like to talk about diversity of tactics.

[audible groans from around the room]

Older Facilitator: I don’t believe this is an appropriate time or place to discuss this issue.

Lumberjack: Well, if I can’t do it now, where else can I do this? I have a statement I would like to read. Some of us have prepared a statement…

Older Facilitator: Excuse me, I’m trying to explain that…

Lumberjack: …a statement to be adopted by the Red Bloc. We felt it would be appropriate because you did, after all, call for discussion on each bloc’s attitude to the police. So, if you’ll let me begin: [begins reading]

“The goal of the Red Bloc is to express the people’s democratic opposition to the FTAA and Summit of the Americas. To that end our actions will be to disrupt or prevent the Summit meeting. Our direct action will remove any barriers that will block our ability to express our opposition directly to the participants. We will likewise not honor any police actions or requests which will similarly attempt to block our access to these meetings. Our issues are opposition to FTAA and Summit; therefore, we won’t take actions versus the working class people of this city. And while we will not allow the police or their barricades to block our access to the Summit, we will not use offensive weapons or attack the police; if attacked, however, we will respond in a defensive fashion.”

[the speech is continually interrupted by catcalls and heckling]

Jaggi: If you will allow me to translate the heckles here… There has been endless discussion of this already, and this is out of order. What you are saying runs against the principles of diversity of tactics, which we have already discussed (at great length) and finally consensed upon.

Lumberjack: Well, for those of us who are not in Québec City, but in… distant places, it’s hard to translate what a vague phrase like “diversity of tactics” is actually supposed to mean. We feel that if we’re asked to extend our responsibility for solidarity to everyone in the group, we have the right to ask the group to take responsibility for clarifying what limits, if any, they are imposing. We support the idea of diversity of tactics, but that doesn’t mean support for any tactic whatsoever.

Older Facilitator: As one of the co-facilitators[8] I don’t think we can enter a debate on diversity of tactics. The call to attend this spokescouncil was made on the principle of diversity of tactics. And, also, remember that our organization is decentralized, so there is no overarching authority that can place barriers or limits on what particular affinity groups can do. We are a consultatory body, we can’t impose. So, I’d like to pass to a real proposal, if anyone has one.

That is unless there’s a profound feeling in the room that we should discuss this. Is there?

No? Should we have a straw poll?

[There are about 120 people left in the room]

Jaggi: Allow me to explain to anyone unfamiliar with our process that if someone asks for a “straw poll,” that is not a binding vote but a way to get a sense of the room, of people’s feelings on a question, for the guidance of the facilitators. In this case, it would be to find out whether people want to discuss the proposal. Who’s for debating this?

[In favor: one pagan, a small cluster of Lumberjack’s supporters]

[Against: overwhelmingly large number]

[Abstain: about twelve]

Jaggi: All right, we have 75% in favor of moving on so that’s what we’ll do.

The next proposal concerned the starting point of the march: whether to assemble on the Plains of Abraham. There were concerns that it would be unwise to have thousands of activists chilling their heals in a large park in clear sight of the police for several hours before a major action. Others felt it was unwise to change plans so late in the day, because it was important for the Green Bloc at least to be able to know a definitive location in advance. Opinion seemed to be leading towards the former.

Kitty took off, explaining she had promised a friend in the US she would check out the road to the airport. Her friend had heard there’s only a single-lane highway, with no alternate routes. Dean, Sasha, and I head out for our own informal tour with the Scanner folk (Emma’s disappeared somewhere). We assemble, as promised, at 1PM and munch sandwiches as we stroll through the cobbled streets of the soon-to-be forbidden zone.

1:15PM, Final Investigations

The Plains of Abraham, a huge stretch of parkland at the top of Jaggi’s cliffs, is still entirely covered with snow. It’s mostly deserted on a frigid Sunday afternoon. About a dozen of us set out in search of the stretch of wall supposedly already installed. We look incredibly obvious in our black hoodies, military pants and endless patches (the kid next to me, in blond dreads, is wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words “Vegan Death Squad.”) Only Buffy, the previous night’s breakout facilitator, is incognito in brown suede jacket and a camera. She makes a not entirely unconvincing tourist (the camera is in fact to document information of possible tactical use). Sasha has a huge video camera, to document our expedition. Others have cameras too.

As we approach a bemused middle-aged skier for directions, I realize we’ve become the very embodiment of another classic activist stereotype. Actually, it’s the perfect complement to the belligerent pacifist: the crowd of anarchists looking like a bunch of soldiers from some unholy army—what kind of army, you don’t even want to imagine—who, when you actually talk to them, turn out to be the sweetest, most self-effacing people imaginable. Someone asks the skier, sheepishly, about the wall. He first thinks we’re asking about the walls of the old city, but we explain ourselves. “Oh, the new kind of wall,” he smiles, and points us past an ancient tower and down the hill.

The tower is a huge cannon tower overlooking the cliffs; after that things get very steep very quickly. A few of us try to climb down; one of the Prince Edward Islands kids gets a spontaneous nosebleed; only a few of us (me, Dean, two members of Montréal Ya Basta!) actually go down. The fence wasn’t really visible even when we do, but Sasha gets some beautiful panoramic shots for a future documentary.

Later, we took extensive pictures of the area near the Grand Théâtre, where our imagined three-pronged attack was most likely to run into heavy resistance. “See that little park, right next to the theater?” asked Greg, one of the Montréal people. “That’s where we had the huge battle last year over school reform.”

Someone else explains that the government was holding a public hearing on how to carry out educational funding cuts. “They had promised that student groups would be allowed to participate, but then they only invited the right-wing ones.” Those excluded announced their intention to disrupt the conference; the government announced their intention to surround the building with riot police. In the end, it came down to a standup battle: riot cops armed with tear gas and plastic bullets on one side and students armed with bricks, pool balls, and molotov cocktails on the other.

“Molotov cocktails?”

“They have totally different standards here. You have to bear in mind there was a kind of guerrilla war going on here back in the 1970s. People got killed. Québec itself was under martial law for years. It’s a very different place than the rest of Canada.”

Fifteen minutes later, huddled in a bus shelter to parley on tactics, Greg, a little uncomfortable, brings up the matter again. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to bring this up. We’ve been discussing this a lot in Montréal and I think the consensus is, we’re all thinking, that molotovs are definitely not a good idea.” Milton, from the same affinity group, is nodding vigorously. “I’m not saying this as a moral thing,” he notes to the Americans, “because I’ve never seen molotovs used against people who are actually vulnerable. You only use them against police in full flame retardant riot gear, who you know aren’t going to get seriously hurt no matter what you do. So… it’s not like you’re actually trying to set anyone on fire. It’s more… Okay, the way I see it, it’s a way of showing really serious purpose, showing that you’re determined to get through. A cop who sees a firebomb coming at him can’t help but be startled, even if he knows it won’t kill him; it can’t help but make him wonder if he really wants to hold his position. It’s a way of driving people back. And it works for that.”

“It worked last year during the park battle, definitely,” says one of the PEI kids. Then after a second: “not that I’m endorsing it either.”

“The problem with molotovs…” Milton says. “Well, okay, first of all, if you throw anything, you have to do it from the front of the line. That’s true of anything you throw and it seems obvious, but I can’t believe how often some idiot forgets it. In the last year’s battle, we had a shield wall, and some people would lob bricks and bottles over the line from waaaay back—so, of course, occasionally one would hit the back of a shield-bearer’s head. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I would have got brained totally.”

One of the PEI kids chimes in: “Even worse, if you’re going to use molotovs, you have to practice first. It’s amazing how many people don’t realize that. At the very least, you have to practice packing it. If you don’t, then half the time, when you cock your arm back to throw, the rag will pop out and the gasoline’ll spill all over the guy behind you, so now his clothes are soaked with gasoline and there’s people playing with open flames all around him.”

“So no molotovs.”

“Yeah.”

“The one really legitimate use for molotovs,” Buffy points out, “might be for property destruction. For example: say there’s a water cannon. Now, that’s a totally legitimate target.”

“Remember, the water cannon didn’t slow people down too much in that last demo.”

“Water cannon can be pretty effective if they’re used right.”

“Still,” says Greg. “The reason I wanted to have this little parley was to get consensus we didn’t want molotovs—that tactically, it’s just not a good idea. So: does anyone actually have an objection to that? Or do we have consensus?”

Nods all around. I assure him that no one on the US side has even considered using them.

We swung back to the spokescouncil just in time to see Emma and her new friend Craig come out in tremendous irritation. Apparently, a GOMM representative had, indeed, come in and asked for certain zones to be named Yellow-only; one was presumably the highway area, which we don’t want anyway, so that’s fine, but another was right up to the fence on one of the three streets we were going to march on. We shrug and figure, they’ll work it out. Anyway, if we want to get home before 2AM, we’d better start driving.

The Road Home

For about an hour, Emma is still fulminating against pacifists. Why is it that people insist on trying to impose their own codes of conduct on others? How can they call themselves anarchists? These things should be left strictly up to each affinity group to decide for themselves.

“Are you saying,” I ask, “that you’re against written codes? Or any kind of code?”

“I’m saying any kind of code. What possible purpose do they serve?”

We go at it for some time. I remark on the possibility of Nazis showing up. Emma points out that Nazis do try to crash anarchist events fairly regularly. That’s why many affinity groups allow only one exception to the general principle of nonviolence: when one has to deal with Nazis.

“All right, then, say you’re at an action and you notice that another affinity group has shown up with a tactical thermonuclear device.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Which of course you could have easily prevented if only you had earlier published a code of conduct specifying ‘no tactical thermonuclear devices?’ Look, someone does something crazy, then all right, people around them have to do what they have to do.”

Mercifully, Sasha changes the subject. We spend another fifteen minutes trying to get straight the different varieties of Canadian security to be ranged against us: from the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to the Sûerté du Québec—names which gives the American activist the impression that we are about to be attacked by a combination of Dudley Do-Right and Inspector Clouseau. (Inevitable repartee: “Does your dog bite?” “Do you have a license for that minkey?”) I remark that in Vermont, at least, with its socialist administration, we can expect the police to treat us with kid gloves. Emma is extremely skeptical about this. More likely they’ll be especially harsh to prove themselves. Anyway, what influence do local politicians have over the police? By Montréal, we’re talking families. Sasha grew up in Hollywood. I’m from a lefty working-class family in New York. Both Emma and Dean, however, turn out to be from Catholic working-class families from the Midwest, and this trumps everything. Emma’s parents, for instance, adhere to some extreme charismatic sect. Dean thinks his mom is slightly schizophrenic (it runs in the family); she completely freaked when he was sixteen and she read his diary and discovered he was gay (“and it’s not like there was anything explicitly sexual in there; I just admitted I had a crush on someone”). She covered the diary in pictures of saints and the Virgin Mary and to this day hasn’t given it back to him, She used to send him underwear secretly blessed with holy oil to control his genitals. Visions and signs: Emma’s mom thinks she’s possessed by the devil and that’s why she became an anarchist. She has monks praying to rescue her daughter. Sasha grew up around Hollywood, his mom Jewish, his dad Polish. Mom banned pop music from him for many years. Emma and Dean are unimpressed. They go on exchanging Catholic stories for what seems like approximately two and a half hours. Somewhere in upstate New York, I manage to go to sleep.