Major decisions face Québec solidaire at its forthcoming congress

by Richard Fidler

Quebec’s broad party of the left, Québec solidaire (QS), will open a four-day congress on May 19 in Montréal — the 12^th congress in its 11-year history. The delegates face a challenging agenda. It includes the final stage of adoption of the party’s detailed program, a process begun eight years ago; discussion of possible alliances with other parties and some social movements including a proposed fusion with another pro-independence party, Option nationale; and renewal of the party’s top leadership.

Québec solidaire has attracted unusual media attention in recent months in the wake of the February announcement by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the best-known leader of Quebec’s massive student strike in 2012, that he had decided to join the party and become its candidate to replace QS leader Françoise David, who resigned in January, as the member of the National Assembly for the riding (constituency) of Gouin in Montréal. Nadeau-Dubois — often referred to as GND — also announced that he would campaign for election at this congress as the party’s male co-spokesperson. He is widely expected to win the Gouin by-election now scheduled for May 29.

GND’s announcement, accompanied by his sharp attack on Quebec’s “political class which for 30 years has betrayed Quebec,” prompted a flood of new membership applications; within a few days the QS membership grew by about 5,000, a 50% increase. An opinion poll at the time credited QS with 16% popular support, only 6 percentage points behind the Parti québécois in Montréal.[1]

These were welcome developments for the party, which has failed since its founding to elect more than three MNAs under Quebec’s undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system. Also, although QS benefited from the militancy and popular support of the students’ struggle in 2012, gaining 4,000 new members for a time, it has suffered from a relative demobilization of social movement activists since then, although the ecology movement in opposition to climate change appears to be gaining in momentum.

Program Debate

The program debate covers such topics as the party’s position on justice issues, including legal aid and access to the courts, prison reform, drugs, police and the right to demonstrate; urban and rural land reform including respect for indigenous lands, strengthened environmental controls, and direct popular democracy at the municipal level; and food and agriculture policy including the transition toward “eco-responsible agriculture.”

Of particular interest is adoption of a proposed international policy for Québec solidaire based on the principles of opposition to imperialism and solidarity with the exploited and oppressed around a global justice (altermondialiste) agenda. Here is my translation of the draft resolution, including the introductory explanations of each section by the program commission. The resolution has been debated for more than a year by the QS membership.

Adoption of an international program by Québec solidaire is long overdue. The delay is due in part to a persisting tendency of the party to present its program in a provincialist Quebec framework instead of making its support of Quebec independence the driving factor in its program definition. (This ambivalence is explained below in relation to the debate on the proposed Constituent Assembly.) An exception is the party’s consistent support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Israeli state’s oppression of the Palestinians, reaffirmed in last year’s congress.

Close to 30 local and national associations and bodies of the party submitted proposed amendments to the draft resolutions, which were then edited by a synthesis committee for debate at the congress. For the most part the synthesis document, which also publishes each of the suggested amendments with an explanation of why it proposes adoption or rejection, does not fundamentally alter the draft proposals.

The party plans to publish its program as a whole by September of this year. The program as adopted at previous congresses is available here (in French only).

Alliances: Is the PQ a progressive step forward?

The focus on programmatic definition — important as it is — has been eclipsed in recent months by a renewal of a recurring debate in Québec solidaire over proposals to ally electorally with other parties, and in particular whether the party should seek a possible alliance with the Parti québécois for the next general election, in 2018. Whenever this question was raised in previous congresses, the delegates rejected by large majorities proposals for such alliance made by prominent QS leaders, among them Françoise David and Amir Khadir.

At its National Council meeting in November 2016, QS voted to investigate possible convergences and alliances between the party and “some social and political movements that share the same inclusive vision”: notably Quebec independence, an end to austerity, equality between men and women, recognition of the diversity of Quebec’s population, support of First Nations and Inuit self-determination, an ecologist transition including an end to hydrocarbons development, and reform of the electoral system that would include representation of parties in the National Assembly in proportion to their respective share of the popular vote. For many Council members this list of criteria, consistent with the pursuit of broader links to the indigenous population and progressive social movements, would automatically exclude the Parti Québécois.

However, immediately after the meeting PQ leader Jean-François Lisée, a wily politician, welcomed the QS decision, declaring it opened the way for “concrete partnership” between QS and his party to beat the governing Liberals in 2018. He claimed to see “no reason for disagreement” over the alliance criteria listed by the QS council — despite all the evidence to the contrary that the PQ has amply provided over the years.

Questioned by Le Devoir, Andrés Fontecilla, the then QS spokesman, expressed some responsiveness to Lisée’s overture, saying he agreed that “the important thing is to beat [Quebec premier] Philippe Couillard with the support of a progressive alliance.” Fontecilla said that although the QS congress six months previously had said no formal alliance with the PQ was possible without a commitment by the PQ to undertake a pro-sovereignty campaign from the outset of its term in office, and although there were significant differences with the PQ on the process leading to independence — in particular, the QS insistence that its proposed Constituent Assembly be left to decide whether the “constitution” it drafted would be that of an independent state or simply that of a province within Canada — the QS Council’s proposal did not say anything about these particular impediments to an alliance.

Deep divisions over costs and benefits of electoral alliances

It was soon evident that the QS leadership was deeply divided on these issues. The result was the publication within the party (on its intranet, for members only) of three options (A, B and C) on political alliances, to be debated at the forthcoming congress — two options in fact, since the third basically proposed that a decision be postponed to the subsequent convention next November when the party is to draw up its platform for the 2018 election.

Option B, now publicly supported by a majority of the central leadership, advocates “for Québec solidaire to become the home for those who are fighting neoliberalism and the Liberal government” — an alliance that it maintains offers the possibility of negotiating an electoral agreement with the PQ, a party, it says, that for the electorate “remains a fundamentally social democratic party and that represents a valid alternative to the Liberals.” Failing such a “pact,” it says, means “rejecting any alliance with that party and developing alliances with social movements or other parties that are resolutely independentist and genuinely progressive.”

Alluding to the tendency for the electorate to vote “strategically,” that is, to vote for or against parties with a real possibility of forming the government, the supporters of Option B argue that the PQ will be the primary beneficiary of voters’ desire to oust the Liberals while QS, a party that is still very weak, will be caught in this polarization of the popular vote and threatened in 2018 with a setback to its still modest electoral gains.

The PQ, of course, is intent on neutralizing QS as a threat to its chances of victory in many ridings. Québec solidaire’s Option B supporters hope to leverage this concern by pressuring the PQ to desist from running in a few ridings deemed “winnable” by QS, thus maintaining or increasing QS representation in the National Assembly (and entitling QS to continued state funding under the election laws, enough to offset reduced revenue in ridings where it desists in favour of the PQ!). In return, QS would agree not to run candidates in ridings where a sizeable QS vote might jeopardize a PQ victory. A related objective is a commitment by the PQ to institute a system of proportional representation when in office — although the PQ has consistently rejected PR throughout its history, including the 18 years when it formed the government, and despite a promise to institute it.[2]

In fact, only a few ridings, all in Montréal, are considered to be “winnable” for QS, while in far more ridings throughout Quebec QS support is sufficient to thwart a PQ victory in close electoral races. And such a pact would be difficult to negotiate, partly because both QS and the PQ enjoy their greatest support in the same ridings, with QS in recent years eroding the PQ’s support among urban voters looking for a progressive alternative. Nor is there any certainty that substantial numbers of members of either party would be willing to vote for the other where the party they prefer is not on the ballot. The PQ’s primary electoral tactic in recent years has been to woo voters to its right, those who vote for the right-wing Coalition Avenir Québec, a party that includes former péquistes and Liberals and promotes the illusory hope of winning autonomy for Quebec within a revised federal regime. PQ supporters unwilling to vote for QS candidates would likely be more attracted to voting for the CAQ.

More importantly, as Option A supporters argue, the proposed pact would be devastating for the image of Québec solidaire as a progressive party that actually enjoys more popular support than it receives from a pragmatic electorate voting strategically. Successive opinion polling accords QS up to twice the popular support registered by the party in general elections. And Option B supporters acknowledge that such an agreement with the PQ could result in the demobilization and probable demoralization of many QS members, especially in ridings where they agree not to run.

So what, then, does Option B propose, specifically? It calls for the establishment of a broad and progressive social bloc, the electoral goal of which is an increase in the number of QS MNAs, the defeat of the Liberal government and the election of “a government that marks a rupture with the policies of neoliberal austerity, that favours a real ecological transition, that instigates a reform of the electoral system and allows the advance of an inclusive sovereigntist project.” QS would undertake negotiations with the PQ — which Option B incredibly presents as corresponding to those criteria — seeking an electoral pact in a limited number of ridings represented at present by the Liberals or by the CAQ, currently the third party represented in the National Assembly. However, Option B explicitly rules out the formation of a governmental coalition of the party with the PQ.

This is an incoherent package. It would embellish the Parti Québécois and, if such a pact were to be reached, seriously undermine Québec solidaire’s identity as an anti-neoliberal alternative, let alone a genuine anti-capitalist party. If implemented, Option B would impede any serious attempt by QS to expose the PQ’s record as a party of neoliberal austerity, retreat from independence, and tolerance of hydrocarbon eco-suicide. And Option B’s rhetoric about galvanizing a “social bloc” in support of this tactic simply plays to the opportunist inclinations of grassroots social activists who tend not to see the relation between their progressive objectives and the need for a government that can actually help further those objectives.

Option A, in contrast, argues in favour of building “a genuine united front against austerity, for energy transition and for independence.” The united front we favour in the months and years to come, say Option A supporters, must be differentiated from the nationalist bloc led by the Parti québécois. It must be countered by “a popular bloc based on the working and popular classes defending a program that is opposed to austerity and ‘free trade’ and in favour of an ecological transition based on a policy of public economic investment and a process of accession to independence through a radically democratic approach proceeding through the election of a Constituent Assembly and a referendum on its result, all within the first term” of a pro-sovereignty government.

Only a minority of Québécois today see the creation of an independent state as a necessary or feasible objective notwithstanding the widespread opposition to the capitalist austerity orchestrated by the federal government together with its provincial counterparts. Option A therefore proposes that Québec solidaire first launch “a campaign for Quebec independence that will link the national question with the issues posed by reform of our democratic institutions, energy and climate transition, the protection of public services and social programs and the fight against poverty and inequality on the basis of a feminist, inclusive and civic vision of the Quebec nation and in solidarity with the First Nations and their right to self-determination.”

The assumption here seems to be that this campaign “from below” could create sufficient popular pressure on the Constituent Assembly to ensure it decides in favour of independence without any direction from a QS government — although QS as a party pledges to fight for independence as the necessary conclusion of the Assembly’s deliberations.

Since Québec solidaire does not have an on-line forum to enable its membership to debate these options or other political issues, most of the pre-congress literary debate has been carried on in Presse-toi-à-gauche, which is generally sympathetic to Option A. In addition to the many contributions challenging the thinking behind Option B or defending Option A, some QS members have gone beyond the debate on electoral strategies to advance alternative strategies for building the party in the months and years to come. In a future article I will discuss these in light of the congress decisions.

Leadership contest, but with a twist

The debate on alliances is reflected in the contest for election of a male spokesperson. (QS MNA Manon Massé, who succeeded Françoise David as co-spokeswoman, is unopposed in her bid for re-election, and professes that she is hesitating between Options A and B.)

Jean-François Lessard supports Option B, Sylvain Lafrenière supports Option A while Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, by far the favoured candidate, says he thinks an electoral pact with the PQ is both possible and desirable but expresses the view as well that alliances with other independentist parties would be facilitated if QS would drop its resistance to mandating its proposed Constituent Assembly to draw up a constitution for an independent Quebec. He also says he is not opposed to postponing a decision on alliances to the next congress, in November, which suggests he is favourable to Option C, perhaps in the hope of meanwhile winning the party to his position on the Constituent Assembly.

At a round-table debate of the four candidates for co-spokespersons organized by Le Devoir on May 12, GND was attacked by Lessard as engaging in “extremely demagogic discourse” by questioning the long-standing QS position on the Constituent Assembly. The party’s debate over the process of accession to independence, Lessard said, had been closed at the previous congress, which once again voted to give carte blanche to the Assembly; the party, he recalled, refuses “to presume the outcome” of the Assembly’s debates.

GND was quick to respond: “You don’t make a constituent assembly to draft a constitution of a regional county municipality... We must be more clear, and it must be said: what we are proposing is a constituent assembly to make Quebec an independent state.”

According to Le Devoir, the other candidates, Lafrenière and Massé, expressed great reluctance to impose such a mandate on the constituent assembly. “Lafreniere in particular fears that Anglophones and racialized people [sic] would shun the proceedings of the constituent assembly if its conclusions were written in advance. ‘It’s an exercise in popular education that will motivate people, that’s why we have done this’.....”

The Québec solidaire program[3] says the Constituent Assembly is the institution through which “the Quebec people” will exercise their right to self-determination. This is referred to as “popular sovereignty, the power of the people to decide completely democratically their future and the rules governing their own life, including the fundamental rules like membership or not in a country, or the drafting of a constitution.” (Emphasis added)

And the party promises that “the Constituent Assembly will be elected by universal suffrage and will be composed of an equal number of women and men, with proportional representation of tendencies and the different socio-economic classes [milieux] present within Quebec society.” Although this formulation raises a number of questions — does “tendencies” mean parties?; does “proportional representation of ... the different socio-economic classes” mean that priority of representation will go to working people, the vast majority of the population? — the party promises that the Assembly will be fully “autonomous” in all of its decisions.

This text has so far been an article of faith for the party, and is not challenged by Options A or B.

Assembly of the Patriotes in 1837, campaigning for independence from British rule (Charles Alexander Smith)

Whatever the outcome of this leadership contest, it will be interesting to see how the winning candidate manages to balance the important divisions now apparent within the party — that may be deepened soon, as we see below — in his new role as a “spokesperson” for the party as a whole — a concept that assumes a high degree of consensus among the membership.

Toward fusion with Option nationale?

The QS leadership is also proposing that the convention approve a strategy of seeking closer relations with a small independentist party, Option nationale (ON), that was established a few years ago following a split from the PQ of several of its MNAs, one of whom, Jean-Martin Aussant, took the initiative of forming the new party. ON has no more than one thousand members and polled less than 1% in the last general election. It has no members in the National Assembly.

The QS leadership is aiming for a fusion with ON before year-end. The document motivating fusion claims both QS and ON

“have always been close both programmatically and organizationally. While many elements of our programs are similar (Pharma-Québec, free education, reform of the voting method, etc.), there are in particular two fundamental proposals that make our two parties sincere partners: our willingness to make Quebec independence a concrete reality, and the way in which to achieve this, through a Constituent Assembly.”

“Over the years,” the document says, “we have been in constant communication with ON, our spokespersons and the ON leadership meeting together at least once a year to discuss the political situation.” Moreover, each party has observed all the conventions of the other as guests.

The QS leadership sees fusion with ON as an application of its strategy, set out by the party’s National Council in November 2016, of seeking possibilities for convergences and alliances with other parties and social movements. “Option nationale’s contribution,” it says, “will reinvigorate very much our independentist profile and confirm the political strength of our option. It will consolidate our party as a pole for rallying progressives and independentists....”

While some QS members are hesitant about this proposal, many have hailed it. A fusion with ON would remove a rival to QS among the pro-independence parties. But there are indications that the QS leadership is over-optimistic about its possibility and implications.

For example, the fusion proposal seems to exaggerate the progressive nature of ON. In a 2013 internal report by QS members based on attendance at an ON convention, “fundamental differences” were noted between the parties on “the fight for social change or the place for women and feminist issues” as well as an indifference to the relation between independence and social justice issues. “To them, ‘independence is neither left nor right, but forward’.” That is still characteristic of the party today.

Contrary to the assertion in the QS-ON fusion proposal, there has never been agreement between the parties on the process of achieving Quebec independence. This is clear on ON’s web site, which features a couple of articles by political scientist Denis Monière, a member of the party, critiquing the QS position on — what else? — the Constituent Assembly, in particular the open-ended mandate QS proposes for it: to define Quebec’s constitutional status either as an independent state or a province of Canada. “This is a fundamental difference with Option nationale, whose procedure for accession to independence provides that the Constituent Assembly will be mandated to define the institutions of an independent Quebec,” he notes.

Moreover, Monière argues, the QS program as a whole is conceived

“as if Canada did not exist as a political decision-maker.... They have so internalized the juridical separation of powers imposed by the Canadian constitution[4] that they act as if what happens at Ottawa is irrelevant for Quebec.... The Québec solidaire discourse upholds illusions of autonomism by concentrating on the social justice issues that pertain essentially to provincial powers. This posture is no doubt useful in criticizing the other provincial parties but it is ineffective when it comes to the pedagogy of independence because it does not attack the Canadian system as a whole.”

This is a telling critique. How, for example, can much of the QS program be implemented through staying in Canada as a province when Ottawa maintains control over such crucial jurisdictions as banking and finance, foreign affairs, the military, trade and commerce, criminal law and the senior courts and judicial appointments, etc.?

Much more can be said on this matter, but here again we find Québec solidaire’s position on the Constituent Assembly and the process of constitutional change an easy target for Quebec critics for whom state independence is the only logical and feasible path toward national emancipation. Many charge that the open-ended mandate (province or state? — posing “democracy” in opposition to the determination of a strategic goal) confirms not so much a commitment to “popular sovereignty” (but not necessarily state sovereignty) as it testifies to the presence of many closet federalists within the party.

Finally, it is worth noting that despite the rapprochement being discussed between Québec solidaire and Option nationale, the latter is running a candidate, Vanessa Dion, against Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois in the May 29 Gouin by-election.

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[1] Le Devoir, March 18, “Québec solidaire gruge des appuis au PQ.”

[2] See Paul Cliche, Pour réduire le déficit démocratique, Le scrutin proportionnel.

[3] See Un pays démocratique et pluriel, p. 6.

[4] More correctly, the reference here is to the distribution of powers.

A Québécois view of Canada’s 150th

The following article by André Binette, a prominent constitutional lawyer in Quebec, was first published in L’Aut’journal. The translation and notes are mine. – Richard Fidler

Canada’s 150^th anniversary: Why celebrate colonial autonomy?

by André Binette

Each sovereign state can choose the date of its national holiday. Generally, this date recalls the accession to independence. The United States, for example, chose to emphasize each year their unilateral declaration of independence of July 4, 1776. They preferred this date to the date of the Treaty of Paris, 1783, which ended the revolutionary war they had won thanks to France’s decisive support. Their national holiday commemorates a founding act.

In France, where the origin of independence is lost in the mists of time, they remember the 14^th of July, the fall of the Bastille, as the passage from monarchy to the Republic, the founding act of modern France. Unlike some other countries, the United Kingdom celebrates the birth of its sovereign as its national holiday; it is celebrated on the second Saturday in June. In Canada, they celebrate “the Queen’s birthday” in late May. In Quebec, the Parti Québécois government of Bernard Landry transformed the Queen’s birthday into its opposite, the Patriots’ Day, after the Patriotes who sought to establish the independence of Lower Canada, Quebec’s ancestor.

So Canada celebrates two national holidays: the United Kingdom’s and the one called Canada Day, referring to “Confederation,” (which was a confederation in name only), on July 1.[1] Neither has any relation to its independence. Canada does not celebrate the date of its accession to independence, which legally occurred on December 11, 1931 through the adoption of a British law called the Statute of Westminster.[2] Why?

There is more than one reason for this. First, the date when Canada achieved independence is in reality uncertain. In its Patriation Reference in 1981,[3] the Supreme Court was unable to situate it precisely, which in itself is an anomaly. At most it indicated that it had occurred in events between 1919 and 1931. This effective sovereignty was allegedly won on the battlefields of the First World War, in particular at the battle of Vimy Ridge — one of uncertain military importance but of great importance in the construction of Canadian identity, and for which its 100^th anniversary has just been celebrated. This victory led to the separate signature to the Treaty of Versailles of His Majesty King George V on behalf of Canada, which conferred on Canada an international juridical personality, one of the fundamental attributes of sovereignty.

It should be noted that during the centennial ceremonies at Vimy on April 9 the Canadian prime minister stated: “It is here where Canada was born.” This statement teaches us two things. First, and this is an irony of history, Canada was born in France. Second, Canada did not exist in 1867. It was born, according to Mr. Trudeau, exactly a half-century later.

Indeed, it should be recalled that British troops were still occupying the Quebec Citadel in 1867. The Canadian armed forces did not yet exist. Canada had no international relations other than relations within the British Empire. There was no Canadian ambassador abroad, and Canada could sign no treaty because its international relations, including with the United States, were conducted in London. Canadian citizenship did not appear until 1947.

The only provision in the British North America Act, 1867 that had anything to do with international affairs was section 132, which granted the Parliament and Government of Canada “all Powers necessary or proper for performing the Obligations of Canada or of any Province thereof, as Part of the British Empire, towards Foreign Countries, arising under Treaties between the Empire and such Foreign Countries.”[4] Moreover, the same Act provided that all federal laws could be disallowed [overruled] by London. The 1867 Act failed to respect the principle of effectiveness of core state functions, a necessary condition of independence.

Why, then, do they want to celebrate 150 years of colonial autonomy? It can only be because in 1867 they thought they had found the final solution to an event that had occurred thirty years earlier and had been a political earthquake. This was, of course, the rebellion of the Patriotes of Lower Canada.[5] A parallel revolt occurred in Upper Canada, but it concerned only the distribution of powers among Anglophones, namely the British governor and the local élite. That was remedied by the advent of responsible government which turned power over to the elected representatives of the population. In Lower Canada, in contrast, responsible government aggravated the fundamental problem which was the co-existence of two nations — the more vigorous one, demographically, being the French-Canadian nation.

The Act of Union in 1840, which merged Upper and Lower Canada, had been designed to dilute the power of the Francophone majority of Lower Canada at a time when responsible government was becoming inevitable. However, the Act of Union was a failure since the political and national realities were obvious: in effect, there were two co-premiers and two attorneys general in United Canada; two parliamentary majorities were required if laws were to be adopted. The fait francophone continued to weigh heavily in the functioning of the Union, too heavily in the eyes of certain Anglophone politicians.

The solution was colonial federalism, that is, Quebec’s imprisonment in a federal framework in which it was to become increasingly a minority. This imprisonment, which was an attempt at more definitive appropriation and neutralization of Québécois identity, is the precondition to the existence of Canada. This existential condition found its logical follow-up in the negation of the Quebec nation in the constitutional renewal of 1982. Canada was built on the weakening of Quebec. On July 1^st each year the Canadian nation celebrates its domination over the Quebec nation. The choice of a founding act that is to be collectively celebrated is never innocent and is always revealing.

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[1] July 1, 1867 was the date on which the British North America Act, an act of the British Parliament, came into force. It consolidated four colonies — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec (formerly Lower Canada) and Ontario (formerly Upper Canada) — into the Dominion of Canada, lacking formal popular consent and hence not a true federation of sovereign powers.

[2] One could add that Canadian criminal law appeals to the British House of Lords were not abolished until 1933 and all other appeals in 1949.

[3] [1981] 1 S.C.R. 753.

[4] Capitalization in the original. The Constitution Act, 1982, like its predecessor the British North America Act, was first adopted by the British Parliament in an English version (the UK’s Canada Act) and has never been adopted in an official French version, notwithstanding section 55 which provides: “A French version of the portions of the Constitution of Canada referred to in the schedule shall be prepared by the Minister of Justice of Canada as expeditiously as possible....”

[5] In 1837-38 the Patriotes of Lower Canada waged an armed struggle against British rule that was ultimately defeated. The revolt followed British rejection of the 92 resolutions drafted by Louis-Joseph Papineau and other members of the Parti Patriote in 1834 calling for political reforms in the colony. They were largely incorporated in a Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Lower Canada drafted in 1838 by rebel leader Robert Nelson.

Omar Khadr’s Case A Black Stamp On Canada’s Human Rights Record

Guest column by Monia Mazigh

Introduction

Dr. Monia Mazigh was born and raised in Tunisia and immigrated to Canada in 1991. She speaks Arabic, French, and English fluently and holds a Ph.D. in finance from McGill University. Dr. Mazigh has worked at the University of Ottawa and taught at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia.  In 2004, she ran in the federal election as a candidate for the New Democratic Party, gaining the most votes for her riding in the history of the NDP.

Dr. Mazigh was catapulted onto the public stage in 2002 when her husband Maher Arar, was deported to Syria where he was tortured and held without charge for over a year.  During that time, Dr. Mazigh campaigned vigorously for her husband’s release and later fought to re-establish his reputation and sought reparations. In January 2007, after a lengthy inquiry, her husband finally received an apology from the Canadian government and was offered compensation for the “terrible ordeal” his family had suffered. Dr. Mazigh has since authored a book called Hope and Despair, published with McLellan and Stewart in 2008. The memoir documents her ordeal after her husband was arrested and how she campaigned to clear his name.  -- Richard Fidler

* * *

Canada is in celebratory mood this year, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Confederation. The Canadian government has been funding cultural initiatives here and there to promote the diverse communities living together and to bring the multicultural aspect of Canada.

Internationally, Canada is portraying itself as an open country, accepting refugees from war ravaged countries like Syria. A sort of the antithesis of the American policies recently announced by U.S. President Trump to ban refugees. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau describes himself as a feminist, taking selfies with young Muslim girls in hijab. A sharp contrast with the previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, whodefunded the Ministry of Status of Women and dehumanized Muslim women by fomenting the niqab debate.

However, amidst this festive and open atmosphere, there is a dark cloud that keeps the rays of the sun from reaching everyone. The case of Omar Khadr is a black stamp on Canada’s human rights record.

Lawyer Dennis Edney (L), client Omar Khadr and Patricia Edney meet the media outside their house where Khadr stayed after being released on bail in Edmonton, Alta., May 7, 2015.

Omar Khadr was a child when he was imprisoned by the Americans in the military base of Bagram and later airlifted to Guantanamo Camp, where he was forcibly kept for over a decade. He was subject to physical and psychological abuses. He was betrayed by successive Canadian governments: Liberal and Conservative alike wanted him to stay in jail, far away from the public eye and TV cameras. No other western country dealt with its citizens detained in Guantanamo like Canada shamefully did.

Along these years, some prominent Canadian voices rose up to denounce the treatment of Omar Khadr, but they were not enough to deter the Paul Martin government, and later the Harper government, in refusing to call for the repatriation of Omar Khadr. In fact, then-prime minister Harper and his cabinet ministers kept justifying Omar Khadr’s incarceration by the fact that he was convicted in the killing of a U.S. paramedic. Needless to say, this conviction came as the result of a plea bargain Omar Khadr had made with his American jailors to gain his transfer out of the Guantanamo prison.

Even when Omar Khadr was returned to Canada after the insistence of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he was immediately imprisoned and kept there for three more years.

These days, the case of Omar Khadr has slipped under the radar. Even some human rights activists think that the return of Omar Khadr back home would mark the end of his tragic story. But it wouldn’t. Omar Khadr never received any apology for the treatment he was subjected to in Guantanamo.

For instance, in 2008, Canadians officials flew to Guantanamo specifically to interrogate him and were never interested in his well-being. They offered to buy him a burger and some treats to get information out of him. When he understood that they were there for their own professional interests and not for helping him, Omar Khadr, became uncooperative with them. The Canadian officials pushed him to say what he clearly didn’t know. This behaviour is reprehensible and should be denounced. Unfortunately, Canada never distanced itself from the actions of its officials despite the reprimand of the Supreme Court ruling declaring that Omar Khadr’s rights were violated under the Charter of Rights.

Dennis Edney, the Canadian legal counsel for Omar Khadr, has been a hero in defending his client. Not only did he defend Omar Khadr under difficult circumstances, but he also accepted him in his home and protected him as one of his own children. Recognizing the work accomplished by Dennis Edney on behalf of Omar Khadr should be celebrated by all Canadians and not fought or hidden.

Recently, Omar Khadr had to undertake a 19-hour-long surgery on his shoulder as a result of bullet wounds he suffered when he was shot in the back by the U.S. military. This serious surgery will undeniably delay Omar Khadr’s efforts to progress in his studies and life.

Omar Khadr was stripped of his rights as a child, as a teenager and later as an adult. Today, he is trying hard to put his life back on track and get the education that was denied to him all these past years. As long as Omar Khadr file is still lingering, Canada won’t be able to hide its dark face and celebrate its record on the world scene. It is time for the Canadian government to act swiftly and let the sun shine on Omar Khadr’s life.

This article was published on the Huffingtonpost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/monia-mazigh/omar-khadr-canada_b_15948786.html

Ten proposals to beat the European Union and avoid a repetition of the Greek capitulation

A collective document from across the European left on how to challenge the EU’s stranglehold on economic and social justice.

By Eric Toussaint, Miguel Urbán Crespo, Teresa Rodríguez, Angela Klein, Stathis Kouvelakis, Costas Lapavitsas, Zoe Konstantopoulou, Marina Albiol, Olivier Besancenot, Rommy Arce

February 21, 2017

Introduction

This collective text (full list of signatories here) initiated by Eric Toussaint of the CADTM campaign for the abolition of the debt of the global South, has been collectively discussed and co-signed by personalities and activists from more than 15 European countries representing a wide range of forces of the radical and anticapitalist Left: Podemos and Izquierda Unida in Spain, the Portuguese Left Bloc, the Left Party in Britain, the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste and Ensemble in France, Popular Unity and Antarsya in Greece, the radical Danish left and activists from countries such as Cyprus, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Hungary. It is signed by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from different parties and countries, by the head of finance of the City of Madrid, by the former president of the Greek Parliament, by a series of members of the Commission For the Truth on the Greek Debt. All the signatories are involved in the ongoing discussions about a “plan B” for Europe.

The aim of this text is to analyze the balance of power in the European Union and elaborate a series of radical but necessary proposals against austerity, neoliberal policies and for an alternative to the existing form of European integration.

The ten proposals put forward in this text are the outcome of an analysis of the situation in Europe since 2010. It takes into account the experience of the confrontation between Syriza and the Troika in the first half of 2015 and of the defeat that followed, but also the Spanish, Irish or Cypriot experiences. Recent events have clearly demonstrated the need for a left-wing government to have the courage to disobey the injunctions of European authorities and break decisively with the framework of the founding treaties of the EU. This must be accompanied by a popular mobilization triggered by the initiatives of the left-wing government and by a series of robust measures to be implemented immediately: organize a debt audit with citizen participation, put in place a control of capital flows, socialize the financial sector and the energy sector, reform radically the tax system. And of course, the inevitable debate on the euro area needs to be publicly conducted, with exit as an option that must be defended at least in some countries.

The cold analysis of the European policies of recent years invariably leads to this conclusion: only strong sovereign and unilateral self-defense measures will enable any progressive national government and the social forces who back it to break with austerity and neoliberalism and address the issue of the illegitimate debt.

Since May 2010, the question of national debt has become a central concern for Greece and for the rest of the eurozone. The first program of €110 billion, imposed by the troika — comprised of the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — for the purpose of elaborating and executing this program, provoked a brutal increase in Greek public debt. This was also the case in various forms in Ireland (2010), Portugal (2011), Cyprus (2013), and Spain.

This program had the following fundamental objectives:

• Bail out the private banks with public funds so that they may avoid the damaging consequences of their own private credit bubble, averting a new major international financial crisis.
• Give to the new public creditors, who replaced the private creditors, enormous coercive powers over the governments and institutions of the peripheral countries in order to impose policies of radical austerity, deregulation (eroding large numbers of labor and welfare benefits), privatizations, and stricter authoritarian controls (see the last point).
• Preserve the eurozone perimeter (in other words, keep Greece and the other peripheral countries within the eurozone), which is a powerful instrument in the hands of the multinational corporations and the major economies of the zone.
• Bring neoliberal policies to bear more heavily on Greece, in particular, but also on the other eurozone peripheral countries as an example for all the European populations.
• Reinforce a Europe-wide (as much for the European Union generally as for each member state) authoritarian form of governance, without resorting to new experiments resembling fascist or Nazi regimes or that of Franco, Salazar, or the Greek colonels (1967-1974). This aspect is insufficiently taken into account because the accent is placed on the economic and social repercussions. The authoritarian tendency within the European Union and the eurozone is a key issue and goal of the European Commission and the big corporations. This touches on executive powers, expeditious voting procedures, limiting or violating many rights, disregarding electors’ choices and, among other things, increased repression of dissent.

There are lessons to be learned from the failure of the policies adopted by the government of Alexis Tsipras in 2015 to break the bonds of austerity. It is also necessary to realize the limits of the socialist minority government of Antonio Costa in Portugal.

Alternative policies in the people’s interest must at the same time address austerity, public debt, private banks, the eurozone, and oppose authoritarian tendencies. The experiences in the eurozone over the 2010-16 period clearly show that it is impossible to break with austerity unless responses to the above-mentioned problems at the least are put forward. Of course, the climate and ecological crises must also be addressed. So must we confront the humanitarian crisis caused by Europe’s fortified-borders policy, the Middle East crisis, and the rise of racism and the far right, responsible for the death of so many immigration and asylum seekers in the Mediterranean.

Since the election of Trump, and also since the appearance of the radical movements that gathered around the Bernie Sanders candidacy, now called into the front line of opposition against Trump and his program, the European radical left, trade unions, feminists, and ecologists must create links with the forces of resistance in the United States.

A large part of the radical left forces who have sitting members of parliament had and still have a mistaken idea of what EU integration and the eurozone are. To put it simply, they seem to see more advantages than disadvantages in the European Union. They consider that the European Union, as much as the eurozone, is compatible with a return of social-democratic policies, somewhat less injustice, and a Keynesian-style relaunching of the economy.

Considering the experiences of 2015, it is fundamental that those who have no illusions about the European Union or the eurozone, and are proposing authentic ecological and socialist perspectives in rupture with the European Union, as it exists, be reinforced. It is clear that neither the European Union nor the eurozone can be reformed. It was demonstrated that it is impossible, on the basis of the legitimacy of universal suffrage and democratic debate, to persuade the European Commission, the IMF, the ECB, and the conservative governments in power over most of Europe to agree to measures that are respectful of the rights of the Greek people, or of any other population.

The July 5 referendum, which the European institutions fought tooth and nail by means of blackmail and coercion (such as forcing the Greek banks to close for five days preceding the referendum), did not bring them to make any concessions. On the contrary, totally ignoring all democratic principles, their demands became considerably more oppressive.

Certainly, there are many measures that could and should be taken at the European level to stimulate the economy, reduce social injustice, make the debt sustainable, and invigorate democracy. In February 2015, Yanis Varoufakis, while serving as Greek minister of the economy, presented proposals in this sense, suggesting that Greek debt be exchanged for two new kinds of bonds — either growth indexed obligations or “perpetual” obligations — which would never be reimbursed but would be paid out, interest only, perpetually. These proposals, although moderate and perfectly achievable, had no chance at all of being accepted by the European authorities.

This is the case with many proposals aiming to ease Greece’s and numerous other countries’ debt (joint debt recognition, euro-denominated mutual bonds, etc.). Technically these proposals are all viable but, in the present political context and balance of power in the European Union, the will to put them into practice is lacking. A progressive government cannot hope to be heard, respected and, even less, assisted by the European Commission, the ECB, and the European Stability Mechanism.

The ECB can paralyze a eurozone country’s banking system by cutting off its banks’ access to liquidities. The ECB’s arbitrary power and the banking union reinforce the coercive powers the European institutions can use to counter any experience of progressive policy in Europe.

The treaties have become extremely restrictive on matters of debt and deficit. The European authorities, in control of policies, could easily decide to derogate to these regulations by taking into consideration the state of crisis (actually they do this for “friendly” governments), but they clearly had no intention of doing so.

On the contrary, all the negotiating parties fiercely fought the Greek government even though it gave proof of great moderation (to say the least). The mainstream media and numerous European leaders treated Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis as rebels, or even as radical anti-Europeans. Between January and July 2015, the troika launched a fight against the Greek government, in order show to the peoples of Europe that there is no alternative to neoliberal capitalism.

The capitulation of the first Tsipras government was not enough to satisfy the IMF or the European leaders. Pressure continued to be laid on the second Tsipras government to apply ever more neoliberal policies, especially attacking public property, the welfare and retirement systems, and assisting big capital through the introduction of further judicial and legal frameworks favoring privatization and fundamental structural regression. All these new measures lead to increased injustice and precariousness.

If the creditors agree to a new restructuring of the debt, it will be under the condition that the same kind of policies be continued. In this case, a reduction of the debt will not at all be a victory or even a consolation. It will be no more than a measure to ensure continual reimbursements while seeking to dampen any social struggles that arise.

This is the first lesson: unless they take strong sovereign and unilateral measures of self-defense, the people and the governments they bring to office to break with austerity programs cannot put an end to the human rights violations perpetrated by the creditors and the big corporations.

Some would argue that should a leftist government come to power in Madrid, it could use the weight of the Spanish economy (the fourth in the eurozone in terms of GDP) to negotiate concessions that Tsipras was unable to obtain. But what would be those concessions? Relaunch production and employment through heavy public spending and deficits? The ECB and Berlin along with at least five or six other capitals would oppose such policies! Taking strong measures against the banks? The ECB, with the support of the European Commission, would reject such policies.

What is also certain is that if the radical left entered the government of a country like Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, or one of the three Baltic states, they would not have the weight, facing an unyielding European Commission or ECB board, to convince these institutions to let them renounce austerity, stop privatizations, develop public services, and drastically reduce the debt. These countries will have to resist and take unilateral measures in the interest of their populations. Could several progressive governments of eurozone countries form a common front for renegotiations? It would certainly be very welcome if this could happen, but the possibility is remote, if only for reasons of electoral agenda.

Should Jean-Luc Mélenchon win the upcoming presidential election in France, and his coalition win the following general election, could a French left-wing government achieve a reform of the euro? Mélenchon and the staff of his campaign believe so. It is reasonable to have doubts about this possibility. Let’s suppose that Mélenchon does win and forms a government intending to introduce social policies and to reform the euro. What would be the options?

It is quite likely that a French government could afford to disobey the current treaties, but it could not achieve a far-reaching reform of the entire eurozone. To do this would take simultaneous progressive electoral victories in the major countries as well as in peripheral countries. That said, it is clear that a government of a defiant France, and its allies, taking measures in favor of the French population and the peoples of the world (for instance, by abolishing Greece’s and developing countries’ debts towards France) could have a positive effect throughout Europe.

Having said that, the way out of the crisis is not of a nationalist nature. As much as in the past it is necessary to adopt an internationalist strategy and aim for a European integration that brings together the peoples opposed to the present form of integration, totally dominated by the interests of big capital.

The weak links in the inter-European chain of domination are to be found in the peripheral countries. If Syriza had adopted a correct strategy in 2015 it could well have been a turning point. It didn’t happen.

Other weak links where the radical left may gain power in the not-so-distant future are Portugal and Spain, and perhaps Cyprus, Ireland, and Slovenia. A progressive move ahead would depend on the capacity of the radical left to learn the lessons of 2015 and thus make anticapitalist and democratic proposals that will trigger popular support. Without doubt, the force of popular mobilization will be a decisive factor. If the pressure for real uncompromising change does not invade the streets, the neighborhoods, and the workplaces, the future will be very dark.

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To avoid what we saw in Greece in 2015, here are ten proposals for social mobilization and actions to be taken immediately and simultaneously by any government that is truly operating in the interests of the people.

1. A left-wing government must disobey the European Commission in a very transparent manner and in line with its prior commitments.

The party or coalition of parties (the example of Spain comes to mind) that claim to govern should from the outset refuse to conform to austerity measures, and pledge to refuse measures aiming solely at balancing the budget. They should announce: “We will not yield to the European treaties’ diktat of a balanced budget because we want to increase public expenditures to fight anti-social and austerity measures and embark on the ecological transition.”

Therefore, the first step is to begin disobeying in a clear and determined way. The Greek capitulation has shown us why we must shed the illusion that the EC and other European governments respect the popular mandate. This illusion can only lead to disaster. We must disobey.

2. Call for popular mobilization both at the national and the European level.

In 2015, such an initiative proved unsuccessful in Greece and elsewhere in Europe. It is obvious that the European social movements did not achieve great success in calling for demonstrations, which did take place but were not at the level required by the need for solidarity with the Greek people.

However, it is also true that Syriza’s strategy did not include calls for popular mobilization in Europe, or even in Greece. And when the Tsipras government did call for mobilization by means of the referendum of July 5, 2015, the will of the 61.5 percent of Greeks who refused to accept the creditors’ demands was not respected.

Let’s remember that starting in late February 2015 and up until the end of June 2015, Yanis Varoufakis and Alexis Tsipras made statements aimed at convincing public opinion that an agreement was in sight and that the situation was improving.

Imagine that instead, after each important negotiation, they had explained what was at stake through press releases, statements to the media, and declarations in public places — in front of the headquarters of the European institutions in Brussels and elsewhere. Imagine that they had revealed what was really going on. It would have led to gatherings of thousands or tens of thousands of people, and the social networks would have relayed this alternative discourse to hundreds of thousands or millions of citizens.

3. Launch a debt audit with citizens’ participation.

The situations in the twenty-eight EU countries, and of course within the eurozone, are diverse. In some European countries — as in Greece — it is a matter of utmost necessity and priority to suspend debt repayments, in order to make the satisfaction of social needs and basic human rights an absolute priority. It is also a key element of a self-defense strategy.

In Spain, in Portugal, in Cyprus, and in Ireland, such a move depends on the balance of power and the current economic picture. In other countries, it is possible to carry out the audit first and then decide on the suspension of repayments. The specific situation of each country must be weighed before implementing these measures.

4. Establish control of capital flows.

We must clarify what this means. It does not mean that people cannot transfer a few hundred euros abroad. Obviously international financial transactions would be allowed up to a certain amount. On the other hand, it is important to enforce strict control over capital flows beyond a certain threshold.

5. Socialize the financial sector and the energy sector.

Socializing the financial sector does not merely mean developing a public banking hub. It implies decreeing a public monopoly on the financial sector, i.e. the banks, building societies and insurance companies. That is, a socialization of the financial sector under citizen control; turning the financial sector into a public service. Of course, socializing the energy sector will also be a priority during the ecological transition. Ecological transition cannot take place without a public monopoly over the energy sector, both in terms of production and distribution.

6. Create a complementary, non-convertible currency and defend the right to leave the eurozone.

Whether it is a case of exiting the eurozone or remaining in it, it is necessary to create a non-convertible complementary currency. In other words, a currency that is used locally, for exchanges within the country — for example, for paying increased pensions, salary increases for civil servants, taxes, public services, etc. The use of a complementary currency enables partial relief from the dictatorship of the euro and the European Central Bank.

Of course, we cannot avoid the debate on the eurozone. In several countries, exiting the eurozone is an option that must be defended by political parties, trade unions, and other social movements. Several eurozone countries will not be able to truly break away from austerity and launch an ecosocialist transition without leaving the eurozone. A redistributive monetary reform, or the levying of a special progressive tax on incomes above €200,000, should be implemented in the case of an exit. That proposal would apply only to cash assets, and not to personal property (principal residence, etc.).

By applying a progressive exchange rate when moving from the euro to the new currency, the amount of cash in the hands of the wealthiest 1 percent would be reduced and wealth redistributed to households.

7. Implement radical tax reform.

Remove VAT on basic consumer goods and services, such as food, electricity, and water (up to a certain level of consumption per individual), as well as other basic utilities. On the other hand, increase VAT on luxury goods and services, etc. We also need to increase the taxes on corporate profits and incomes above a certain level — in other words, a progressive tax on income, wealth, and luxury residences. The reform of taxation must produce immediate effects: a very significant decrease in indirect and direct taxes for the majority of the population and a very significant increase for the wealthiest 10 percent and for major corporations. Also, strict new measures will be taken against fraud and tax evasion.

8. Deprivatize — “buy back” — privatized companies for a symbolic euro.

Paying no more than a symbolic euro to those who have benefited from privatizations would be an appropriate gesture and would strengthen and extend public services under citizen control.

9. Implement a broad emergency plan for creating socially useful jobs and for economic justice.

Reduce working hours with no reduction in wages. Repeal antisocial laws and adopt laws to remedy the situation of abusive mortgage debt; countries such as Spain, Ireland, Greece, etc. are the most concerned. This could well be fixed by adopting adequate legislation, to avoid court actions (since many households have to face legal action requested by banks).

For example, a parliament could pass a law to cancel mortgage debts below €150,000 and thus bring such cases to an end. A vast program of public expenditure would be implemented in order to stimulate employment and socially useful activity by encouraging circuits of local production and distribution.

10. Initiate a genuine constituent process.

This does not imply constitutional changes within the framework of the existing parliamentary institutions. It involves dissolving the parliament and electing a constituent assembly by direct vote.

These are ten basic proposals for discussion. But one thing is certain: the measures to be taken must go to the root of the problems, and must be applied simultaneously, since a coherent program is needed. Breaking away from austerity policies cannot be achieved if, from the very start, radical measures against big capital are not taken.

Those who want us to believe that it’s possible to achieve this objective without going down that road just create confusion and block any real progress. The architecture of Europe and the magnitude of the capitalist crisis leave no room for neo-Keynesian or productivist politics. Ecosocialism must be put at the heart of the debate, not left aside. Immediate and concrete proposals must emerge. We must carry out the anti-austerity struggle and embark on the path of an ecosocialist transition. It is an absolute and urgent necessity.

This text has also been published on Jacobin.

Wave of protests throughout United States challenges Trump agenda

Introduction

I recently returned from a month-long cycling trip through South-East Asia, from Hanoi to Bangkok, followed by a couple of weeks visiting comrades in Australia, hence the silence of this blog since year-end 2016. During this period some important developments have occurred in global politics.

During the following days, I will reproduce on this site a number of articles published during the last month that follow up on issues some of which I have previously addressed here and that in my opinion are especially worthy of reproduction.

I start with an article by US socialist Barry Sheppard on the massive Women’s March in protest against the agenda threatened by the newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump. The Washington march was accompanied by parallel marches in many countries, many drawing large numbers of participants. Sheppard’s analysis of the significance of these demonstrations is borne out by the “Guiding Vision and Definition of Principles” of the march organizers, appended to his article.

The wave of opposition in the streets to the Trump agenda, touched off by the women’s marches, has continued since then throughout the United States — posing the possibility that the rightward shift in US official politics may prompt the formation in response of progressive coalitions and more informal alliances among newly radicalized social forces that build in part on the massive popular support for a “socialist” alternative registered in Bernie Sanders’ campaign in the 2016 primaries.

– Richard Fidler

 

Huge Women’s March Against Trump Attacks

By Barry Sheppard

The first thing to note about the massive women’s march on the day after the inaugural of Trump was that while it centered on fighting against his agenda to roll back women’s rights and dignity, it also expressly included fightback against his anti-Black, anti-Muslim, anti-Native American, anti-Arab, anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-climate change, anti-LGBT, anti-health care etc. policies he championed throughout his election campaign. (See accompanying Defining Vision and Definition of Principles of the March.)

The second thing to note was its size. While initially projected as a March on Washington, solidarity demonstrations were held in 600-700 cities and towns across the country. In Washington the police estimated over 500,000 took part. From a list compiled by experts that included only a fraction of those places, and which had estimated figures (low and high), and looking only at places that had 1,000 demonstrators or more using the low estimates, I counted over four million and one hundred thousand participants.

This demonstration was the largest in U.S. history.

The majority of marchers were women, with a significant minority of male supporters. Many interviewed by news media indicated that this was their first protest, ever.

Marchers were angry and determined to oppose Trump’s agenda on many different issues. Some utilized satire. Many women came with homemade knitted hats that featured cats’ ears. Household cats are called “pussycats”, and this was a reference to Trump’s infamous remarks that his exalted status entitled him to grab any women by the genitals. Posters and speakers alluded to the same reference. Some speakers identified themselves as “nasty women,” a reference to Trump’s misogynistic attack on Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman.”

Speakers hammered away on particular issues, from healthcare to trans rights. All noted the huge size of the demonstrations and how they and everyone present felt greatly empowered by seeing so many others who felt as they do. Different speakers addressed through their own personal experience the issues raised in the “Defining Vision.”

Another major theme was that the energy of the action should continue in the days ahead, through local organizing, discussion and reaching out to new people.

The march was projected by a few women on social media the day after the election, and kept snowballing. Young women of color were in the lead. This recalls the leadership role of young women in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. The leadership was broadened out to include women leaders of all races and from many organizations, who issued the Guiding Vision for the march.

The New York Times earlier interviewed some white women who pulled out of the march because the “Vision” included “race.” Nevertheless, large numbers of white women joined.

White women predominated in the Washington march and the other cities, although women of all races participated. While this fact demonstrates the need to reach out better to women of color, there is another important side.

These white women marched together with Black, Brown and Yellow women. They cheered the many women of color on the stage. They cheered the Muslim women in hijabs who spoke and chaired, the Black trans woman who spoke, as well as the speakers from the other categories of women the “Vision” listed. These white women came out and demonstrated against Trump, whatever they thought about all the demands.

There is no question that all of these white women, including those for whom this was their first protest, were exposed to a great educational experience, and they learned a lot from whom they were marching with, and from the explanations from the stage. The same is true of many of the Black and other colored women present.

All the women on the demonstrations also learned that the best way to fight for whatever particular issues they were most concerned about is to unite with all women under attack by the Trump authoritarian administration. Trump was the great unifier of this historic action.

The “Guiding Vision and Defining Principles” moved well beyond narrow “identity” politics to an understanding that all forms of oppression in this society are related. To fight one aspect means to fight on all these fronts. This statement complements the platform issued by Black Lives Matter some months ago.

Marxists have an important role to play in this discussion. We can explain how all these forms of oppression have their roots in the history and functioning of U.S. capitalism, and their relation to the fundamental division in capitalist society between the ruling capitalist class and the exploited working class. Our vision of a working class revolution to overturn capitalism is not a narrow one of simply ending the exploitation of the working class, but ending all forms of oppression, injustice, humiliation, violence and war — to be a champion of all and every fight against all the wrongs of this capitalist society.

Given the very low level of working class struggle in the U.S. at present, this can appear as very abstract. But it charts a road forward, as we participate as the best fighters we can be in the immediate struggles ahead.

This leads to a final point, unfortunately a negative one. While some unions, especially teachers, endorsed the Women’s March, the majority of unions did not, and that includes the AFL-CIO, the major union federation.

Marxists have a role to play in our unions, too, to fight against this self-defeating trend and bring into all these struggles the power of organized workers — a big job. But a necessary one. If the present unions do not reach out to support all the oppressed, they will continue to shrivel and be less and less a factor in U.S. politics — let alone win support for their own struggles against the bosses and the bosses’ government, now personified by Donald Trump.

January 25, 2017

 

Women’s March Guiding Vision and Definition of Principles

• We believe that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights. This is the basic and original tenet from which all our values stem.
• We believe Gender Justice is Racial Justice is Economic Justice. We must create a society in which women — in particular Black women, Native women, poor women, immigrant women, Muslim women, and queer and trans women — are free and able to care for and nurture their families, however they are formed, in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.
• Women deserve to live full and healthy lives, free of violence against our bodies. One in three women have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetime; and one in five women have been raped. Further, each year, thousands of women and girls, particularly Black, indigenous and transgender women and girls, are kidnapped, trafficked, or murdered. We honor the lives of those women who were taken before their time and we affirm that we work for a day when all forms of violence against women are eliminated.
• We believe in accountability and justice for police brutality and ending racial profiling and targeting of communities of color. Women of color are killed in police custody at greater rates than white women, and are more likely to be sexually assaulted by police. We also call for an immediate end to arming police with the military grade weapons and military tactics that are wreaking havoc on communities of color. No woman or mother should have to fear that her loved ones will be harmed at the hands of those sworn to protect.
• We believe it is our moral imperative to dismantle the gender and racial inequities within the criminal justice system. The rate of imprisonment has grown faster for women than men, increasing by 700% since 1980, and the majority of women in prison have a child under the age of 18. Incarcerated women also face a high rate of violence and sexual assault. We are committed to ensuring access to gender-responsive programming and dedicated healthcare including substance abuse treatment, mental and maternal health services for women in prison. We believe in the promise of restorative justice and alternatives to incarceration. We are also committed to disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline that prioritizes incarceration over education by systematically funneling our children — particularly children of color, queer and trans youth, foster care children, and girls — into the justice system.
• We believe in Reproductive Freedom. We do not accept any federal, state or local rollbacks, cuts or restrictions on our ability to access quality reproductive healthcare services, birth control, HIV/AIDS care and prevention, or medically accurate sexuality education. This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education. We understand that we can only have reproductive justice when reproductive health care is accessible to all people regardless of income, location or education.
• We believe in Gender Justice. We must have the power to control our bodies and be free from gender norms, expectations and stereotypes. We must free ourselves and our society from the institution of awarding power, agency and resources disproportionately to masculinity to the exclusion of others.
• We firmly declare that LGBTQIA Rights are Human Rights and that it is our obligation to uplift, expand and protect the rights of our gay, lesbian, bi, queer, trans or gender non-conforming brothers, sisters and siblings. This includes access to non-judgmental, comprehensive healthcare with no exceptions or limitations; access to name and gender changes on identity documents; full anti- discrimination protections; access to education, employment, housing and benefits; and an end to police and state violence.
• We believe in an economy powered by transparency, accountability, security and equity. We believe that creating workforce opportunities that reduce discrimination against women and mothers allow economies to thrive. Nations and industries that support and invest in caregiving and basic workplace protections — including benefits like paid family leave, access to affordable childcare, sick days, healthcare, fair pay, vacation time, and healthy work environments — have shown growth and increased capacity.
• We believe in equal pay for equal work and the right of all women to be paid equitably. We must end the pay and hiring discrimination that women, particularly mothers, women of color, lesbian, queer and trans women still face each day in our nation. Many mothers have always worked and are in our modern labor force; and women are now 50% of all family breadwinners. We stand for the 82% of women who become moms, particularly moms of color, being paid, judged, and treated fairly. Equal pay for equal work will lift families out of poverty and boost our nation’s economy.
• We recognize that women of color carry the heaviest burden in the global and domestic economic landscape, particularly in the care economy. We further affirm that all care work — caring for the elderly, caring for the chronically ill, caring for children and supporting independence for people with disabilities — is work, and that the burden of care falls disproportionately on the shoulders of women, particularly women of color. We stand for the rights, dignity, and fair treatment of all unpaid and paid caregivers. We must repair and replace the systemic disparities that permeate caregiving at every level of society.
• We believe that all workers — including domestic and farm workers — must have the right to organize and fight for a living minimum wage, and that unions and other labor associations are critical to a healthy and thriving economy for all. Undocumented and migrant workers must be included in our labor protections, and we stand in solidarity with sex workers’ rights movements.
• We believe Civil Rights are our birthright. Our Constitutional government establishes a framework to provide and expand rights and freedom — not restrict them. To this end, we must protect and restore all the Constitutionally-mandated rights to all our citizens, including voting rights, freedom to worship without fear of intimidation or harassment, freedom of speech, and protections for all citizens regardless of race, gender, age or disability.
• We believe it is time for an all-inclusive Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Most Americans believe the Constitution guarantees equal rights, but it does not. The 14th Amendment has been undermined by courts and cannot produce real equity on the basis of race and/or sex. And in a true democracy, each citizen’s vote should count equally. All Americans deserve equality guarantees in the Constitution that cannot be taken away or disregarded, recognizing the reality that inequalities intersect, interconnect and overlap.
• Rooted in the promise of America’s call for huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we believe in immigrant and refugee rights regardless of status or country of origin. It is our moral duty to keep families together and empower all aspiring Americans to fully participate in, and contribute to, our economy and society. We reject mass deportation, family detention, violations of due process and violence against queer and trans migrants. Immigration reform must establish a roadmap to citizenship, and provide equal opportunities and workplace protections for all. We recognize that the call to action to love our neighbor is not limited to the United States, because there is a global migration crisis. We believe migration is a human right and that no human being is illegal.
• We believe that every person and every community in our nation has the right to clean water, clean air, and access to and enjoyment of public lands. We believe that our environment and our climate must be protected, and that our land and natural resources cannot be exploited for corporate gain or greed — especially at the risk of public safety and health.

The defeat of Aleppo – Some harsh lessons for the international left

Introduction

Aided by the bombs of the Russian air force and the bullets of foreign militias organized by Iran, Syria’s president Bashar Al-Assad has finally managed to destroy the eastern sector of the country’s largest city Aleppo, the major remaining pocket of popular resistance to his regime.

In the following article Santiago Alba Rico, a Spanish-born philosopher and writer based in Tunisia, analyzes what the defeat in Syria means for democratic and progressive opinion everywhere, and in particular the far-reaching implications of the failure of much of the international left to identify with and mobilize in support of the people of Syria in their powerful rebellion against oppression and repression. This failure, he argues, was a critical factor that facilitated the efforts of Assad and his reactionary international allies to drown the revolt in a river of blood.

Alba Rico’s harsh assessment of “the left” in this article may seem caricatural to some readers; not everyone on the left is an apologist for Assad or Putin. However, the indifference of many, or their unwillingness to confront the important issues posed by the war, which I think are accurately described by Alba Rico, has given free rein to those who choose to see the conflict in Syria as little more than a rerun of a Cold War scenario of imperialism versus a Third World government.

Santiago Alba Rico is well-known in the European left for his perceptive analyses of the popular rebellions in the Middle East and North Africa during the last six years collectively identified as the “Arab Spring.”

His article was first published in the Spanish online newspaper Público and has since been widely reproduced elsewhere. My translation from the Spanish. And a special thanks to Art Young, a long-time comrade in Toronto who is active in Palestine solidarity, for his helpful collaboration with me in working through these issues ourselves.

– Richard Fidler

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Aleppo, the tomb of the left

by Santiago Alba Rico

To kill on a large scale, as we know, it is necessary to lie as well as to insult and deprecate the victims. That is what the United States did in Iraq and what Israel has always done in Palestine. In 2003 the entire left shared this accusation along with ordinary decent people, and together with them the left vented its anger, and expressed its sympathy, after the bombing of Baghdad or Gaza. But it seems that whatever shocks and enrages us when it is the USA or Israel that are the tormentors has become routine in the mindset of the left when it comes to Syria. We have accepted large-scale lying that allows the Assad regime and its occupying allies — Russia, Iran and Hezbollah — to carry out large-scale slaughter, and in doing so not only have we abandoned and deprecated the victims but we have also separated ourselves from ordinary decent people. A major part of the global left has effectively placed itself on the margin of ethics, alongside the dictators and the many imperialisms that are vanquishing the region. In a Europe where neofascism — and Islamist terrorism — are increasing rapidly, this new error, along with so many others, can cost us very dearly.

Much lying had to be done to make it possible for Assad to kill on a large scale. It meant denying that the Syrian regime was a dictatorship and even stating that it is anti-imperialist, socialist and humanist. It meant denying that there had been a very transversal, non-sectarian democratic revolution in which millions of Syrians — many of them on the left, not affiliated with any leadership or party — were participating; a sort of giant 15M[1] crystallized in Councils and Local Coordinating Committees. It meant denying the brutal repression of the demonstrations, the arrests, the torture, the disappearances. It meant denying the legitimacy of the Free Syrian Army. It meant denying the bombing with barrels of dynamite and the use of chemical weapons by the regime. It meant denying or justifying the massive bombing by Putin’s Russia. It meant denying the tolerance of all of them — Assad, Russia, Iran, USA, Saudi Arabia, Turkey — toward the growth of ISIS. It meant denying the Iranian occupation of Syria. It meant denying the existence of Russian imperialism and that country’s excellent relations with Israel. It meant denying the erratic indifference of the United States, which intervened only to simultaneously give a free hand to Syria and Saudi Arabia. It meant denying the arms embargo that left the rebellion in the hands of the more radical sectors, as counter-revolutionary as the regime itself. It meant denying the existence of simultaneous demonstrations against Assad and against ISIS or other jihadist militias in towns and cities that had been besieged and destroyed. It meant denying the absence of ISIS in Aleppo, from which it had been expelled by the FSA in 2014. It meant denying the suffering and terror of the people of Aleppo who ­were under siege. But worse, it meant denying the heroism, the sacrifice, the determination to fight of thousands of young Syrians who are like us and want what we do. And worst of all, it meant deprecating them, slandering them, insulting them, making them terrorists, mercenaries or enemies of “freedom.”

Never has the left, faced with a people’s revolution, behaved so ignobly. Not only has it failed to solidarize with that revolution or, once it was defeated, honour its heroes and lament the outcome, but instead it has spat in its face and celebrated its death and its defeat. Consistent with this typically imperialist (or Stalinist) denialism, it has taken its place alongside the European far right. Furthermore, it has repressed the mobilizations in our cities. And to cap it all it has criminalized the sensible left which, along with ordinary decent people has denounced the crimes of Assad and his allies while similarly denouncing the crimes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States or — to be sure — the intolerable fascism, fully equivalent to that of the regime, of ISIS or the Al-Nusra Front.

As the communist Yassin Al Haj Saleh, for 16 years a prisoner in the regime’s dungeons and one of the greatest living intellectuals, says, Syria reveals the state of the old left and registers its death. When a global democratic revolution exploded six years ago, with the “Arab world” as its epicenter, the left was not prepared either to champion it or to make the most of it, let alone understand it. Today, when the victorious counter-revolutions extend the resuscitated “Arab dictatorships” to the USA and Europe, the left has remained irrelevant as resistance and alternative. Troubled or discomfited, all of the actors have abandoned or fought against the Syrian democratic forces and all — governments, fascist organizations and communist parties — have ended up coinciding in the narrative of the “lesser evil” that condemns Syria to eternal dictatorship, the region to sectarian violence, and Europe to endless terrorism.

This theory of the “lesser evil” (a lesser evil to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, who have been bombed, tortured, or disappeared!) has been the historical template of that regional “stability,” oppressive and deadly for the peoples, that during the second half of the 20^th century justified the West’s support to all the dictatorships in the area. After an abortive revolution, this model of the previous century now returns with redoubled ferocity, coupled with and lubricated by a sector of the left that applauds and cheers Bashar Al Assad’s “great victory”; a model that pertains so much to the last century that it can be said that some are celebrating this “great victory” as if, 25 years later and thanks to Putin, the USSR had finally won the Cold War. One thing is certain: what has also been lost this time, in Syria and Europe, and in Russia and Latin America, are democracy and justice, the only possible solutions to the authoritarianisms, imperialisms and fascisms — whether jihadist or half-European — triplet siblings that are gaining territory without resistance, that identify with each other and, accordingly, can only be defeated if they are fought simultaneously.

How are we to define these “Arab revolutions” that are now definitively dying in Aleppo with the complicity of jihadism and the complacency of the broad international alliance of right and left thrown against Syria? These revolutions were above all a revolt against the yoke of the geopolitics that had frozen, as if in amber, the inequalities and resistances in the area for at least 70 years. In a world of unequal power relationships between nation-states, geopolitics always limits any emancipatory politics of the left. That is to say, geopolitics is not of the left. If we have to take it into account in order to make minimal progress in a realistic way against the imperialist powers and in favour of sovereignty, we cannot go so far as to contradict the elemental principles associated with the universal character of any ethic of liberation: that which was once called “internationalism,” the instinct that must be recovered in a non-identitarian and democratic version.

The so-called “Arab world” (which is also Kurd, Imazighen, Berber, Toubou, etc.) is the most painful example of an entire region that is a hostage of its own oil wealth, sacrificed to the common interest of competing powers and subpowers — so-called “stability.” When the peoples of the area rebelled in 2011 in opposition to this monstrous “equilibrium,” without seeking permission from anyone, and on the margin of all inter-national interests, geopolitics ensnared them, as in a straitjacket, and the left, alongside their enemies, hastened to tie the sleeves and tighten the steel buttons.

In a context in which US hegemony is weakening, in which other powers, imperialist as well, are freeing themselves from its hegemony in order to impose their own agendas, and in which the campism of the second half of the 20^th century is replaced by a hornet’s nest of counterposed reactionary interests very similar to that of the First World War — and because this time there is not a single anticapitalist or emancipatory force or project — the left, understanding nothing about the “new world disorder” or its reactionary configuration, has hastened to deliver the Syrian people, bound hand and foot, to a murderous dictator, Putin’s Russia, the ayatollahs’ Iran, and along the way the Islamic State and the Sunni theocracies of the Gulf. In other words, to what Pablo Bustinduy[2] has called “the geopolitics of disaster.” Now it is not done in the name of the “lesser evil” (Franco and Pinochet a lesser evil?). Troubled and overwhelmed by these popular intifadas that it did not understand (save for a handful of “Trotskyists” who were “Trotskyists” only because they did understand and support them), the global left reacted from the beginning in the same way as the governments and the far right, supporting the dictators. For the imperialists this has never posed any problem (“our sons of bitches”[3]) but it should have meant something to people who claim to be “on the left” but who have ended up renouncing any attempt to understand the world in tune with its ethical and political principles. Abandoning our own people on the ground, they supported the executioners and allowed them to kill on a large scale. To do this, as we said, they had to take leave of the truth and submit to the same culturalist, racist and Islamophobic clichés of the worst European rightists.

Relying on an outdated geopolitical way of thinking that blocks any grappling with the “new world disorder,” the left has effectively abandoned its ethical principles in exchange for nothing; or, more precisely, in order to promote the return in an expanded and worsened version of the dictatorships, imperialisms and jihadisms. This great geostrategic success has been achieved at the cost of accepting a three-fold contradiction that is incompatible with the universality of the ethic of liberation and is brutally Western and Orientalist.

To accept this geostrategic yoke — otherwise illusory and unfounded — presupposes, firstly, declaring shamelessly that inhabitants of Madrid are entitled to fight an insufficiently democratic monarchy and a corrupt bipartisan system and to desire, without risking their lives, more democracy and more social justice for their country, while Syrians must on the other hand support a dictatorship that jails, tortures and assassinates them and renounce any glimmer of democracy and social justice.

To accept this false geostrategic yoke presupposes, secondly, saying as well that the imprisonment of Andrés Bódalo[4] in Spain is much more serious than that of Yassin Al Haj Saleh or Salama Keile or Samira Khalil, all of them communists, in Syria; or that the arrest of some puppeteers or the prosecution of a city councillor in Madrid is much more serious than the siege through hunger and bombing of an entire country.

To accept this false geostrategic yoke presupposes, finally, claiming in a perfectly ordinary way the right of Spanish (or Latin American) people to decide whether and when and how the “Arabs” can rebel against their dictators. The Syrians, it seems, must do what they are told from afar by a left that has exposed itself as impotent, useless and blind in its own countries. It also means experiencing as a threat, not as a hope, the democratic will and social struggles of other peoples: those fighting in more difficult conditions for the same things as we do become not comrades but enemies, not valiant partners with whom we must express our solidarity but “terrorist” criminals, the term that we have rightly denounced or downplayed when it is used by our judges or our “imperialist” governments.

In short, a large part of the Arab, European and Latin American left has sacrificed internationalism to a geostrategic order in which the peoples and their democratic struggles no longer have any friends and in which this left, irrelevant and in retreat now throughout the world, has let the regimes against which the “Arabs” rose up in 2011 advance without resistance. We have understood nothing, we have done nothing to help, we have handed over to the enemy all our weapons, including conscience. After Syria democracy is retreating everywhere. Aleppo is indeed the tomb of the Syrians’ dreams of freedom, but it is also the tomb of the global left. Just when we need it most.

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[1] The anti-austerity movement in Spain began with massive demonstrations and occupations on May 15, 2011, now known colloquially as 15M, inspired in part by the social uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt at that time.

[2] Pablo Bustinduy is a Podemos member of Madrid’s City Council and works with the party’s delegation in the European Parliament.

[3] Franklin Roosevelt is reported to have referred to Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza as “a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”

[4] Andrés Bódalo is a well-known trade unionist and former Podemos candidate in Jaén, Andalusia, who was convicted of an “offence to authority” and sentenced to three years and six months imprisonment for allegedly assaulting a Social Democratic City Council member who had pushed his way through a mass workers’ demonstration outside the City Hall. Many observers say Bódalo was actually attempting to maintain order among the demonstrators.