1.2 ESTUDIO DE MERCADO
1.2.5 Definición de servicio
The experience in Quebec City during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit was, as described in the previous chapter, very fence-centric for large numbers of protesters. But there were other features of the protest experience related to local political dynamics that had been developing long before the fence was even conceived. Involved in these dynamics were groups prepared to articulate their own locally particular claims and
demands to the “global” resistance to free trade agreements: in the lead up to the summit, it was clear that Quebecois sovereigntists were certain to be a prominent part of the
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The dominant political party in Quebec, the Parti Québécois, emerged in the late 1960s from the Nationalist Movement Sovereignty Association, and has maintained a focus on the struggle for Quebec’s national sovereignty through to the present; many parties that have emerged to the left of the Parti Québécois have maintained—or intensified—the “sovereigntist” position, with some articulating explicit critiques of the neoliberal agenda. Coinciding with the Summit, a new party emerged as Quebec’s official “altermondialiste” party, the Union des Forces Progressistes (UFP), which included opposition to
neoliberalism—and specifically the rejection of free trade agreements—as a central position, together with support for Quebec sovereignty (Harden 2006). In a direct echo of the World Social Forum, the UFP’s initial slogan was “Another Quebec is possible.”89
Following a
related genealogy, the student union movement L'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ), based in Montreal, was formed around the same time, with the FTAA protests as their first major demonstration (Christoff and Schoen 2008).To compound the already active hostility within Quebec to the Canadian
government, including to its participation in many global neoliberal projects, the head of the Quebec provincial government had no say in the decision to host the FTAA summit. The heavy-handed summit security measures and policing behavior (especially the perimeter fence and the exorbitant amounts of teargas discharged into central neighborhoods) further intensified local indignation and resentment towards Canadian authority (Doyle 2001).
Direct resonance with Quebecois popular sovereigntist politics was expected to bring out a substantial local presence, particularly the labor unions and radical student groups; the explicit, and highly charged, overlapping antagonisms offered great promise to visitors from the “global movement”. Local sympathies for, and involvement in, planned
89The close relationship between Quebec’s “altermondialiste” movement and its much older
nationalist movement has been analyzed by several writers (e.g., Miklos 2007). As a testament to the enduring influence of alter-globalist activism on the UFP, when the party merged five years later in 2006 with the feminist environmentalist party Option Citoyenne to become Quebec Solidaire, many in the room during the merger negotiations signaled their support for proposals by “twinkling” (Harden 2006); twinkling is wiggling extended fingers with palms facing forward, and is a tradition in “direct democracy” practices among many global justice activist communities for showing support for proposals.
marches and the counter summit, called the “People’s Summit,” were essentially guaranteed since much of the organizing for each was local, and the potential for a
spectacular interruption of the neoliberal agenda being cultivated in the FTAA agreement was palpable as the summit approached. But students, unions, and sovereigntists were not the only source of active local engagement in the global mobilization.
The border presents a challenge
Though local support for visiting protesters was tremendous, getting to Quebec City turned out to be challenging. For activists traveling from the U.S. into Canada, tightened border security— meant to keep foreign demonstrators out of the country during the summit— presented a major difficulty. Activists’ concerns about getting into Canada stemmed from rumors, past experience (e.g., during the June 2000 Organization of
American States (OAS) meeting in Windsor, over 500 U.S. citizens were turned away at the Detroit/Windsor border) (Leroux 2001), and a growing list of people already being turned away at the border weeks ahead of the summit.90 One person I interviewed said his father kept calling him, telling him to forget about going to the protests, saying, in my
interviewee’s words, “They’re turning everyone back! I heard it on the radio, and yo!, they are turning EVERYBODY back!” Although the group I traveled with did get across, it was not easy: we were detained for over two hours at the border and questioned intensively, men separately from women; we were threatened repeatedly about the consequences for
90For example, a U.S. activist who had recently toured Canada to speak about issues of racism, police
brutality and the FTAA, was barred from entering Canada until he could prove he wasn't a "clear and present danger" to state security, even though he had been a frequent visitor to Canada in the past. Several other U.S. activists were denied entry into Canada just ahead of spokescouncil/strategy meetings in Quebec City. On the first occasion, ten activists from New York City (from the NYC Direct Action Network, the Ya Basta! Collective and Indymedia) were detained at the border while their van was searched, and their documents either confiscated or photocopied by border guards. Afterwards, they were turned away—even though none of them had a criminal record – with the explanation that, "it was their duty to protect the Canadian economy." Canadian immigration officials also put an “all-points bulletin” out to prevent well-known French activist farmer José Bové from attending the Summit. All of this was several weeks before the FTAA Summit. (Leroux 2001) There were also several reported incidents of discrimination against Mexican students and
indigenous activists, including unusual restrictions on their visitor permits and longer interrogations and detentions (MacKinnon 2001).
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giving misinformation, and we all agreed afterwards that the interrogation technique was psychologically manipulative.
Constructing an Indigenous/anarchist alliance
The Mohawk territory of Akwesasne straddles the US-Canadian border, stretching across the St. Lawrence River, which divides the two countries. Before long, the Three Nations Crossing bridge over the St. Lawrence, on Akwesasne territory, became the
centerpiece of a planned border-crossing for activists traveling to Quebec over land from the US. It was never clear to me how the arrangement was initiated—for example, I don’t know if plans began with an invitation from the Mohawk community to non-Native activists to use their bridge, or if the idea was first proposed by non-Native activists—but as the FTAA summit approached, talk of the border crossing on Mohawk territory was becoming
increasingly animated on listservs and websites.
Excitement among activists about the involvement of Mohawk Nation members in their logistical planning process grew tremendously as plans became more detailed. There would be a caravan of cars, vans, and buses full of activists trailing behind a large
contingent crossing on foot. Activists on the Canadian side were to swarm the border checkpoint on their side (or in other schemes, were to cross over to the U.S. side of the bridge and swarm that checkpoint), while the caravan assembled on the U.S. side and then traveled together to the border, crossing over Cornwall Island into the city of Cornwall on the Canadian side. Activists familiarized themselves with the history of the bridge as a site of Mohawk resistance to state regulatory power (including illegal alcohol trading during Prohibition and cigarette smuggling more recently (Bonaparte 2000)).
For Mohawk coordinators of the bridge-crossing action, resistance to the authority of the Canadian government was the dominant frame, but opposition to the free trade agenda fit well within this frame. One of the main Mohawk organizers explained his motivation for the action like this:
My motivation is to assert and reinforce the sovereign integrity of Mohawk people within the Mohawk nation and to bring the organizing bodies together so we can stand
and fight in preparation for the fall…We will engage in attacks against the provincial economy, the provincial infrastructure. We will shut down highways, roadways, bridges until this government is brought to its knees. (quoted in Zwarenstein 2001) He stated his opposition to free trade in more general terms: "Free trade does everything to help corporations, and absolutely shit to help people in poverty." (Zwarenstein 2001) Motivations for non-Native activists to participate in the Akwesasne border crossing initially had to do mostly with the practical need to get to Quebec City in the face of tightened border controls, but this motivation was supplemented with additional significance over time during the planning process.
Many activists began to signify the border crossing itself as an “action” in addition to—or even instead of—participating in the Quebec City protests. Activists who weren’t planning to go to the FTAA Summit began to plan border actions in other locations in solidarity with activists participating in the Akwesasne crossing, including locations along the US-Canada border and along the US-Mexico border. The largest of these solidarity border actions was jointly held in San Diego and Tijuana, and similar events were planned in Blaine, WA, Champlain, NY, Jackman, ME, and jointly in Buffalo/Ontario and
Windsor/Detroit (Leroux 2001). These actions were clearly not meant to serve the same logistical function as the crossing on Mohawk territory, but focused symbolically on the broader issues of border justice91 and state regulatory controls on the movement of people. The discourse developed through most of this organizing focused on the contradictions inherent in policies that open borders for capital and commodities but not people, a contradiction related directly to the project being cultivated at the FTAA Summit, but related as well—by glocal extension—to people engaged in struggles elsewhere and previously.
91‘Border justice’ is the umbrella term often used by activists to refer to struggles addressing injustices
resulting from controlled national borders, including especially the plights of undocumented workers, “illegals”, and those whose families and communities are divided by heavily policed national borders.
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In addition to drawing attention to border issues, the opportunity to actualize and activate a relatively latent solidarity between anarchists and Native Americans gave the Mohawk crossing plans even more significance. 92 One article that circulated widely on activist listservs, titled “Traditional Mohawks call for ‘Day of Rage’ April 19th and pledge to open border, welcoming anarchists,” explained the border crossing plans like this:
This is a chance to build an alliance between Anarchists and indigenous people. There is a lot we can learn from the Mohawk people, who have struggled for centuries against all forms of oppression at the hands of the capitalist system and the governments of both Canada and the U.S. (World War Three et. al. 2001).
An imaginary of Native strength—of fierce and brave Native warriors, with a formidable spirit of resistance and insurgency and a proven capacity to defy state authorities—began to be cultivated in the discourse generated in planning for the caravan. The same article
included the following account of Mohawk “Traditionalists”:
They have never conceded their land. They have never accepted the U.S. or Canadian government as legitimate. They have responded to oppression with armed resistance. The powerful spirit of insurgency has been very effective in the recent past as well. The federal governments have amassed to strike with horrendous force only to back off when it became apparent what they were up against: a people committed to sovereignty at all costs. AsAnarchists we aspire to be as strong and defiant as the Mohawk
Traditionalists already are…. Considering that the blood of 20 million Indigenous people has been spilled since imperialists first set foot on this country, and considering how fiercely these warriors have always resisted oppression, we consider it an honor to work with these uncompromisingly brave people. They are opening their land for us to reach Quebec City; we should open our hearts and raise our fists.” (World War Three et. al. 2001)
I don’t want to belittle this imagery as a wishful ‘invention of traditionalism’ constructed by those outside the Mohawk community; the characterization of Mohawk Traditionalists as defiant and fierce was also developed in some Mohawk activists’ own discourse about the action. For example, one Akwesasne organizer described the Mohawk stance this way: "We are preparing for every possible scenario. Certainly an aggressive stand by the state would not stop us from pursuing our objective — we'll respond to force with force and to
opposition with opposition.” (quoted in Zwarenstein 2001)
92Solidarity between self-identified anarchist environmentalists and certain Native communities had
been cultivated actively and directly for many years through encampments and direct actions on Native land in defense of Native autonomy and control over land and ecological “resources” (e.g., see Coronado 2000; Klasky 1999).
Excitement about the action swelled further as emails, listserv posts, and website updates announced that the caravan would be launched by a “family friendly fish fry” on the Mohawk territory. One non-Native activist I interviewed explained the enthusiasm to me like this:
There were all kinds of rumors about what kind of action it was going to be, and then I heard about this fish fry idea. It got around that whenever someone talks to the media they should mention the fish fry. So I sent out an announcement, a press release, saying “The crossing will be kicked off with a family friendly fish fry on Mohawk land”, and after that, every single thing that went out about it, all the emails, said, “Family friendly fish fry!” “Family friendly fish fry!” Like that totally legitimized the whole thing. People were so into the idea. It really added something.
The fish fry plan added a locally-particular detail to the global mobilization. Moreover, by calling it “family friendly,” added legitimacy to the action by framing the crossing as open to everyone, not just militant Natives and anarchists. Well before the FTAA Summit began, activists had mobilized a confluence of distinct imaginaries around the efforts to get to Quebec City for the protests, with multiple border justice actions, an Indigenous/anarchist alliance, and finally, a family friendly fish fry.
Deconstructing the imaginary of Native solidarity
Some activists began to sound warnings about the assumed solidarity between anti- FTAA activists and Mohawk people. Discussions about the relationship between protesters and the Mohawk community became especially contentious around the question of how unified the Akwesasne Mohawk community was in supporting the caravan. An
“Organizing Update” posted to the stopftaa.org website (one of the primary sources of information for those preparing to participate in the actions), explained that Mohawk society is not “politically homogenous”:
Some realities about working with the Mohawks: Mohawk society, like most societies, is not politically homogeneous. There are Mohawk freedom fighters, but there are also Mohawk police, Mohawk venture capitalists, Mohawk reactionaries and Mohawks working with the Canadian Government. Just as there are Anarchists, Republicans and all kinds of people in U.S. society. This action is being called by a group of Mohawk Traditionalists with radical politics. (So understandably, they have welcomed the U.S. Anarchists to cross their land.) It is possible that we will come into contact with some Mohawks who don't support the action. We may in fact be confronting Mohawk police officers. If this happens we should deal with this in a principled way and stand up to
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them as police - and not fall into raising racial issues. When possible, we will take the lead from our Traditionalist allies on how to deal with these situations.
The category “Traditionalist ally” had emerged in the discourse of the planning process as a distinct group within Mohawk society, isomorphic to anarchists within broader US and Canadian societies; by distinguishing this group from other groups of Mohawk society, activist commentators cultivated not only an appreciation for the political complexity of Mohawk society, but a more specific solidarity with a “radical” group engaged in challenging dominant politics within their own society.
Narratives like this on listservs became contentious as some activists were angry about suggestions that Mohawk people weren’t fully supportive. These activists argued that the comments were damaging to all of the effort that had gone into preparations for the caravan, and would decrease the chances of getting across. Furious that holes might be punched in people’s confidence in the plan, these angered activists seemed convinced that a more solid alliance with the Mohawk community could effect a successful crossing.
Meanwhile, some Mohawk residents of Akwesasne began to publicly express opposition to the action out of concerns that it would bring “disturbances” and “violence” to their
community (Leblanc 2001).
According to everyone I talked to, the action was “unsuccessful” and very few people—between 50 and 125 according to different reports—made it across the border as part of the caravan. The hoards of Canadians didn’t arrive to swarm the checkpoints, as hoped, and quite a few people were arrested in the process of trying to cross, presumably because they had warrants out or tried to force their way through. Some activists mocked the plan to overwhelm the border patrol after the fact. When I asked some friends if they’d heard anything about what had happened at the Cornwall crossing, they explained it this way:
Lena: One guy I talked to said that nobody was sure what was going to happen. People had different pictures of it in their heads. What they thought was that they would have the fish fry and it would be wonderful…. and that did happen. But then, I guess the Canadians activists were supposed to come across the border and commingle with the Americans and then they would all cross together.
Vinci: To distract them?
Lena: To make things…. confusing. [laughter] Another person said once they let the first few vans through, everybody would just go and, um, they would just rush the border, just overrun it.
Eli: Frankly, I don’t think you can overwhelm a militarized border patrol.
Lena: Well you can, but you need thousands and thousands and thousands of people… Preferably with guns of their own.
Eli: Or at least a lot of rocks. [laughter]
I talked to one person who was part of the caravan and he explained it like this:
Well, the first time I tried [to cross at Akwasasne], I was in a van full of body armor,