[Debate] (Fwd) 'Casserole cacophony' during Montreal's night march magic (Roger Rashi)

[Patrick Bond]

  Night march magic: Quebec people's movement takes over the streets

By Roger Rashi </category/bios/roger-rashi>
| May 25, 2012

It is well past midnight and I have been marching non-stop for the past 
four hours. There are literally tens of thousands of people marching 
throughout Montreal tonight!

The march I participated in started in one neighbourhood in Montreal, 
the Plateau, with a couple of dozen people at the corner of Mt-Royal and 
De Lorimier at 8pm. Within half an hour we were a thousand strong as 
people came out streaming from their homes, from restaurant terraces and 
coffee shops banging on pots and pans.

As we marched through the neighbourhood, we merged with other groups 
coming from the north, south, east and west. By 9pm we were several 
thousand. By 10pm were more than 10 housand and marching towards the 
neighbourhoods to the north: Rosemont, Villeray and Parc Extension. By 
11 pm, this march was over three kilometres long, with an estimated 20 
to 30 thousand people, chanting slogans and joyously banging on their 
pots and pans.

And this was only /one/ of several spontaneous marches going on 
throughout the city. The cops were practically invisible. How could they 
cope with thousands of people streaming simultaneously from 6 to 10 
different neighbourhoods in the city, with no fixed route and no 
discernible organization or leadership?

Throughout the day calls were put out through facebook and over the 
Internet with literally dozens of meeting spots given in a ten different 
neighbourhoods.

These marches are totally illegal, openly flaunting the repressive bill 
78, making a mockery of Premier Charest attempt to crush the student and 
peoples' movement.

It is a direct answer to the incredible number of mass arrests - close 
to 700 hundred people were arrested during Wednesday's nightly marches 
alone. These arrests have been replete with many acts of police 
brutality. Stupidly, the government thought this massive act of 
repression would cow the people, barely 24 hours after Tuesday's giant 
demo when more than a quarter of a million people marched in the streets 
of Montreal.


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Instead, this last gambit has exploded in the government's face, 
galvanizing hundreds of thousands of people and turning this struggle 
into a giant people's movement, the likes of which I have not seen in 
over 40 years of political activism in Quebec.

The people have taken over the streets and the city in a massive act of 
civil disobediance. Furthermore, the movement of civil disobediance has 
spread to the rest of the province with demonstrations, marches and pots 
being banged in many towns and cities accross Quebec.

This incredible movement sparked by the student strike against increased 
tuition fees has morphed into a powerful mass movement against austerity 
measures and repressive policies.

Far from petering out, it is gathering strength and has thrown the 
provincial government in total disarray. A full-fledged political crisis 
is looming.

Keep your eyes on Quebec, there is more to come!

/Roger Rashi is a long-time social activist in Quebec. /


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Tags:
Quebec students </taxonomy/term/20924> quebec student strike 
</category/tags-issues/quebec-student-strike>


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With all this attention has also come a flurry of criticism of the 
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    Comments

Submitted by Kaleidophonic on May 25, 2012 - 2:46pm.

Thank you Roger! I live in Verdun, a quiet neighborhood to the 
south-west, a good 30 minute metro ride from the plateau. Last night I 
was amazed to hear the pots-and-pandemonium marching just a half-block 
from my apartment, going down Wellington street, circling around not 
once but twice! I havn't been seeing many red squares out here, but it 
turns out people are more politically active than I thought. I quickly 
grabbed my cowbell and joined the fray, I think we were maybe 200 
strong. People were leaning out their windows and banging along with us, 
it was incredible. As a side note, I'm a historian of sound and social 
movements in Montreal, and this latest development has got me so geeked!!

Viva la casserole cacophony!

http://kaleidophonic.wordpress.com/

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