How did Quebec students mobilize hundreds of thousands for strikes?
Watch this video as Jeremie Wien, Alex Matak, and Gabriel Dubois, three of the leaders of Quebec's CLASSE student movement, explain the organization's extraordinary accomplishments.
The CLASSE movement has been able to maintain a massive student strike for months, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets of Montreal and other Quebec cities in defiance of the provincial government despite its repression of their civil liberties. Of late they have forced the government into what seem to be serious negotiations.
Nominally, the issue is tuition increases, but listen as they explain why
"This tuition fee hike is only the tip of the iceberg. The Neoliberal iceberg."
Sound eerily familar?
Selected quotes.
"How were you able to mobilize 250,000 people?"
"Our student unions are inherently political... A maximum number of students are able to participate in daily political life... instead of dedicating power to a group of individuals..."
"People had not only a direct vote but a direct say... that cultural change towards direct democracy was enough to mobilize people..."
"This happened ... at the same time as other things. A health tax. The first time in our history where we will ask people to pay for health... We are living a cultural revolution in Quebec where this government tries to destroy all the welfare system... this government is attacking all these services, privatizing them..."
"After four, five, six, seven weeks of strike people have protested, met workers in the street... people have nothing to do but talk politics and do actions... it creates a climate of... social change."
"We've been able to put very many issues, many political issues, many social issues, on the map... in the public debate... One of CLASSE's main demands has been for years free education, like we see in Europe... We shouldn't only limit ourselves to reacting... but also demand this broader project."
"Perhaps in the beginning people were mobilizing around this tuition increase, but the reason it is able to gather so many people... and be relentless ... is because people have come to realize how all the decades of social struggle are being attacked by this government... Drawing those deeper connections have been incredible important."
"The most important thing is to believe that you actually can overcome these things... With the right amount of passion, organization and resolve you can start to reverse the track of Neoliberalism... it just takes a lot of work."
"I saw so many schools thinking they would NEVER be on strike, that they would never have even a General Assembly, and they just did it. And it just worked."
"You only need a spark to light the fire... I think you can build on the popular disconent, that you've built on before, like the Occupy movement... and build broader mass movements to contradict the rise of Neoliberals in the States or in the rest of Canada."
Negotiations between CLASSE and the Quebec government have been going on for some days now, and it had been looking promising as late as yesterday evening.
However
QUEBEC: Negotiations to end Quebec's 16-week tuition conflict hit a wall Wednesday, with the government ignoring a counter-proposal by students to end the bitter standoff.
Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, told reporters the students did not expect an agreement Wednesday night, anticipating more questions and clarifications on Quebec's offer and their counter-offer.
"But right now we're facing a wall," Desjardins said.
Occupy Wall Street has been holding rallies in support of the Quebec protesters every day for a while now, and Occupy Oakland is
planning a solidarity march this coming Friday evening.
Notice the red panels of cloth two of the organizers in the first video are wearing. These have become a symbol of solidarity and resistance across the world in recognition of the incredible series of events that have happened in Quebec over these past months. I have one on my hat now. I suspect it will be put to good use on Friday.
-----
Postcript: Enjoy this video collage of a speech by Gabriel Dubois.
5:41 PM PT: An article from Alternet about the Quebec student movement