A few things. Last week we covered most of the required ground for the unit. It would have been nice to get into the underlying social causes for the UK riots of 2011 but since we probably won't have much time in class you might want to take a look at what I wrote immediately afterwards last year,
Blindness. The final obligatory part of the unit is about Syria; there's an article and a short video:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/middleeast/13syria.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14831387
For the remainder of the class and possibly for part of the next lesson, I'd like you to acquaint yourselves with some other protests, particularly the one in Quebec that has become known as the Printemps Erable, or the Maple Spring. Please read these two articles:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/how-quebecs-maple-spring-protests-fit-with-the-arab-spring-and-occupy-wall-street-sort-of/258402/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/07/quebec-students-lesson-protest-politics
If you're looking for more to read, you could also read
this,
this,
this or
this.
Also, notice a new link on the right to something called
RabbitFire.org. This is a project I've been working on with a few other teachers at the university (working on may not be the right expression, drinking and talking on is more like it). Anyway, there are videos of our discussions, including one about protests, that you are all encouraged to watch. Additionally, we are hoping to incorporate exercises to follow the discussions that eventually could be used as class quizzes. For now, it is completely optional so take a look if you have the time. I'll copy and paste the articles below - see y'all on Thursday.
Security Forces Kill at Least 15 People in Cities Around Syria
By NADA BAKRI
Published: August 12, 2011
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Tens of thousands of Syrians in cities and towns
around their country took to the streets on Friday after noon prayers
shouting “We will not kneel” in a strong show of defiance against the
government of President
Bashar al-Assad, and at least 15 protesters were killed by security forces, human rights activists and residents said.
The demonstrations were smaller than those held in past weeks, but they
were significant because they came after security forces took control
this month of the country’s two most restive cities, Hama in central
Syria
and Deir al-Zour in the east, in a military operation that activists
say left hundreds dead. The demonstrations on Friday were a clear sign
the armed forces could not intimidate protesters into staying home.
Hundreds of security troops were seen converging around mosques in a
number of Syrian cities and towns, often firing in the air in an attempt
to prevent departing worshipers from forming crowds. Some mosques in
Hama were even closed. In one protest on the outskirts of Damascus, the
capital, members of the security forces outnumbered the demonstrators.
“Today they were successful in dispersing the crowds by force,” Saleh
al-Hamawi, an activist from Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city and a
linchpin of the uprising, said by phone. “But they failed to put fear in
our hearts, which they are betting on.”
The violence came amid new calls by the United States for countries with
economic ties to Syria to “get on the right side of history” and
distance themselves from Mr. Assad. But there were also indications that
the United States and countries in Europe and elsewhere were not yet
ready to clearly demand that Mr. Assad step down.
Diplomats say that Turkey, Syria’s neighbor to the north, has given the
Syrian government two weeks to inaugurate meaningful political change in
a country that remains one of the region’s most authoritarian. The
Syrian government’s steps have so far been dismissed by opposition
figures as superficial.
“I wouldn’t like to see you regret that you’ve been far too late in very
little that you’ve done when you look back one day,” said a letter to
Mr. Assad from President Abdullah Gul of Turkey. It was carried to Syria
by
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during his visit this week and made public on Friday by Turkey’s Anatolian news agency.
The largest protests on Friday took place on the outskirts of Hama, in
Deir al-Zour, in Idlib Province near the border with Turkey and in
Latakia in the north. The Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella
group of activists who organize and document demonstrations, said
protesters came under fire before gathering in bigger crowds.
“The security used a different tactic today,” an activist who gave his
name as Hozan said by phone. “They attacked crowds immediately as they
came out of mosques.”
Others corroborated what appeared to be a shift in strategy by the
security forces. In Qaboun, a town on the outskirts of the capital,
activists said hundreds of people were arrested as they tried to gather.
“We couldn’t do anything today,” said a 40-year-old protester there who
gave his name as Ammar. “The number of security men was more than the
worshipers in the mosque. The regime is cornered and it will do anything
to stay in power.”
The security deployment was especially intense in Hama, where hundreds
of thousands had gathered in downtown Assi Square just weeks ago. Mr.
Hamawi, the activist from Hama, said that almost every mosque in his
city was surrounded by at least 15 security buses carrying 45 armed
plainclothesmen loyal to the government and known as shabeeha, who were
shooting in the air and at times toward the entrances of the mosques.
The Local Coordination Committees said that at least two people were
killed in Hama. Mr. Hamawi said that 40,000 people demonstrated in
different parts of Hama and its surroundings on Friday, though they were
prevented from gathering in a single march.
“The regime can stop us for a week or two weeks, but not forever,” vowed
another activist in Homs who gave his name as Abu Mohammed al-Hamawi.
In Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, activists and residents reported
that protesters had gathered after Friday’s noon prayers in at least six
neighborhoods, despite a government crackdown in the city and its
surroundings. A resident from Homs reached by phone, who gave her name
as Umm Janti, said that security men were roaming the streets hours
before the noon prayers and that as soon as protesters began to gather,
the security men began shooting at them. At least one person was killed.
“Curse your soul, Hafez, for the idiot you brought up,” went a chant
audible over the phone line. Mr. Assad inherited power from his father,
Hafez, in 2000.
In addition to the deaths in Hama and Homs, the Local Coordination
Committees said that four people were killed in Douma, on the outskirts
of Damascus; four were killed in Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city;
one in Saqba, another suburb of the capital; one in Deir al-Zour; and
two in Idlib.
Rights groups say more than 2,000 people have been killed since the
popular uprising against Mr. Assad’s rule started in March. The
government disputes their account of the uprising; it says that it is
facing a foreign conspiracy and blames Muslim extremists for the unrest.
In Washington on Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged
other countries to join in isolating Mr. Assad’s government.
“In particular, we urge those countries still buying Syrian oil and gas,
those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose
political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get
on the right side of history,” Mrs. Clinton said after a meeting with
Norway’s foreign minister, Jonas Gahr Store.
How Quebec's 'Maple Spring' Protests Fit With the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street (Sort Of)
By Eric Garland
inShare16
Jun 12 2012, 10:59 AM ET
The demonstrations, first against tuition prices and now
against anti-assembly limits, have more in common with other protest
movements than you might think.
A
protester kicks a tear gas canister back towards police during a
demonstration in Victoriaville, Quebec, on May 4, 2012. (Reuters)
When the Quebec student protests began in February over a
proposed tuition hike, it didn't look much like, say, Occupy Wall Street, or
especially not like the Arab Spring. It still mostly doesn't -- no one thinks
Canadian tanks will be flooding the streets anytime soon -- but it has taken an
unusual turn since the Quebec National Assembly passed an emergency law in May
to limit public assembly. Bill 78 sparked
more
and much larger protests, with the issues now bigger than just the price of
education. So, put aside for a moment the myriad and important differences
between Quebec's protest movement and Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring,
and consider these thematic similarities in the events:
- The government oversteps
with an abusive action or announcement of an offensive policy.
- Young people begin
protesting to decry the injustice and start a larger
debate about the legitimacy of the government, and its habit of doing
favors for the rich and established at the expense of the young and poor.
- The government cracks down
on protestors, spurring criticisms of illegally crushing free speech.
- Instead of quelling the
dissent, the attempts to shut down protests helps expand
them, contributing to a nationwide conversation about people's shared
distrust of failing institutions.
This is Le Printemps Erable, or
the Maple
Spring as some call it, one of the largest social movements to hit Quebec in
decades. But, in the most general terms, this pattern could describe many popular
movements of the past three years: the Green Revolution of Iran, the Arab
Spring, Occupy Wall Street. (Though on wildly different scales -- Canada, of
course, enjoys a stable democracy rather than a military dictatorship or a
theocracy, and its relatively modest finance sector has suffered no
Lehman-style disasters.) Every time we think a protest movement has dissipated,
something like it reappears in another section of the world, spurred by similar
themes and resulting in a similar dance between authority figures and masses of
people disenchanted with their leadership.
Thankfully, Quebec shares little in common with the
desperation of Tunisia, Egypt, or Iran, even if this social movement borrows some
rhetorical themes from their struggles. Around 100 days ago, students in Quebec
began protesting en masse against a proposal by the Liberal government of Jean
Charest, a significant rate hike for higher education that would be paid
directly by students. While the actual rate hike measures in the hundreds of
dollars per year -- sums that sadly wouldn't impress Americans living under a
colossal, tragic trillion dollars of student debt -- Quebec is one of the most
heavily taxed places in Canada, extracting funds that are already supposed to
go to health care, higher education, and social services. Many of the students
are stepping forward against what they see as a fundamental change in the deal
they are getting from society, being asked to pay more for credentials to enter
an ever-weaker job market.
The Charest government, seeing that protests were continuing
longer than with most student protests, and threatening to encroach on Quebec's
profitable summer tourist season, tried outlawing protests over 50 people
without consulting police first. This not only failed to break up individual
protests, but as in so many countries before, only expanded the movement to
question the entire economic system, leading Quebecois from a variety of ages
and backgrounds to join in. What started as a students-only protest is spilling
over into a much broader debate about inequality and, ultimately, the future
that peoples' leaders appear to be offering.
But this is also part of a larger trend. It's amazing how
quickly these regional and specific discussions -- police brutality in Tunisia,
income inequality in the U.S., college tuition in Quebec - spill over into some of the same themes we see
globally. A government, possessing economic and military authority, makes a
move that finally angers people enough to send them into the streets. In Iran,
it was doubts over election returns. In Tunisia, it was a single humiliated
street cart vendor committing suicide. At Occupy Wall Street it was a non-event
-- the deafening silence from President Obama and Attorney General Holder,
finding insufficient evidence in trillions of dollars of crooked mortgages and
derivatives flim-flam to put a single Ponzi banker in front of a grand jury.
The people leave the confines of their couches to meet each other in the street
and make their presence seen, heard, and felt. The authorities react harshly,
and then it becomes about something bigger: Governments these days seem readier
to punish the poor and powerless, reserving their tolerance for the elements of
society that do their protesting through lobbying and campaign finance. Holding
the powerful to account for wrongdoing, especially of the economic variety, is not
easy -- but when the young, poor, or marginalized are out in numbers,
questioning the social contract, then the government finds its authority. That's
not to say that Quebec's Bill 78 is analogous to the Arab Spring crackdowns --
the protesters weren't seeking the downfall of the government, after all, nor
was the government trying to quell all dissent so much as to clear the streets
in time for tourist season. But it's telling that, when the Quebec authorities
went to act, they decided that the problem was that protesters had too many
rights.
In the broadest terms, these sorts of movements and state
reactions appear to be working in similar ways nearly everywhere, whether in
the desperate urban poverty of Cairo or the cosmopolitan prosperity of
Montreal. As the global economic slowdown squeezes governments and elites and
regular non-elite people alike, the world is entering more fully into the
politics of less, where deals are rewritten and expectations lowered. It's the
young who seem first and loudest, ready to ask whether this is the only future
possible. Institutions offer the same old answers in reply. And because of
that, Quebec is certainly not the last place we should expect this pattern. If
this is really a Quebec Spring, then it may be spring in a lot of places for a
long time to come.
Quebec's students provide a lesson in protest politics
Sustained action over tuition fees helped defeat Quebec's Liberal government by appealing to a wide movement for change
While the NUS is
converting itself into a tame lobbying organisation, Quebec students
have a tradition of grassroots organising, and four relatively
democratic federal organisations that rank and file student bodies can
affiliate with.
Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images
So this is how it's done. Students in Quebec, in rebellion
against their government over tuition fees, have scored an amazing
victory in the province's general elections.
The Liberal
government led by Jean Charest, which ran on a law-and-order platform
against the students, has been defeated. Its plans to implement an 82%
tuition fee increase
are shredded for now, and the
harsh emergency legislation it passed to quell the upsurge
is history. Charest is resigning from politics. Two members of the leftist group,
Québec Solidaire, have been elected, and the party gained more than 6% of the popular vote.
For
those used to student movements that erupt suddenly only to deflate
within a few weeks or months, this defies belief. How, then, was such an
effective action actually sustained, in defiance of police crackdowns
and emergency legislation?
Students in Quebec inhabit
militant traditions
inherited from the "quiet revolution" of the 1960s, when the province's
francophone majority pushed for full access to higher education as part
of a series of sweeping reforms. This inaugurated a student movement,
whose signature was the mass student strike. Each time a government
attempted to drive up tuition fees, the students walked out – and most
of the time, they won. As a result, there is a thriving democratic
culture among Quebec's students. While the NUS is converting itself into
a tame lobbying organisation, Quebec students have a tradition of
grassroots organising, and four relatively democratic federal
organisations that rank-and-file student bodies can affiliate with.
The
radical spearhead of the movement is the Coalition Large de
l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante, or Classe.
Emerging from a decade of leftwing student unionism, Classe was
explicitly formed in December 2011 to build a students' strike to stop
the fees rise. Going further than most student bodies, it demanded the
cancellation of all tuition fees, to be paid for by a tax on banks. This
stance was very popular, and the group eventually incorporated 65 local
affiliates and 100,000 members comprising the most politicised and
activist core of the province's 400,000 strong student body.
General
assemblies of students were held across Quebec, to discuss and
implement a strike. This meant boycotting and picketing classes, and at
their height the strikes achieved the support of 300,000 students. The
structures of direct democracy built on campuses sustained the momentum
behind the strikes, enabling students to meet, discuss and make
decisions on a regular basis. Each month, the movement called a mass
mobilisation, with tens of thousands of students gathering in the Place
du Canada in Montreal. But there was also a heated debate over the
strategy and goals of the movement. It wasn't enough to keep the
momentum going. In addition to the strikes, radical students sought to
disrupt the smooth functioning of the economy and the government,
carrying out blockades and occupations of banks and government
buildings.
But students also reached out to the labour movement. Theirs was a
class issue,
they insisted, and Classe called for a "social strike" of both students
and workers. They consciously sought alliances with Rio Tinto workers
locked out of their jobs, public sector workers facing cuts, campaigns
against increased fees for healthcare, and local resistance to the
government's attempts to turn over northern resources to the mining
industry. Neighbourhood protests became a regular occurrence. A number
of union federations passed motions for strike action, though as yet the
resistance from union leaders is too strong, and the labour militants
too weak, to make it happen.
Importantly, the student leadership
refused to be divided. When the government excluded Classe from
negotiations, in the hope of engaging the more moderate student
federations in a compromise, the latter walked out.
The government's biggest mistake was passing
Bill 78,
imposing severe restrictions on the right of students to protest.
Though supported by the Quebec Council of Employers, the bill was
otherwise reviled. Rather than breaking the students, the repression
produced a
much wider movement.
Up to half a million people marched in clear defiance of the law. Those
returning home from law-breaking protests were greeted by families
banging pots and pans
in their support, from their windows and in the streets. Some of the
country's largest trade unions joined in the protest. To get a sense of
how improbable this is, compare it with our student protests beginning
in November 2010, where the NUS and UCU leaderships organised timid
demonstrations separate from the main protests.
The Liberals'
defeat can be traced to that defiance. But the Parti Québécois, which
has just won, is not an ally of the movement. The new government will
probably seek to negotiate a smaller fees increase with the agreement of
the less militant student bodies. At any rate, the movement has long
been about more than fees. Classe intends to keep the pressure on, with
new assemblies and protests, aiming to build the widest possible
movement to challenge neoliberalism. British students should take the
hint.
