"Fuck it all": Review of the Spring 2015 Quebec student strike

Marianne Breton Fontaine

We need to be careful not to underestimate the importance of ideology in shaping our strategies and our daily struggles. This is demonstrated by the latest attempted general strike, which the Quebec student movement initiated last spring. This strike was conducted primarily based on anarchist principles. It was also the result of dissatisfaction among activists from the Maple Spring which ended in 2012, a dissatisfaction that comes from an incorrect analysis of the transformative potential of a student strike.

Discussion and debate: ultra-leftism and confidence in the people

How much faith should revolutionaries have in the working people and masses, to overthrow the system of capitalism and build a new society? It is an open debate, with Marxists and communists arguing strongly that there are both objective reasons (class struggle) and historic precedent for confidence in the working class majority. The view is not unanimously shared, however. Anarchists, such as Emma Goldman who is pictured left and who the quote below is from, are often much more cynical. Marxists have called-out these kind of approaches as "ultra-left" -- sounding very radical, but in practice promoting a sense of futility and hopelessness and leading to inaction. Writing in his notebook once, Lenin said "Anarchism is a product of despair." What do you think? How is Goldman's concept of freedom similar or different to that of Marxist concepts of freedom? How is it similar or different to the kind of conceptualization of freedom we hear on TV, at school or in political speeches?

All or nothing? The case for cross-Canada student unity.

Nora Loreto presents a hard-hitting commentary from the blog Rabble.ca about renewed claims of 16 CFS disaffiliations across Canada.  As has been said before, "Students have long rejected the parameters of Canada’s flawed Constitution, placing education as a provincial concern, and fought hard for a federal-level student movement... After smashing the CFS, what’s next? We would wake up with a horrible hangover and have to rebuild. At best, the defederation campaigns are an incredible waste of time and distraction; at worst they make all students, well beyond CFS members and including the Quebec’s student unions, incredibly vulnerable to the right’s agenda."  

Please note that not all the opinions expressed in this article are necessarily those of the Rebel Youth editorial board.

Making the case for Mass Action

By Johan Boyden and Drew Garvie
Rebel Youth, Issue 10, Summer-Fall 2010

In the context of the continuing debate about strategy and tactics in the Canadian youth and student movement, activists and organizations need to ask “what kind of youth movement are we building?"

We have now had several months to reflect on the events that unfolded when the G20 occupied Toronto, and also last winter’s 2010 Olympic demos in Vancouver. These events continue to be discussed within the youth and student movement, across English-speaking Canada and Quebec. The debate occurs at a time when there is a widespread critique of diversity of tactics post-G20.

Many are asking: what are other more effective, united and militant alternatives?