HopeDance

LIBERATION SCHOOL

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The university does not meet our needs, not our educational needs, not

our social needs, not our need to understand ourselves in Quebec. By re-

jecting the university's five-year plan for the production of corporate

executives and bureaucrats, we can collectively build a school that has both

relevance and purpose. Liberation School has been created to give pro-

gressive and concerned people the opportunity to learn through study and

action, and thus tear down the artificial barrier that has bee" ""f- up

between theory and practice. The emphasis of Liberation School is on group

study--a collective learning effort leading to a collective analysis of the

realities we face as English-speaking people in Quebec.

Traditionally, the student's fate has been to play a passive role in

the bourgeois university system. This educational system is designed to

produce compliant citizens. Students are also driven to compete with each

other in order to have a successful academic career. In this process, one

based on individual competitiveness and social passivity, the university

fails to' provide the skills or to promote the confidence that people need to

question and change society.

This educational structure churns out unthinking graduates with degrees

and diplomas which have little value and less meaning. The university en-

courages the idea that knowledge is something reserved for academics, and

to get an education, we must remain isolated from the problems and doings of

ordinary people. We cannot criticize what education has come to mean, but

instead must accept a totally alienating and frustrating educational system.

So we are pushed into adopting a cynical outlook--a sense that nothing will

change, so it is useless to try. In our academic detachment, the university

would have us believe that learning amounts to only thinking, and that poli-

tical action,, is .lust what people carry out when they don't think.

We wish to make our decisions about what to learn follow from our de" ,

cisions about what tp do politically. Conscious of the urgent need to clar-

ify the role of Anglophones within political movements in Quebec, we are

creating LiberationSchool to spur people toward a full participation in the

Quebec liberation struggle. Liberation School will act as a source of energy

and knowledge to that end, and not simply as a parallel or alternative to the

present university system.

 

WHY NOT MAKE LIBERATION SCHOOL WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE UNIVERSITY AMD

TRY TO CHANGE IT FROM THE INSIDE?

 

Liberation School stands in opposition to the ideas and values that

are dominant at bourgeois universities, as exemplified by McGill.

By trying to change McGill through administrative procedures, we would

become bogged down in a committee system which even committee members will

admit is too unwieldy to effect real change.  University administrators

not only have a long record of intransigence with regard to  reasonable

demands for reform"; but, they have also demonstrated their absolute

unwillingness to listen to students whose aim is involvement in the Quebec

liberation struggle.  The failures of politically active departmental asso-

ciations such as the Sociology Students Union and the Political Science

Association have taught many student reformers that they were reasonable in

vain.

Liberation School poses a threat to university faculty members who

stand to lose their monopoly on approved political outlooks, and their

control of what is taught and how.  The record shows that course reforms

granted to students are token, and worth far less than the efforts made to

obtain them.  Our contention is based on that record:  we feel that time

spent on further attempts at reform is time better used for bringing about

change in our way of learning and in the politics of our community.

If we depend on university funds to sustain Liberation School, we have

no assurance that they will not be cut off when we undertake meaningful

political activity.  Rather than face obstacles like these, we feel we ought

to avoid them.  If we are to consider our school independent, we must accept

the responsibility to maintain it ourselves, both in terms of work and

financial commitments.

 

POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OF LIBERATION SCHOOL

 

Our fundamental political premise can be stated in a single sentence:

We assert that Quebec is our nation.  We are saying chat we are not only in,

but also of, Quebec.

We recognize that historically Anglophones have been segregated from

Francophones by language, culture and privilege.  Anglophones, as a group,

represent a privileged minority, benefitting from the systematic economic

exploitation and social deprivation of the Francophone majority.  The end

result of this history of colonization and exploitation has been the crea-

tion of the "Quebecker" as a separate group opposed to the Quebecois.  Yet

we also recognize that the Anglophone community of workers and immigrants has

been manipulated to create a false consciousness resulting in fear of and

racism against the Francophone community.  We repudiate that false con-

sciousness.  We want to take our place in Quebec's struggle for justice and

self-determination.  Rather than being "Quebeckers", we wish to become, in a

true sense, Québecois.

We can learn from the mistakes and failures of groups who held that

only through cultural assimilation-- the attempt to completely adopt French

Canadian language and culture-- could Anglophones become a part of the Quebec

struggle.  We have seen that groups who take this position fail because it

is impossible to build a movement for liberation on the basis of cultural

rejection or self-hatred. We cannot deny the culture and heritage of our

birth, we cannot "unlearn" what has shaped our lives. Not only is it impos-

sible to deny our roots, we have no desire to do so. We have many national

and ethnic origins; we are also part of the people of Quebec, but we are not

yet necessarily Québecois. French is the language of Quebec, and we. want to

speak this language and learn the history and traditions of our nation. When

we join the people of Quebec as our brothers and sisters in the struggle to

transform our society, then, we believe, we will be Québecois.

We also recognize that wishing for something does not make it so. Just

as Quebec is not yet independent, neither are we Québecois merely because we

wish it. Just as we shall have to struggle for independence, so shall we

have to struggle to take our place in Quebec's history.

This is our beginning.

 

 

 

PART ONE: ELEMENTS OF OUR ANALYSIS

 

COLONIALISM IN QUEBEC

 

Among people committed to the notion that fundamental political

change is necessary in Quebec, there is consistent agreement that Quebec

Is a colonized nation. But colonized in what way? After all, the argument

is often made that Quebec is a province in the sovereign state of Canada:

it can't, then, be compared to the colonies controlled by Britain and France

in Africa and Asia, for example. Quebec, it would be added, has its own leg-

islature, elected democratically by its people. It has a free press, pro-

tects the right of free speech, and so on. Furthermore, the argument might

run, there is opportunity to "get ahead", start a business, go to school, and

in general, to prosper   It might be conceded that Quebec has an unemployment

problem and its share of social conflicts. The response to these problems

would be that Quebec can create jobs by attracting industrial investment

and that social conflicts are normally present in free societies, but that

they are not particularly worrisome. Although this picture of Quebec may

seem superficially true, a closer examination reveals that Quebec is, in

fact, a colonized nation.

 

IN WHAT WAY IS QUEBEC A COLONY?

 

The establishment of foreign industrial investment may have solved im-

mediate unemployment crises in Quebec, but it served to mask the development

of a full-scale sell-out of Quebec to U.S. corporate interests. We now find

ourselves in a situation in which decisions concerning our lives and our work

are made by institutions and individuals external to Quebec, who are inter-

ested in serving their own needs and interests, and not those of the national

population. Workers in Quebec are employed when convenient, and unemployed

when convenient. They produce according to what will yield the most profit

to the owners, not according to their own needs. Decisions about wages,employ-

ment, and the utilization of natural resources are largely made by U.S. and

other multi-national corporations. These decisions are effected through sub-

sidiary and affiliate companies, and through governmental catering to big

business interests.

 

ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

 

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SOCIAL CLASS IN QUEBEC?

 

Quebec's colonial status, the fact that it is bound to serve the needs

not of its own people, but its people's exploiters, reminds us that it is

necessary to arrive at an accurate picture of economic and political reality,

a picture whose details are worked out through class analysis.

Social class is the basic element in the social organization of capital-

ist societies.  Social class is generally determined by either ownership or

non-ownership of the means of production---the machinery, the factories and

the buildings, that is, the physical stock of capital which is used to pro-

duce goods and services.  Ownership and non-ownership determine wealth and

power.  Wealth and power, political and social, are concentrated in the hands

of those capitalist entrepreneurs who own and who manage the means of produc-

tion, particularly the great multi-national corporations.  The owning class

(bourgeoisie) may be subdivided as follows:

 

-An American bourgeoisie living outside of Quebec, which is by far

 the most important.(The owners of I.T.&T., G.M., A.T.&T.)

 

-An Anglo-Canadian bourgeoisie spread all across Canada.(Canadian

 Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Trust, Sunlife)

 

-A French-Canadian bourgeoisie which can again be subdivided as

 follows:

 

1. The first group serves the American and Anglo-Canadian

   bourgeoisies and is completely integrated with them.

   (Rayonnier Co.--affiliated with I.T.&T.)

 

2. A professional and technocratic petite bourgeoisie

   (middle class) whose ambition is to replace the Angle

   Canadian bourgeoisie in Quebec, especially through the

   use of state institutions(lawyers, engineers, professors).

 

The second broad class is made up of non-owners:  workers--labourers (men and

women), clerks, secretaries, housekeepers--who work only for wages, 'yet who

do the real work of extraction, manufacturing and transportation, and non

workers--the unemployed, welfare recipients and native peoples,

Social class is overwhelmingly important to each person, since it is

social class which determines life-chances, the  opportunity one has for

an education, for a job, for social prestige, indeed, for almost everything

in life.

 

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WORKING-CLASS?

 

Primarily, it means that people do not own the products of their labor.

A group of men may labor to assemble an automobile, for example, but they do

not own the car that rolls off the assembly line. They are paid only for the

hours of labor that it took them to assemble it in the first place. Thus,

rail profits from the sale of the finished product are appropriated by the

owners of the factory. It may well be that the ore to make the steel, the

copper wiring, the chrome, and all the parts of the car were mined or pro-

cessed by Quebec workers-- but the ore and the steel and the w:    re owned

by U.S. companies, for example. General Motors at Ste-Therese. These materials

are used to construct cars made by Quebec labor. But the factories, mines

rand plants are, again, American-owned. This is what it means to say "workers

do not own the means of production" even though the sale of their labor (wages)

is absolutely essential at every step of the process of production, from miner,

to assembly line worker, co consumer.

 

The worker produces the wealth, but he does not share in the wealth. The

wages of workers never rise above the level of consumption-- a worker must

spend all of his wages on the subsistence needs of his family. This is why

workers rarely get rich and are rarely able (and then only through great sacri-

fices) to save enough money to send a child through university. Wage labor

means a life-time of work as generation after generation produces wealth

but cannot accumulate the fruits of that wealth.

 

Without wealth there is no power. Power and prestige are reserved for

those who are owners and care-taker managers. If every worker stopped working,

there would be no production, no wealth, no capitalism--yet workers, who really

produce the wealth, are held in contempt, restricted by the legal system,

subject to oppression, denied opportunities, and paid the lowest possible

wages. The working class carries the brunt of social injustice and experiences

the worst features of social deprivation, since it is the working class who

always pays the price when anything goes wrong in the capitalist system.

If owners have to lay off workers, they will do it whether workers are unionized

or not. If they can't make any more profits, they will close down the com-

pany and put the employees out of work before their accumulated revenues are

eaten away by losses. Worker unemployment may be up to 8 per cent of the labor

force, but corporate profits will rise all the same.

 

 

WHAT DOES POWER MEAN IN A CAPITALIST SOCIETY?

 

It is because the worker is at the bottom of the heap, subject to all forms

of social and economic exploitation, that workers are able to understand power.

Every day, the worker experiences the power of the boss, of the courts, of

the police and of the politicians. In extreme cases, all of these forces act

upon the working class at once. In the recent Common Front general strike,

for example,  250,000 workers not only faced the intransigence of the govern-

ment in the face of demands for a fair minimum wage, but they also felt the

force of court-imposed fines and police raids on the picket lines.

 

     The ruling and managerial class also understands power because they

exercise it, and they are fully aware of the dangers of working class re-

bellion. Under bourgeois democracy in Quebec, the corporate ruling class, through

many mechanisms, assures that the State acts in its interests. For instance,

the General Council of Industry, an advisory body to the Quebec government,

which is made up of representatives from major corporations here, oversees

the initiatives made by the Bourassa regime to attract foreign investment in

Quebec. In 1968, at a cost of $200,000, the General Council financed an ex-

hibit at the Fourth Annual Investors Institute Conference in New York, to ad-

vertise Quebec's  natural resources and cheap labor to potential American in-

vestors. Premier Bourassa himself has made similar jaunts to the carpeted

boardrooms of Wall Street for the same purpose.  And all of these initiatives

are in line with a general government policy of promoting the creation of a

supply of technocrats and professionals to run American branchplants in Quebec.

Proof of the seriousness of this policy is provided in the form of the recently-

drafted Roseau Report. According to the report, Quebec higher education policy

from now on will specifically favor management and engineering training. Moreover,

directives from the Ministry of Education indicate that preference will be given

in financial allocations to universities which graduate technocrats. These

examples are meant to furnish only the most recent indications of long trends

of State rule in the interest of the corporate ruling class in Quebec.

 

     The middle classes, those in service and technical functions, have the

least understanding of power because they neither exercise it to any signi-

ficant degree, nor are they subject to its direct abuses. It is this "ivory tower" existence, buffered by social privilege and a relatively high standard of

living, that permits middle class people to shake their heads in disbelief

when police abuses and brutality are recounted, or to claim that "democracy

works" or to condemn strikes which inconvenience them, or to describe rebels

and revolutionaries as criminals, insane or irrational fanatics. It is also

this "ivory tower" existence which creates a malaise in which nothing seems

to mean very much and where affluent consumerism is .all that seems to give

meaning to existence.

 

     Most students at McGill fall into this class, and this is why it is so

easy to transmit, through a McGill education, an image of society in which

there is no cause, no effect, no evolution, no possibility  for coherent vision

of the world, no basis for commitment. The result of this kind of education

is a profound cynicism, coupled with a driving ethic to "make it", to attain

an affluent life-style.

 

     These class characteristics explain in part why workers and peasants have

formed the fighting vanguard of revolutionary movements; why the ruling class

always forms the conservative opposition, always prepared to use violent re-

pression, and why middle class liberals have their muddled programs for minor

reforms designed to patch up the system.

 

 

WHY IS WORKING CLASS LEADERSHIP NECESSARY IN REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE?

 

     When we understand that it is the exploitation of the working class

which forms the basis of the capitalist system, we can also understand why the

working class takes the lead in demanding fundamental changes in society, and

why the working class, since it has the greatest stake in fundamental change,

is the only class capable of winning the struggle for liberation.

 

     Middle class people readily reject all analyses which demonstrate the

necessity for working class leadership. The point is made that workers, far

from being revolutionary, are backward, reactionary, or satisfied with "the

highest standard of living in the world," Such views reflect both the ignorance

and arrogance of middle class attitudes toward the working class. First, middle

class people are unaware that "working class affluence" is a myth. Second, the

imagined "reactionary" nature of the working class is, in fact, based on work-

ing class cynicism concerning "reform".

 

     Middle class contempt for working class agitation also ignores the great

risks and hardships to which the working class is subject in its struggles. A

worker will be fired if he agitates on the job; he may even be blacklisted

so that he cannot support his family, with the consequence that he sinks into

the marginal lower   class. Every time a strike is called, workers lose their

wages and are given only subsistence strike pay which subjects t^em and their

families to further economic hardships. The middle class person is not in a

position to understand the frustration and the anger which build up in men

and women who know that they will work all their lives, yet will not be able to

free themselves from the hardships of wage labor.

 

     Middle class arrogance also overlooks the fact that while intellectuals

are talking revolution, they often become the enemies of true revolutionary

movements when they come to understand that their special privileges as technocrats

and intellectuals might be swept away along with the ruling class. Furthermore,

middle class radicals simply do not believe that the ruling class responds

with ruthless violence and repression to any real challenge to its power. Talk-

ing about revolution and calling oneself a radical hardly threatens the state,

and thus may be carried on in the comfort of one's well-appointed apartment.

 

     Of course, it is very easy for middle class intellectuals who have never

experienced the brutally repressive power of the state, to castigate the "workers"

because they do not, upon hearing a lecture on Marxist theory, leap to the bar-

ricades gun in hand. Workers, knowing the power of the bosses and the police, will

first try every means short of violent confrontation to bring about changes

in their lives.

 

     It is also important to realize that there is nothing "mystical" in under-

standing the central role of workers in struggles to create fundamental social

change. When times are good, for example, during the twenty years in which

the wealth of U.S. imperialism could “buy off” the workers with relatively high

wages, working class people were not prepared to risk their lives any more than

any other group or class would risk their lives when times are good. For this

reason, it is incorrect to see students, who are socially privileged, or those

white collar workers with high rates of pay, as "revolutionary” classes.

 

     The truth is that people do not make revolutions because they read a

book; but because the conditions of their lives are made intolerable by social

injustice and economic deprivation. Only when people are up against the wall

are they willing to take on the awesome task of direct confrontation with

the armed power of the state.

 

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF ADOPTING A WORKING CLASS PERSPECTIVE

 

     People who have come to the understanding that fundamental political

change is the only solution to our problems, must learn to adopt a working class

perspective, an understanding of the life conditions, experience, and aspirat-

ions of the majority of people in Quebec. If such a working class perspective

is not developed, then people may come to wrong conclusions, based on a class

experience which does not permit them to understand the real workings of capital-

ism and the colonial situation, or the dynamics of the class struggle which is

the only means by which fundamental changes can be brought about. However, in

attempting to develop a working class perspective,  nothing could be more patron-

izing and harmful than romanticizing working class people, or taking a "bleeding

heart" liberal attitude of "Oh my, the poor suffering workers."

 

 

WHAT IS THE POWER OF THE WORKING CLASS?

 

     The working class has power in capitalist countries because it is engaged

in productive labor, that is,  the extraction of raw materials and the manufactur-

ing of products. While white collar workers and professionals perform essential

services, they are not engaged in production itself. The service sector is im-

portant, and strikes in this sector can halt many of the operations of the system.

Yet, as long as workers are still producing, the disruptions  in the service sector

can be overcome. But a strike at the point of production can bring the entire

system to a halt. That is why the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of workers

is the general strike, when all workers, both in production and service, withhold

their labor. It is in the general strike that the essential importance of the

working class is demonstrated. Of what use are managers when they have nothing

to manage? Every benefit, every gadget, every element of the "good life" is a

product, not, of management or the corporation, but of human labor.

 

 

UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS DOES THE WORKING CLASS PLAY THE REVOLUTIONARY ROLE?

 

     The key to the puzzle of when the working class in any given country will

play the leading role in revolutionary struggle is in the nature of capitalism it-

self. Within capitalism there are basic contradictions: the existence of great

wealth in the hands of  the few and great poverty among many; the potentiality

to produce sufficient goods for everyone, yet the fact of many going without

the essentials of life. However, the most fundamental contradictions are:

(1) the creation of two antagonistic classes--the working class and the

ruling class; (2) the cycles of boom-recession-boom in the economy which

result from the anarchy and irrationality of capitalist forms of production.

Capitalism, because of its very organization, creates the social conditions

which drive the working class to organized conflict and ultimately to revo-

lution. Every time there is a depression (or "recession") the hardship and

deprivation of the working class increases. We see this same relationship

now, when the decline of the U.S. economy has led to very high rates ofun-

employment in both the U.S. and Canada. What we must understand today is

that the era of affluence, when the U.S.A. was the supreme economic, force

in the world, is coming rapidly to a close. The U.S. economy has been weakened

by its own contradictions--competition between imperialist powers, and the

U.S. multi-national corporations' rape of the domestic U.S. economy.

During the period of American economic supremacy, people came to believe that

U.S. capitalism was bound to have an unending spiral of expansion, that U.S.

imperialism was unassailable, that the conditions which drive people to revo-

lutionary struggle would never come into existence. Since 1966, this myth of

triumphant U.S. imperialism has been crumbling as U.S. trade supremacy, cur-

rency and the ability to compete has eroded. By 1972, the economic decline

(to which there is no forseeable end) is sharp enough for all to recognize.

The economic and social conditions which create revolutionary movement among

the working classes are emerging within the U.S.A. ^"d Quebec.

 

 

CULTURAL OPPRESSION AND ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

 

     When we say that decisions concerning Quebec's economic future are made

by foreigners, we do not mean that Quebec is indirectly subject to foreign

controls merely because it is one of the provinces of foreign-dominated

Canada. Quebec forms both a special national and economic entity; Special

as a national entity since its language, culture and traditions are unique

in North America. Special economically because Quebec is a great place to

invest--the labor here is cheap, minerals and hydro-electric power are in

abundance and the Quebec government is always willing to make a deal. Because

of the emphasis on so-called resource-development, the rape of Quebec, the

indiscriminate extraction of its raw materials for export to other nations,

is. graphic. In this way Quebec is clearly subject to foreign economic control.

But Quebec's cultural roots are also being eaten away by foreign influences.

No one denies, for example, that Quebecois culture has been adversely af-

fected by American trends in music, literature, and language.

     Not only does the profit from Quebec labor flow out of the province,

but the Quebec people have no control over the actual decisions concerning

Quebec jobs, Quebec resources, and the Quebec economy. Indeed, the very

cultural history and activities of Quebec have been distorted and manipulated

in the service of these foreign institutions. What all of this means is that

there are two simultaneous forms of exploitation and oppression in Quebec-

cultural oppression and economic exploitation.

 

 

WHAT DOES CULTURAL OPPRESSION MEAN?

 

     The bigoted belief that English culture, personality and language are

superior to that of the French, has worked to justify the enormous privileges

which the English minority has secured for itself at the expense of the

French majority. In other words, a particular kind of racism has helped to

justify and sustain Anglophone economic dominance.

     In the 1800's, the official British view of the cultural inferiority of

the Québecois was perhaps more overtly racist than the Anglophone outlook

today:

 

     "Is this French Canadian nationality a nationality?... I know of

     no national distinction marking and continuing a more hopeless

     inferiority.... They are people with no history and no literature.

     Their nationality operates to deprive them of the enjoyments and

     civilizing influence of the arts." (Durham Report 1839)

 

     Durham's upraised eyebrow is indicative not of a situation of passive

Québecois peasants, but ironically, of a situation of proud people unwilling

to shape themselves to the British cultural mould.

     In our own time, Anglophones tend not so much to stress the innate

inferiority of the Quebecois culture as much as they point to the "fact"

that French Canadians, as a cultural group, have not cultivated the skills

needed to become successful businessmen and professionals. The liberal Anglo-

phone explanation of Québecois "underdevelopment" is that the Church has

tended to undermine French Canadian competitiveness, and has isolated the

Québecois from the business life of the cities.

     Historically, however, it has not been the Church which has "kept the

French Canadians down". By the early 1800's a situation ha  developed which

provided the economic basis for the isolation of the habitant settlers from

the centers of control in Quebec. On one hand, a small mercantilist class had

arrived in the trading towns of Montreal and Quebec with a view of making

them profitable industrial centers. In order to accomplish this, they needed

to develop a modern agricultural industry to sustain these towns. On the

other hand, English seigneurs who had taken over from French seigneurs after

the Conquest wanted to keep the agricultural areas in small self-sufficient

units, thus increasing their own profits. Initially, the seigneurs won out.

They managed to keep their agricultural units from feeding the trading towns.

As a result, the habitants remained in a cloistered seigneurial setting, open

to the very substantial influence of the local cure. Thus, it had been to the

advantage of the Church to side with the seigneurs in the dispute with the

mercantilists. The dominant groups in the dispute, therefore, were the Eng-

lish. The Church served a supportive function, but could only benefit as a

consequence of the English seigneurial group maintaining the agrarian economy

of the time. But in this struggle, the habitants themselves would be exploited

by whichever English group was successful. It is clear, then, that the Church

played only a secondary, though not an insignificant role in keeping the

habitants down.

 

     It is no wonder, then, that there are approving references to the Church

in Durham's report:

 

     "In the general absence of any permanent institutions of civil

     government, the Catholic Church has presented almost the only

     semblance of stability and organization, and furnished the only

     effectual support for civilization and order.” (our emphasis)

 

     Thus, the argument that the Church has been at the root of the Québecois

economic plight just doesn't hold. At the same time, the idea that the Qué-

becois are simply not suited to commercial competitiveness is also shown to

be bogus. What is clear is that it was in the Anglophone economic interest

to keep the commercial sector Anglophone, and to the advantage of the Church

to exploit the consequences of that economic interest - to keep the Quebecois

under Church influence.

     Even arguments concerning the mismanagement of Quebec by native French

Canadians can be rebutted in this way. It makes sense to say that Duplessis'

corruption kept Quebec's government backward; but it is important to show

whose interest that backwardness served. The answer is that it served

Duplessis himself and his friends as well as Anglophone economic interests,

in much the same wav as the Church's non-interference served the British in

the 1800's.

     After examining the roots of cultural oppression in a historical context,

we can clearly make sense of its modern manifestations, from its most blatant

racist forms of "frog" and "pepsi" to the subtleties of such imagery as that

of the happy-go-lucky habitant depicted in the Quebec .tourist literature.

This daily humiliation creates a justifiable anger and bitterness among

Francophones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN

 

     Contained within the cultural oppression characteristic of Quebec soc-

iety are other forms of oppression and economic exploitation, specifically,

sexism and racism.

     Sexism and racism, like other forms of cultural oppression, cut across

class and national lines. Sexism, the ideology and practice of the inferior

social position, function and value of women, exists in all sectors of Quebec

society: Anglophone, Francophone, working class and bourgeoisie.

 

 

 

THE ORIGINS OF THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN

 

     Two factors account for the oppressed state of women throughout most of

human history: biology and property relations. Women are not biologically

inferior to men, but as everyone knows, women are certainly biologically

different. The fact of pregnancy, especially repeated pregnancies, is to

leave women physically vulnerable. When six months pregnant, a woman is not

capable of warlike activities. With the rise of property relationships in

early human societies, this biological state of vulnerability during preg-

nancy made it very easy to reduce women to the status of a commodity, parti-

cularly through the institution of the patriarchal family and slavery.

The status of women, then, has been intrinsically linked to existing property

relations. In communal society, women tend to have relative equality of status;

in class society, women are reduced to the status of commodities, of property

to be owned first by her father and male siblings, later to be the property

of her husband and husband's family.

 

 

WHY IS THE LIBERATION OF WOMEN CENTRAL TO REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS?

 

     The existence of economic systems based upon private property, that is

class societies, existed before capitalism. Oppression, economic exploitation

and the subjugation of women existed before capitalism. The oppression of

women, therefore, is not purely a result of economic relationships (e.g. prop-

erty relationships) but also of culture and the over-all web of social

relationships. It is for this reason that socialism alone, such as exists in

Cuba or the Soviet Union, has not brought about true equality for women or

fundamental changes in the traditional roles that women play. The demands of

women's struggle go beyond the organization and ownership of the means of

production. The women's struggle goes directly to the heart of the

cultural revolution. Cultural revolution must follow upon a revolutionary

change in the ownership of the means of production. It is in the creation of

a revolutionary and humanistic culture, based upon social relationships

founded upon equality, love and human development, that the true meaning of

liberation is to be found. The woman question forces us to confront the

absolute need for economic and cultural revolution to go in hand. It is this

fact which reveals why women's struggle is essential to fully developed

revolutionary struggle.

 

 

 

WHAT ARE THE FORMS OF THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN UNDER CAPITALISM?

 

     It is important to realize that the bourgeois revolutions, which

brought about the creation of modern bourgeois democracies emphasizing civil

equality, but lacking social equality, did not include women. Even though

women were important fighters in the French Revolution, and especially in the

Paris Commune of 1871, they remained without equal civil and property rights.

 

     For example, until the twentieth century women became "civilly dead"

upon marriage"-that is, totally without civil rights. Husbands had the

right under law, to beat or to kill their wives.  Women were defined by law

as intellectually incapable of independence and as legally irresponsible.

A wife was legally no more than the property of her husband.  Indeed, the

legal status and definition of western slavery was based upon the status

of women and children.  Thus we can see that the institution of western

slavery is also intrinsically linked to the woman question.

     Historically, the most significant change for the status of women

under capitalism resulted from the destruction of the extended family.  With

the advent of capitalism people were driven off the land and into the cities,

where they were forced into wage labor.  This drastically changed the

structure of the family, since wages were so low that only a nuclear unit

could survive. Furthermore, women were made available in the labor force,

where from the very earliest development of capitalism they have been the most

exploited workers, used as cheap labor and as reserve labor-- that is,

paid the lowest wages, the last hired and the first fired. While they were

child-bearing, women also became completely dependent upon their husbands for

support. In short, capitalism stripped away from women their independent

economic functions and created the dependency which is characteristic of

today's role for women.

     The popular image of women as sexual playthings, as irresponsible and

as incapable of the achievements of men is partly based upon the class

nature of rich women. While working class women were in factories and mines,

working sixteen hours a day and rearing their children, bourgeois women

could entertain men with silly chatter and spend eight hours a day making

themselves attractive. Why? Because they had at their disposal a ifhole

houseful of servants. It was as Soujourner Truth, an ex-slave, abolitionist

and advocate of women's rights, said in answer to a clergyman who had

ridiculed the weakness and helplessness of women:

 

     That man over there says women need to be helped into carriages

     and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.

     Nobody ever helps me into carriages or over puddles, or gives me

     the best place-- and ain't I a woman? Look at my arm! I have

     ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me--

     and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man-

     when I could get it-- and bear the lash as well I And ain't I a woman?

     I have born thirteen children, and, seen most of 'em sold into slavery,

     and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me--

     and ain't I a woman?

 

There exists no other statement to equal Soujourner Truth's eloquent ex-

pression of the emptiness of the supposed inferiority of women.

     Today, after a century of struggle, women have won the vote and certain

civil liberties. The gains are pathetic when measured against the amount

of struggle it took to win them. How can we explain this?

     First, it is not in the interests of capitalism to have full equality

for women. Women are central to capitalist economies in two ways: (1)

as a cheap reserve labor source, docile and unorganized, (2) and more import-

antly, as unpaid household labor which allows a man to work a sixteen or

eight hour day. In truth, the capitalists get two workers for the price of

one, since the work of women is essential to the maintenance of society,

but is unpaid labor. This basic situation is mystified by asserting that

women are "naturally" dependent upon men, "naturally" belong "barefoot, preg-

nant, and in the kitchen". The result has been to place most wives in the

position of bond-servants: they work all of their lives, under contract,

for their room and board. The household labor of women is not even recog-

nized as socially necessary labor simply because it is not wage-labor.

Housework is presented to women as "motherhood"--their only natural calling

--but the society at large holds this work as of no real value, and beneath

the dignity of men. Men are held in contempt if they do "women's work." The

result is that millions of women, each with her talents and abilities, are

locked into the narrow and deadening limits of the house. Children are the

only reward, the sole accomplishment which a woman can, in the eyes of the

society, claim as legitimately her own. In the larger world, a woman's

status is based solely upon that pf her husband, since she is denied the

opportunity to achieve in her own right. In short, the nuclear family, with

the wife at home (or working, but also maintaining the home--three workers for

the price of two) was created by and is necessary to a capitalist division of

labor and the resulting class system.  It is for this reason that the bour-

geoisie, and the large-scale capitalists in particular, have opposed the

equalization of the status of women, and women's suffrage, through every

means of propaganda at their disposal.  A modern example of this propaganda

is the cosmetic industry, whose billion dollar profits rest solely upon the

definition of women as primarily sexual objects.

 

CLASS CONFLICT AND WOMENS MOVEMENTS

 

    A second factor accounting for the pathetic gains of women's rights

movements is class.  Women's rights movements, beginning early in the nine-

teenth century, were founded by radical women.  The North American movement

grew out of the movement for the abolition of slavery.  Yet as the women's

movements evolved, class contradictions came to the fore.  The needs of

working class women and the needs of middle class women are not the same;

indeed, they are fundamentally opposed.  Middle class women want women's

rights, that is, an  end to the systematic discrimination which bars women

from full access to middle class privilege.  For working class women, an end

to discrimination does not solve the class problem;  they would still be ex-

ploited, still be at the bottom of the heap, still be paying the price to

keep the system going.  It is in the immediate interests of working class

women to attack the abuses of the capitalist workplace; it is in the long-

term interest of working class women to destroy the capitalist system, in-

cluding the middle class, as a class.

    Historically, the result was a women's movement that created settlement

houses and charity circles for working class women.  Middle class women comp-

letely ignored, or worked against, working class women's need to be organized

in opposition to the capitalists while they carried on the struggle for the

vote.  Radicalism was eradicated and racism was rampant in the suffrage move-

ment.  Only the socialists retained the early radical content of women's

rights movements and only the socialists took the question of working women

as paramount.

    In our own time, the same cycle has repeated itself.  An early movement

built on a mass basis by radical women was followed by a purge of leftists,

creating a "power vacuum."  Into that vacuum stepped the old familiar middle

class leadership, demanding equality, but not demanding an end to exploita-

tion.  They are pursuing a single-issue campaign for minimal reform--the

so-called "abortion repeal program."  The campaign for the vote won very

little; the abortion repeal program will win even less.  Meanwhile, the real

and urgent needs of working women, in the home and in the factory, are ig-

nored or denied or given token recognition.  To continue to ignore the class

question is to doom the women's struggle to another empty "victory", to

another century of struggle without any significant change.

 

 

WOMEN IN QUEBEC

 

     In Quebec, the woman question is complicated by all the elements of

class and cultural oppression. In an oppressed class, and in a colonized

country, it is always women who are at the heart of the contradiction, the

very center of oppression. Women in all societies bear the brunt of social

injustice precisely because of their secondary status of subjugation. This

is equally true in Quebec, where the most oppressed women are the women of

both the rural and the urban working class. In Quebec the class question

remains the same: bourgeois women desire social equality; working class

women desire an end to exploitation. The middle class woman says, "Let me

in!" The working class woman says, "Let me out!"

     However, in Quebec there is a cultural dimension which is brought sharp-

ly into focus. The role of women is defined as conservative, as centered

around children and the family, as timid and dependent. Many a group of

wives have helped to break a strike in Quebec as in other nations. Further-

more, women are the mainstay of conservative Catholicism. Women are used as

agents by which the ruling class transmits from generation to generation the

false consciousness which produces working class submission to its own ex-

ploitation. The vicious circle of keeping men and women divided from one

another, whether it is because women are scabbing, or because women are

pressuring their husbands to go back to work, can only be broken by de-

stroying the social role which makes women agents of the ruling interests.

Thus, both class and culture must be understood as the key dimensions of the

women's struggle in Quebec.

 

 

WHY NOT A COMPLETELY AUTONOMOUS WOMEN'S MOVEMENT?

 

 

     The all-pervasive nature of sexism can easily lead women to a position

in which they assert that women ought to form associations completely

independent from other revolutionary and reformist movements. The reason for

holding such a position is the existence within liberation movements, within

Ouébecois society and within the working class of sexist discrimination and

exploitation.

 

     If, as is true, sexism is endemic in all sectors of society, why not form

a completely independent women's movement? The reasons why such a completely

autonomous movement should not be formed are two: (1) that within the cate-

gory women there does not exist equality or equal oppression; social class

antagonisms exist among women just as they exist in the population as a whole

(2) most importantly, because the oppression of women is perpetuated by the

system of capitalism itself, and is not a form of oppression which can be

separated from the major institutions of the society in which it exists.

 

 

 

                     PART TWO: THE SUMMATION

 

 

IMPERIALISM

 

     In order for us to trace the emergence of revolutionary conditions in

Quebec, we must understand that capitalism is no longer "national capitalism",

but international imperialism represented by the multinational corporations

and their branchplants throughout the world.  Just as there is exploitation with-

in a capitalist country, there is also exploitation of a dependent colony by

an imperialist country. Once again, Quebec clearly demonstrates this relationship.

It suffers the loss of its national resources to American multinational corporat-

ions (for example, NorandaMines, Iron Ore Co., and Canadian International Paper).

Quebec is also subject to the repatriation of profits to the United States,

that is, the return of profits made from the extraction of national resources

and from manufacturing  by corporations such as General Motors, General Electric

and Dupont of Canada. The repatriation of profits means that investment funds do

not stay in Quebec, and thus, that they fail to contribute to the development

of Quebec's resources, the growth of its Industry or the improvement of the life

of its people.

 

 

     We can see that imperialism and  colonization are the chief problems facing

the Quebec people. Yet we are frequently informed by the Liberal government that

what is needed is more imperialism to cure the problems created by imperialism

in the first place I  For example, it is often argued that U.S. capital  is needed

to develop the Canadian economy. This argument is false because, in fact, U.S.

corporations use Canadian capital to finance expansion. It is  often argued that

U.S. investment creates jobs. This is false because  U.S. corporations  establish

plants which are  " capital intensive" (highly mechanized and hence, expensive

to build), but which are not  "labor intensive" (creating many jobs). Actually,

a new American-owned plant will more than likely be so highly automated that

it will actually destroy jobs, since only a few workers are required to watch

that the machines do the work without mechanical failures.  Another argument is

that tax benefits and business concessions are required to "attract U.S. invest-

ment" and thus to improve the economy. This is false because both  the benefits

and concessions work to increase the repatriation of profits to the U.S.

 

     The result of imperialism (economic penetration and resulting political

control by a capitalist country of a weaker country) is to create an antagonistic

relationship between the exploiter country and the exploited country. The work-

ing class, once again, suffers most in all of this. It is the working class of

the colonized country .which receives lower wages; it is the working class of

the colonized country which goes unemployed in order to assure the employment

of people in the exploiter country. General Motors will lay off people in Quebec

before it will lay them off in the United States.

 

     What we see today is acute competition between the great imperialist countries:

Japan, U.S.A., and those of the European Common Market. As competition between these

powers grows, the domestic economy of the U.S., for example, becomes weaker with

results such as increasing unemployment, runaway inflation, and the devaluation

of the dollar. As the U.S. economy declines, the Quebec economy suffers (since it

is controlled by the U.S.). Conditions are even worse in Quebec, for it is Quebec

workers who will be made to suffer long before the full brunt of economic

dislocation affects U.S. workers. For example, in April 1972, unemployment in

Quebec had gone as high as 9.2 per cent of the labor force ( about 216,000 workers).

 

     The result of U.S. imperialism has been the creation of an intolerable

situation of inflation, high unemployment, and the maintenance of a government

which refuses to provide adequate housing, income security, education and other

basic needs to the people it purports to serve. It is these worsening conditions

of life and the increasing desperation of the working class which create the

conditions necessitating fundamental social change. The workers begin, almost

in desperation and certainly in anger, to fight against the intolerable decline

of their economic and social situation. The government, acting in the interests

of the corporate ruling class, uses police and legislative repression to keep

the workers from winning improvements that threaten their own interests. The

battle is thus joined between workers and ruling class. This battle results from

the very inability of capitalism, because it is based on competition, exploitat-

ion and repsession, to guarantee a decent life for the majority of the population.

This is what it means to say that "capitalism sows the seeds of its own destruction"

or that "capitalism produces its own gravediggers" (the working class).

 

     In Quebec, the battle is between the Quebec working class and the U.S. multi-

national corporations (U.S. imperialism) and the tiny Anglophone and Franco-

phone elite (compradors) which manage U.S. corporate interests and which mani-

pulate political parties so that the federal and provincial governments will

continue to favor U.S. interests over the interests of the Quebec people.

 

     Foreign Domination.  From what has already been said, it is now possible

to outline the present political situation in Quebec.  Economically, Quebec is

ruled by U.S. corporate interests.  It is not accidental that there has been a

proliferation of American investments in Quebec.  Quebec has had both the

natural resources and the cheap manpower to make an investor's dollar go a

long way.

 

     But U.S. investment, while far and above the most dominant in Quebec,

has been complemented  by an Anglo-Canadian economic presence in the form

of banks,  insurance companies and management personnel.  It is this Anglo-

Canadian financial establishment which actually provides the capital used

to underwrite ,American business expansion. This elite is now being joined

by a group of French Canadian  business and management personnel, who are

just as willing to  enjoy the financial rewards of service to American in-

terests in Quebec. Robert Bourassa, educated at Université de Montréal, and

with a business administration degree from Harvard,  is the model of the up-

and-coming Quebec middleman. Bourassa speaks the language of big businessmen,

and probably speaks it with his former classmates from Harvard. So long

as the Bourassa government continues to attract U.S. investment, French-

speaking managers and executives will find more and more positions in U.S.-

owned firms.

 

     The emergence of this new class of French-speaking corporate caretakers

(or compradors) serves to make the  explicit control of Quebec by America more

subtle, and puts  up the facade of “economic opportunity for all” when, in

fact, there are only opportunities for a tiny minority of the population.

This facade of opportunity masks the fact that no matter how many French-

Canadians become junior executives, the important economic decisions will

always be made in the United States.

 

     In terms of economic reality, the number of home-grown executive trainees

cannot make up for the financial losses  to Quebec brought on by imperialist

domination.  The losses are irrevocable, since most foreign investment is

directed toward resource extraction. This makes it impossible for Quebec to

benefit directly from her rich mineral reserves. The repatriation of profits

to the U.S., furthermore,  means that Quebec loses that money which ought to

be invested in  underdeveloped economic sectors here. An effort to encourage

investments in manufacturing  rather than resource extraction might ease unem-

ployment temporarily and increase the number of jobs, but at what cost? At the'

cost of agreeing to greater foreign  economic control and the watering down of

Quebec's right to make the decisions which determine her future.

 

 

THE RISE OF A NEW COMPRADOR CLASS

 

     All of this considered, one might still argue that simple reform of the

economic system, such as legislation putting curbs on American investment,

would solve Quebec's problems.  However, if we understand the relationship

between imperialism and the comprador class on the one hand, and imperialism

and underdevelopment on the other,  we can see that "reform" of the present

situation is not a solution.  If we examine the comprador class, we can see

that this group of care-taker managers do not make the important corporate

decisions. On the contrary, these decisions are made in the American head

office.  Furthermore, the comprador is employed by a foreign company: his job,

his career, and his social status depend on how faithfully he serves the

interests of his employers. Thus, a small elite  is drawn from a national

population, groomed to be care-taker managers, given higher salaries, special

privileges and "respect", and in this way turned against their own people.

 

     Compradors serve imperialism well: they know the language and culture of

their own country better than the head office which might be  thousands of miles

away. Compradors, forming an elite, can penetrate local centers of power

and can exercise great influence over the native population; finally, when

things go wrong, the compradors are made the scapegoats-- members of the national

population  are made to seem responsible for exploitation. Quebecois are  made

to appear managerially inept, with the result that the real perpetrators of

the rape of Quebec are left conveniently in the background. In Quebec today,

we see the systematic creation of  a comprador class of French-Canadians--

America's and Ottawa's "solution” to the "Quebec problem". If we focus only

upon the traditional divisions between Francophone and Anglophone, we will

miss entirely the significance of a French-Canadian comprador class. Indeed,

unclass-conscious French-Canadian nationalism works in the interests of

the compradors and the foreign investors by obscuring the real issues-- those

of economic control-- and by helping to disguise the true decision-makers:

the heads of the vast multinational corporations.

 

 

IMPERIALISM AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT

 

     Traditionally, "underdevelopment" has meant that a country has been unable

or has not, if it has been able, created a technologically advanced industrial

economy. It was often held in this connection that the ignorance, poverty, and

shiftlessness of the native population accounted for "underdevelopment", and that

the solution to such a situation was American money and "know-how". Further analy-

sis has shown, however, that  neither  ignorance, nor poverty, nor shiftless-

ness accounted for "underdevelopment". What in fact provided the explanation

was imperialism itself. Let us look at the well-known example of Cuba.  American

sugar and oil interests controlled Cuba through a comprador class headed by the

dictator Battista. By exercising direct economic control through their compradors,

American interests indirectly controlled Cuban politics. American sugar interests,

for example, kept Cuba a "one-crop" nation. The result was that Cuba was unable

to develop its own industry, keep its profits, or plan its economy in such a way

that it would benefit the whole Cuban people. Cuba was "underdeveloped" because

American imperialism would not let Cuba develop. In Quebec, we can see the same

pattern emerging. Quebec is highly valued for its natural resources, and

its hydro-electric power. But if Quebec is to develop, basic industry and

manufacturing must also grow in the economy as a whole.  Quebec should not sell

her  resources the way she does according to Bourassa's James Bay scheme. She

should sell her product: hydro-electric power. Iron ore should not be dug out of

Quebec  and shipped to the U.S. for processing into steel. The steel should

be produced in Quebec. Quebec consumers should not buy Zenith television sets.

They should by Quebec-produced television sets. In short, the economic exploitat-

ion of Quebec is dictated  by U.S. corporate interests-- they want resources from

Quebec to be used  for manufacturing in the U.S., and to return consumer products

at inflated prices to Quebec. It is this vicious circle of exploitation which

Inevitably results in  "underdevelopment". The conclusion is obvious: complete

expropriation foreign interests by the Quebec people, in the interest of the

Quebec people. Expropriation would return to  the Quebec people the wealth which

is rightly theirs, so that through a planned economy, economic development could

take place to the benefit of the whole nation.

 

 

 

CLASS

 

     From the examination just made of foreign domination in Quebec, it became

clear that the exploitation of Quebec stems primarily from U.S. imperialism.

It is very tempting to conclude such an explanation by saying that the problem

is  solved by the simple banding together of the Quebec people to  expel the

U.S. multinationals. However, such an explanation would be uselessly over-simplistic

because it would  ignore the class contradictions within Quebec society. For

example, in the discussion of the present government program  to create a class

of French-speaking compradors, it can be easily seen that the compradors would

oppose the expulsion of their bosses, the U.S. multi-nationals. But they would

support the expulsion of their Anglo-Canadian competition in the care-taker

manager business. Thus, compradors are frequently Quebec "nationalists" in the

sense of substituting French for English in the world of  Quebec business.

 

     The situation of Quebec capitalists provides another instance of the complex-

ity of the political situation in Quebec. Even though the real power and de-

cisions affecting Quebec are made by the giant corporations and their local

(comprador) agents, domestic capitalist firms play a key role in  the oppression

of the Quebecois, because the mythology of enterpreneurlal capitalism and small

business is the ideological foundation upon which the giant corporations  rest.

For example, as long as many people believe that there is a freely competitve

market in which everyone has a fair chance to profit, and that "free enterprise"

results in the most productive system for all, few people will challenge that sys-

tem.

 

     Furthermore, the great number of small and local businessmen who have not

received direct benefits from the multinational corporations, may end up support-

ing Imperialist exploitation by default, because of a desire they have to maintain

the capitalist system. Part of that maintenance is best carried out through

local associations like school boards, churches, and chambers of commerce, who

work to sustain, in a quite open way, the belief in the "free enterprise" and

resulting "beneflts" of the capitalist system.

 

     Another contradiction is presented by the professional and technocratic

petite bourgeoisie (middle class) who may be Quebec "nationalists" in the

sense that they wish the Anglo-Canadian (or privileged English-speaking)

minority put at a disadvantage in competition for professional jobs. Often

within a petite bourgeoisie there exists factions who desire more than simple

reversal of existing relations of social-competition. Indeed, they may demand,

in the name of Quebec "nationalism", forms of "state capitalism"; for example,

nationalization of certain major industries, tax controls on foreign investment

and state subsidized social services. In essence, their demand is for a "mixed

economy"--a little bit of socialism mixed with large doses of private enter-

prise. State capitalism leaves imperialism largely intact and does not alter

the class system--but it does guarantee large numbers of state-bureaucratic

jobs for professionals and technocrats.

     From the examples presented, it is clear that Quebec "nationalism" means

different things to different social classes and that all French-Canadians

can in no way be grouped into one single category of either nationalism or

oppression. This complex situation clearly demonstrates that we must take

into account both (1) the external contradiction of foreign ownership and con-

trol; and (2) the internal contradiction of antagonistic social classes within

Quebec society.

     To summarize, we might say that instead of concluding that Quebec's prob-

lems can be solved simply by the Quebec people banding together to expel the

U.S. multi-nationals, we instead pose a question; in whose interest is it to

expel the U.S. multi-nationals? The answer to this question has been provided

by our -earlier analysis of social classes: since it is the working class

which bears the brunt of both U.S. imperialism and native Quebec capitalism,

it is in the long-term interests of the working class to expropriate both U.S.

imperialism and native Quebec capitalism. All classes above the working class

are in one way or another dependent upon both imperialism and native capitalism,

and it is therefore in their interests to compromise, in one way or another,

with U.S. imperialism. Thus we are presented with two "nationalisms": bour-

geois nationalism which is primarily based upon limiting competition with Anglo-

Canadians and wresting more gravy from U.S. imperialism; and working class

nationalism which is ultimately based upon anti-imperialism and demands for

fundamental social change.

 

 

IMPERIALISM. CLASS AND CULTURE IN QUEBEC

 

     Let us now try to fit together all the pieces of the puzzle.  First, the

analysis of foreign domination pleads to the conclusion that it is impossible

to have social and political independence without economic independence.

Second, the analysis of class and class interests leads to the conclusion that

it is only in the interests of the working class to expel and expropriate

foreign owners.  In other words, it is only in the interests of the working

class to struggle for full economic independence.  Third, it is only in the

interests of the working class to expropriate large-scale local capitalists,

or in other words, to attack the whole system of exploitation and social in-

justice which results from the capitalist socio-economic system.

     We then reach the final conclusion;  it is only through revolutionary

socialism that true self-determination, rooted in economic independence, can

be achieved.  Any compromise with U.S. imperialism would still leave control

in the hands of dominant foreign economic interests, the American multi-national

corporations.  Any compromise with capitalism will result in the perpetuation

of the social injustices of our society.  Furthermore, capitalism is not

“capitalism in one country.”  Retaining a capitalist system, even. if foreign

owners are expelled, leaves the door open for their return, since small-scale

national capitalists cannot compete in the world or local market with the giant

multi-national corporations.

     So far, all of our conclusions hold true not only for Quebec, but for all

of Canada, since the entire Canadian economy suffers from foreign domination

by one great imperial power or another (with U.S. imperialism predominating at

this time).  Therefore it is very tempting to conclude that what will solve the

problem is all-Canadian unity of purpose in expelling and expropriating foreign

economic interests.  The flaw in this argument is that it ignores the "national

question";  it ignores the fact that Anglo-Canadians, from the time of the

British conquest of New France, have systematically oppressed and exploited

the Quebecois.

     Both historically and in the present time, Quebec

suffers a dual "foreign domination":  exploitation by both English Canada and

non-Canadian foreign economic imperialism.  In every sense of the word Quebec

has been a nation within a nation; the Quebec people are an oppressed nation.

It is this fact which makes Quebec unique in the Canadian confederation.  It

is this fact which makes it impossible to ignore the national and cultural

questions in any analysis of the Quebec situation.  It is this fact which

creates conditions for the national liberation struggle in Quebec.

     Our analysis leads us to conclude what many in Canada today have concluded:

that it is impossible to have social and political independence without economic

independence.  What this means for Quebec is independence from both U.S.

imperialism and English-Canadian exploitation.  Without complete social and

economic independence, Quebec will be unable to achieve true self-determination.

 

WHAT SOME OTHER PEOPLE SAY AND HOW WE ANSWER

 

     Making French the Working Language of Quebec. Many people argue variants

of the position that making French the working language of Quebec will solve the

problems of the Quebec people.  The emptiness of this line of argument is ob-

vious:  it ignores the real basis of cultural oppression; it ignores that class

cuts across cultural lines; it ignores the fact that the U.S. imperialists can

speak French as fluently as Prime Minister Trudeau or Premier Bourassa; finally,

it brings real benefits only to the French-Canadian bourgeoisie during the

period of time it will take the English-speaking Quebeckers to learn French.

Looking at the present alignment of forces today in Quebec, "French the working

language of Quebec" is in fact the policy of Bourassa's Liberal government, that

is, the policy of the expanding French-Canadian comprador class.

     Does this mean that we oppose French as the working language of Quebec?

Not at all, we believe that Québecois French should be the language of Quebec.

We differ from the comprador line of argument in that we do not believe that

any of the fundamental problems of Quebec will be solved by simply demanding

French as the language of work.

 

THE PRESERVATION OF FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

 

     A more sophisticated argument than "French the working language of Quebec"

is one which essentially states that the problem of the Quebecois is the exis-

tence of the Anglophones. The power of the Anglophones could be curtailed,

they could even be driven out of Quebec, by the promotion of French-Canadian

culture and language. This is a purely nationalist position, because it

defines "independence" in exclusively cultural terms-- drive out the Anglo-

phones and Americans and give Quebec to the Quebecois. This position over-

looks the class contradictions within Quebec society, just as it overlooks

the fact that immigrants and working class Anglophones are not the decision-

makers, or the exploiters of the Quebec people. In stressing culture, this

line of argument is oblivious to the real power of imperialism-- the economic

realities of the Quebec situation. Essentially, the isolation of Quebec's

problems as cultural ones, is a pure form of "bourgeois nationalism", because

the program of action suggested by this approach-- namely, the subjugation of

Anglophones-- benefits only the French-Canadian comprador class and the

French-Canadian petit bourgeoisie, while it divides the struggle of the

working class. The cultural analysis pits Quebecois worker against immigrant

worker, Quebecois worker against Anglophone worker, and thus keeps the

exploited so busy fighting each other that they forget to fight against their

real exploiters? That indeed was the lesson of St. Leonard.

 

 

The Class Contradiction is the Only Contradiction; "Cultural Chauvinism" is

reactionary.

 

     Some people within Quebec, and many radicals in English Canada, hold

that the only solution to the problem of U.S. imperialism is for all the

workers of Canada to unite to expel American domination and create a socialist

society. Another version of this argument in Quebec, is that all "nationalist

sentiment" is a tool in the hands of the ruling class designed to keep the

workers divided. The problem with this argument is that it is too mechanical:

it ignores the concrete realities of cultural oppression. As we have argued

previously, cultural oppression is very real, and the Quebec people will end

both discrimination based on culture and the destruction  of their native

language and culture. A first step for all non-French-speaking militants in

Quebec must be to recognize that the culture of Quebec is Quebecois, that

the language is Quebecois French, and be prepared to fight for and defend that

cultural heritage. While for many it is not "their" cultural heritage, it must

become theirs in the sense that they must become Quebecois. In the end, the re-

sult  will be a cultural revolution in which, through struggle, there will be a

blending and enrichment of the life of the whole Quebec people. Yet, we cannot

state often enough that language and culture are not  the principal bases  for

the exploitation of the Quebec people; the preservation of language and

culture alone will not, and cannot, solve the problems facing them.

 

     A more serious objection to the "pure class" analysis is that it over-

simplifies the revolutionary process in national liberation struggles. In our

analysis we have stressed class contradictions-- but we must never forget that

while classes are divided in their long-term interests, they may be united in

the short-term, for example, around the expulsion of U.S. multinational corporat-

ions, or the curtailment of Anglophone privilege in Quebec.  In every instance of

successful national liberation struggles, it has been the unity of the whole

people in the early years of the struggle which has made liberation possible,

and which, at the same time, has laid the foundation for the eventual leadership

of the exploited classes. Why? Because as we have previously argued, it is only

the working class (or the peasant majority, as the case may be) who are capable

of carrying the struggle for self-determination through to the end.

 

     While it is mandatory to combat forms of "bourgeois nationalism" which

mislead people,  which divide the working class against itself, which hides

the role of compradors and the true nature of power, we must not "throw out

the baby with the bathwater"'. Furthermore, we must never forget that it is in

the national character of the Quebec  liberation struggle that the contradictions

are clearest in Quebec society, and it is for the same reason that they are

so quickly grasped.

 

     Finally, while we must affirm  the principle of calling for international

unity of the working classes of all countries, we must remember that the

principle is not a reality (for example, American workers do not complain

when Quebec workers are laid off to assure jobs in the U.S.; English-Canadian

workers do not complain when Quebec workers are exploited if they are not

mistreated in the same way). It is for the working class of English Canada

to mount its struggle, to recognize the legitimacy of the Quebec people's demand

for self-determination, and to prepare itself to work in alliance with  the

working class of Quebec in its struggle for national liberation.

 

 

 

PROBLEMS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

 

     Looking at present-day Quebec, we do not see either clear-cut class

antagonisms or clearly opposing camps of "working class nationalism" versus

"bourgeois nationalism".  This being the case, how do we explain it?  Does

it mean that our theoretical analysis is incorrect?

     We can answer this question by looking at the concrete historical

situation, and making an estimate on the future situation.  To briefly

recapitulate:  we have traced a history of national antagonisms between

Québecois and Anglo-Canadians, culminating in the Patriots Rebellion and the

ultimate victory of the British conquerors and the triumph of their economic

interests.  Out of that triumph, the exploitation of the Québecois created a

continuing contradiction between the ruling minority English culture and the

subjugation of the majority culture.  The contradictions bred by conditions

of cultural oppression and economic exploitation result in periodic flare-ups

of protest, labor struggles, Quebec nationalist sentiments and movements.  With

the U.S. imperialist penetration of Quebec, with the increasing industrializ-

ation of Quebec, the old rural culture begins to break down as people are

driven off the land and into the cities to enlarge the proletariat of Montreal,

Quebec and other centers of extraction and industry.  Nationalist movements

are first typical of bourgeois French Canadians who suffer the pangs of dis-

crimination.  But nationalist sentiment spreads to the working class.  Modern

industrialization and urbanization break down the old insular quality of life

forced upon the Quebecois habitant. Unions of workers are formed, at first

purely on the grounds of "reconciling labor and capital", as with the early

history of the C.N.T.U., yet we see the early unions change their character as

economic conditions grow more unstable, as the workers learn that there is no

"reconciliation" with capital, only submission. Rank and file worker militance

grows, union leadership, in turn, is forced into ever more militant positions.

Today we are in the midst of the very process of the development of a class-

conscious working class moving clearly towards an understanding of socialism

and national independence as the only real solutions to the problems faced by

Quebec workers. Furthermore, in the rising tide of criticism directed against

the policies of the Parti Québecois, we clearly discern the lines of "working

class nationalism" growing more sharply antagonistic to "bourgeois nationalism".

     Our analysis, then, is not ''purely theoretical", but is based upon our

understanding of how imperialism and national capitalism work and our obser-

vation of the historical processes at work in Quebec, both in the past and

present. Based upon our understanding; we have tried (by learning from our

history) to look into the future in order to provide ourselves with guidelines

for how we shall act in the present. We must assume this task of seeking

guidelines for the present because in conditions of social struggles such as

have been growing ever sharper since 1960, since the lessons of the October

Days and the War Measures Act, we cannot stand on the sidelines. When we are

asked, "Whose side are you on?", we must be able to answer that we are on the

the side of the people.

                                                              

 

                PART THREE:  THE ROLE OF STUDENTS

 

A STUDENT'S PLACE IN WORKER'S STRUGGLES IS EARNED AND REQUIRES DISCIPLINE

 

     A good deal has already been said about the class composition of Quebec,

and the point has been made that class structure binds up both major language

and cultural groupings here. Now what about Quebec students, and what about

McGill students in particular?

 

     At least as recently as the late 60's, students have taken part either

actively, or as sympathisers, in working class actions, primarily strikes and

demonstrations. To mention one of the more important and recent of these. Franco-

phone students, together with a smaller number of Anglophone students, helped

thousands of unionists last October in opposing Power Corporation's strangle-

hold on La Presse technical workers and journalists. The union militants which

organized  the demonstration, suggested in the huge rallies which followed the

La Presse affair, that students were beginning to earn a formal place in workers'

struggles in Quebec. The La Presse demonstration showed that there is at least

a basis  for labor support of  full-fledged student participation in a Quebec

political movement. This constitutes a break from past positions taken by

organized labor, which suggested that students lacked the discipline to contri-

bute effectively to working class action. The idea that a student's place in

such actions is earned, and that it requires discipline, are important points

in fleshing out an understanding of a student's role in militant struggle.

Let's see why these aspects have been important.

 

 

QUEBEC STUDENT ACTION IN THE LATE 60's

 

     At the close of the 60's, students developed a brand of action which centered

on reform of the university, and which was based  on the assumption of

the integral role  of colleges as assembly-line-like suppliers of middle-

class professionals needed to sustain an exploitative economic system. As the

argument went at the time, the university was  likened to a service-station

serving the needs of industry and business. Student protest against  the uni-

versity's role took place almost around the globe in 1967 and 1968, was especially

widespread  and intensive in Western Europe and the U.S., and also occurred on

a smaller scale in Quebec.

 

     With the establishment of the first Francophone CEGEPs in 1968, French-

Speaking students rebelled against the bureaucratic  form of their educational

institutions, protested a lack of student control in their administration,  and

spoke out against a scarcity of adequate classrooms, labs and general facilities,

which resulted from the haste with which  the CEGEPs were set up.

 

     These conditions gave rise to massive student strikes all over Quebec,

and, in some instances, to outright occupations of buildings  at CEGEPs Maison-

neuve and Vieux-Montreal, as well as the Ecole de Beaux Arts. McGill students

participated actively, toward the end of 1968, in demonstrations of solidarity

with Montreal CEGEP students. Other political ties  with Francophone students

took the form of McGill membership in the Union Generale des Etudiants du

Quebec (UGEQ) which had  official government accreditation on a par with a

trade union.

 

 

 

THE FIGHT AT MCGILL FOR UNIVERSITY REFORM

 

     At McGill itself in 1968, activism within the university was widespread

on the departmental level, beginning with the Political Science Association

(PSA) strike and about a week-long take-over of the fourth floor of the Leacock

Building.  Student departmental organizations grew up in  other social science

and humanities departments with the aim of obtaining decision-making powers

in  departmental organization, particularly in areas like hiring and firing of

professors.

 

     The fight for university reform at that time depended to a significant

degree on the co-ordination of the Students' Society leadership, who worked

with student leaders from the departments in developing a university-wide plan

for student representation on the governing bodies of McGill,

 

     This kind of activism had developed from organized sit-ins the previous

year protesting a university fee increase, and some scattered protests which

occurred even earlier. In 1968, however, the ideological basis for student act"

ions  had somewhat clarified. For example, articles appearing in McGill news"

papers by Stanley Gray, a political science lecturer and one of the leaders of

the Political Science strike, linked action taken at McGill and in Quebec

CEGEPs with similar movements south of the border and within Europe.

 

 

MISTAKES IN THE PRACTICE OF MCGILL POLITICAL GROUPS

IN THE LATE 60'S

 

     One of the aspects which came out clearly in Gray's analyses was the

emphasis on student-based actions, and a kind of assumed separation between

these, and those carried out by revolutionary groups outside the university.

To be sure,  the causes of student  discontent were linked to the place

of universities in capitalism. But there was no comprehensive program which

provided both for university based  and "outside" politics. The result was

that, while there was some participation by McGill students in extra-university

protests, the initiative for such participation came from the individuals  who

took part, and not enough from existing university-based political groups.

The lack of a programme for action outside the university did not so much

reflect a defect in the principles of campus political groups, as it did

narrow planning within them. Without a wider programme, progressive groups

supporting action exclusively regarding campus issues would fail to be sus-

tained once those issues ran out of steam.

 

     But there were other aspects of student political groups of the late

60's  at McGill which worked to stunt them, or to severely limit their growth.

For one thing, the leaders of such groups were, in practice,  somewhat isolated

from  the ordinary students supporting them. Why? Because there was an emphasis

on credentials for leadership, credentials of a peculiar kind. These had to

do with a person's grounding in the literature of the left, for example. To

help in important planning and organization, one had to have done one's read-

ing. It was of course also important to have basic organizing skills and a

knowledge of figures within the university administration who were sympathetic

or antagonistic to students. Qualifications of this sort were often taken to

be a more important basis for political judgments of leadership, than the

actual practice of the leading figures in campus leftist groups. The emphasis

on credentials  tended to limit not only membership as such in the group, but

to block open discussion within it. One had to think, for example, before ask-

ing a question, whether it was going to be viewed as unintelligent by the

"experts" leading the group. But the emphasis on credentials had other con-

sequences too: those without sufficient ideological grounding were often left

'with responsibility for the more menial tasks of political work, such as

clerical or janitorial functions. Women in such groups, even if their theoretical

grounding was sophisticated, were often saddled with such tasks, and this

gave rise to further friction.

 

     Internal discontinuities like those just mentioned were accompanied

by sometimes subtle, and sometimes overt, divisions between political groups

and ordinary students on campus. An indication of this is to be found, for

example, in the hostile tone of some of the literature distributed to students

by these groups in 1968. In these documents, McGill students were chastised for

being English, for not being militant, for separating themselves from the

Francophone milieu, and for the privilege inherent in receiving a McGill ed-

ucation. Presumably, then, the basis for action by students reading these docu-

ments was one of guilt. It seemed to be supposed that McGill students had a

debt to pay to soothe their consciences, a debt to be paid in the form of

working against not only the Quebec Anglophone bourgeoisie, but their own

Anglophone backgrounds.

 

MISTAKES IN THE THEORY OF “STUDENT POWER”

 

     Inherent in the analyses on which these documents rested, was the assump-

tion that students had a special role to play in the framework of political

action.  That role, at least as it was initially developed by radical students

at McGill, was to change the university fundamentally as a means of altering the

fabric of capitalism.

     The idea that a society is reformed by the change of one of its components

was recognized as misled by many student activists in the 60's, and certainly

by a few at McGill.  Nevertheless, "student power" slogans reflected a senti-

ment which gave the student a special progressive status.

     Why should such a sentiment have arisen?  For one thing, the student was

seen as an individual open to new ideas and at the same time subject to a cer-

tain form of oppression.  It was argued that students were a kind of raw mater-

ial for industry which could be molded to suit its needs.  Moreover, analogues

were readily drawn between academic hierarchy and the kind of stratification

endemic to capitalist societies.  A further similarity could be picked out in

the promotion of competition both within and outside the university.  What

seemed to follow from these similarities was that the university was in some

sense an object lesson in capitalism, and that its being changed would give

students the kind of consciousness needed to change society as a whole.

     The practice of student movements led many of them to reassess the validity

of this conclusion, and to try to rectify it, once it was seen as mistaken.

Whereas initially the student movement had been seen as existing legitimately

outside of workers' struggles, it became clear that some new strategy would

have to be arrived at that dealt more directly with the ills of society rather

than just those of the university.  Reform of the university was thus seen as

the treatment of a symptom rather than an essential aspect of capitalism.

 

 

 

MCGILL FRANCAIS

 

     The student power trend was on the whole less evident at McGill than

at American universities, but it could not have failed to appear attractive

to students who had made American youth culture heroes their own.  In general,

however, student leftists at McGill were conscious of the need to base an

analysis of this university in the context of the Quebec economic and cultural

situation of the late 60's.  Indeed, the issue of McGill in Quebec was one of

the strongest bases for mobilization here in 1968 and continues to form a

ground for debate.  To understand the issue as it has developed, it is worth

looking at the arguments which surrounded the most militant outgrowth of the

McGill in Quebec line:  namely, the McGill Français demonstration.

     The outlook of the participants of the demonstration, while superficially

just one of hostility to McGill, was certainly more than that.  In the first

place there was the question of the cultural make-up of Quebec.  It was argued

that if 85% of the population was Francophone and the rest English, then the

composition of universities should have reflected these proportions.  Given

that this was not the case, given, in other words, that Anglophone higher

education facilities were proportionately more numerous than Francophone ones;

given that McGill, the most prestigious of Quebec universities, depended on the

Quebec people for its financing; given also that McGill had made no efforts

to orient its admission policies toward the cultural make-up of Quebec,

that its Francophone enrolment was minimal, given also that McGill had both

the capabilities and facilities to solve, for example,  technological and

medical problems faced by people in Quebec and had failed to recognize

these as responsibilities, its place in Quebec was viewed as illegitimate.

     What was less important to this analysis was a clear position on

the class nature of McGill. It was easy to identify McGill with English

privilege in Quebec, easy, in other words, to identify it with the kind  of

economic and social options afforded  only to Anglophones and not to Francophones.

And to a substantial degree this view was fair to the facts. But McGill is

not an abstract institution: it was difficult to level fairly the objections

which applied to the university in general, to the students enrolled here.

That is, if a sound case could be made for McGill's being the enemy, it

was not clear at all  that McGill students were also the enemy. It is

possible to make an argument for McGill's complicity in the economic and

cultural exploitation of the Quebecois. But it is not a fair position to say

that McGill students are necessarily  guilty by association, that by definit-

ion they are excluded  from a struggle aimed at fundamental political change

in Quebec.

 

     Internally at McGill, however, political activists  were more anxious

to promote the view that McGill students were guilty in just this way, and

that McGill Francais demonstration had a sound ideological basis, even if

it did not have the approval of  students normally sympathetic to the struggles

of the Quebecois. Whether intended or not, the advent of Operation McGill

brought with it a great deal of intimidation which was reflective of a failure

among McGill student leaders to carry out full discussions with students on

this issue. Moreover, among the participants in the demonstration, there was

probably a greater consciousness of the cultural significance of a protest

against a symbol of Anglo domination, than an awareness of some sort of

potential alliance between Anglophone and Francophone progressive students.

 

     It was hard to deny the validity of the arguments urged against McGill

by  he organizers of the demonstration; but it would be foolish to maintain

that McGill students were not justifiably intimidated and confused by the

intent of the march. Obviously something went wrong in the McGill Francais

demonstration, and it is important to find out exactly what, since this amounted

to the first full-fledged confrontation between Quebec Francophone  students

and workers in any numbers, and a bona fide Anglo institution.

 

     The mistakes, or at least the principal ones,  can probably be traced

to the McGill leftist groups of the time and their failure not only to ex-

plain the intent of the march fully, but also to work out a position  on it

that did not fly in the face of the fact that McGill students were not a_priori

reactionaries. In short, the leaders of campus leftist groups, despite the

sympathy they were able to promote among students for progressive principles,

had no real confidence in the progressiveness of McGill students. Why? Because

it was assumed by these people at the time that the test of "real" support  for

Quebec people by Anglophones was the adoption of the French language and the

assimilation of Anglophone students into a Francophone milieu. It was assumed

in all of this that Anglophones were not progressive Quebecois just because,

as Anglophones, they were linked with the ruling class of Quebec. But this

again makes questions of culture more important than those of class, and ignores

the key factor of practice.  One cannot deny that the  test of  a leftist

in Quebec  involves active participation  in Quebecois struggles for self-de-

termination; but it makes no sense to say that leftists in Quebec can only

be Francophone leftists, and that there is an essential difference between

Francophone practice and Anglophone practice, if both are progressive. It

is only important to remember that Anglophones, for the most part, must give

up a certain privileged economic position to adopt such practice, and hence,

that fewer Anglophones can be expected to support a struggle for national

liberation than Francophones.

 

 

 

MAIN PRINCIPLES FOR A PROGRESSIVE STUDENT ROLE IN QUEBEC

 

     After reviewing student action at its height in 1968, it is important to

see what can be learned from both its successes and failures.

 

     First, we saw that after the initial stages of student action closed off

from action in a wider social context, an awareness grew up among some students

of the need to bring student militancy outside the university so as to take

up a supportive role in working class struggles. The idea that students would

play a supportive role and not a leading one, reflects a rectification of

two early mistakes in a student analysis; (1) the mistaken view that students

were subject to oppression in its essential aspect as raw material for the capital-

ist machine; and (2) that position which  held that the university was as

legitimate a stage for student protest as  a wider social context. Why were

these points mistaken? First, because students  suffered only a formal or

theoretical kind of alienation in the university which did not rule or determine

their lives  as is the case with working class people. Second, so long as action

was restricted to the university, issues of university reform which could only

be recognized as minor  in a programme of fundamental social change, could

not, in practical terms, be expected to sustain a movement.

 

     From student successes, the lesson can be learned that, however sound

one's theoretical basis, an analysis is impotent if not tied to action. So,

for example, without the occupations and marches,  the analyses about the ex-

ploitation of students and workers would have been so many nice arguments

on paper.

 

But two other points furnish the basis for the most important principle:

that students, if they are to play an effective role in worker's struggles,

must adopt a proletarian outlook. We saw that students, especially Anglo-

phone ones, must give up certain privileges to join with workers actively,

rather than as sympathisers. One of the privileges that is given up is that

of working solely within the university where protest is relatively safe;

another privilege that is given up is that of maintaining political leadership

in the hands of students. Once in a worker's struggle, the student plays a less

attractive role in a movement. He is no longer stage-centre, but rather one

of the bit players at stage-left.

 

The subordination of student discipline to worker discipline means

that a student cannot decide on his own to skip a meeting or take a vacation,

but that he must carry out a programme of action assigned to him fully,

that is, carry out all the tasks the programme is taken to involve at

just those times when he is required to fulfill them. When work is carried

out under such discipline, protest and militance is no longer seasonal

activity, but work reflective of full-time commitment. Moreover, the student

is no longer serving his own interests or laying the groundwork for his

being regarded as a student leader; he is serving people: letting them decide

which of the needs of  a movement for national liberation he is best equipped

to fulfill.

 

                     * * * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           PART FOUR:  STATEMENTS   FROM THE  FOUNDING  COLLECTIVES

 

 

MANIFESTO OF THE WOMEN'S COLLECTIVE

 

     We affirm the dignity and equality of all people, and thus we affirm

the dignity and equality of women. We stand in opposition to the systematic

exploitation of women under capitalism, and under the system of white male

supremacy. We stand in opposition to the results of systematic white male

supremacy reflected in  the massive institutionalized discrimination against

women in education, work and social life. We also stand in opposition to all

forms of tokenism and empty liberal gestures. Discrimination against women,

prejudice against women, and the dehumanizing and trivializing results within

women, exist in all spheres of our lives. It will exist within Liberation

School as it exists at McGill, as it exists within the fabric of society it-

self.  For the very reason that prejudice against women and discrimination

against women is all-pervasive, and cannot be overcome except through the

most difficult struggles, we demand the right of self-determination for

women.  To these ends we dedicate ourselves to the task of raising women's

consciousness not only to a full understanding of our oppression, but also

to a full realization of our human power, creativity and self-realization.

Particularly within the Division of Women's Studies, we call for structures

which are for, by and of women alone.  We reserve the right to exclude our

oppressors--in daily life, men--from our meetings and deliberations when we

consider such a move to be necessary.  Furthermore, we demand that male chauv-

inism within Liberation School be constantly confronted and constantly corn-

batted, until there exists in reality a true understanding of the oppression

of women and a true willingness on the part of men to struggle against their

prejudice and their privilege--their privilege of oppressing women.'

     Politically, we must also make clear that the exploitation of women is

fundamentally a part of the imperialist system.  Women are exploited eco-

nomically by capitalism--the use of women as underpaid surplus labor and as

cheap, docile, unorganized labor--and by imperialism, most brutally demon-

strated by the heartbreaking suffering of our Vietnamese sisters, whose

daily anguish is truly beyond our understanding.  We must emphasize that the

institutions of the family, church and law support and perpetuate the oppres-

sion of women.  Thus, the oppression of Quebecois women necessitates a

double struggle.  Not only the struggle as Quebecois, but also the struggle

within a male-dominated culture.

 

     In every revolution, we can point to the historical importance of the role

of women.  We can Invoke the history of women's own struggle for dignity and

equality, the courage and resoluteness displayed for over one hundred years of

labor and social struggles.  We can also point to an absolute truth:  a liberat-

ion movement that contains within itself the contradiction of the oppression of

women is doomed to failure.  Liberation, in a truly human sense, is a truly

human liberation.  To exclude women from that process of liberation is to say

what has always been implied:  women are not truly human.  In turn, any move-

ment that refuses to recognize and struggle against the oppression of women

contains within itself all the evils of exploitation arid' systematic dehumani-

zation that are characteristic of society as we have known it.  Therefore we

say with absolute understanding;  there will be no liberation until the liberat-

ion of women, all women, is accomplished.  Sisters, join with us in our

struggle.

 

 

 

STATEMENT FROM THE MEN OF LIBERATION SCHOOL

 

     We realize that the goal of dignity and equality for women is not easy

to achieve.  As men we recognize our own privileged position and the role we

play In the exploitation and oppression of women.  We have grown up in a society

which instills in us, a feeling of superiority to women, and further, we have

been taught to regard women as sex objects.  Within our own political collec-

tive, we men have been forced to come to grips with the realities of our own

male chauvinism.  It is in criticism and self-criticism sessions with our sis-

ters that we have become aware of the extent and subtlety of our oppression

of women.  It is through work, not fanciful notions taken up and shed at

leisurely discretion, that we have tried to overcome these tendencies.  We

accept the women's criticism of our behavior and attitudes, and we therefore

reject half-hearted gestures of tokenism, words instead of deeds, and the

belief that one or even many acts will eradicate our own sexism.  In recognizing

the pervasive functioning of our oppressor roles we then affirm the right of

women to act against their exploitation in whichever way they choose.  In the

context of Liberation School we therefore acknowledge the women's right for

self-determination of the women's division and the right to exclude men from

meetings, discussions and actions.  We can understand the demand for several

reasons.  Women often find that they are able to speak more freely and con-

fidently among themselves than when they are in the company of men.  More

important, only in the context of total self-determination can women fully

develop those skills denied them and those talents stifled in them by the

sexist nature of our society, and at the same time gain a full realization of

their human potentials.  Also, it may become necessary to build a barrier

against obstructionist male chauvinist attitudes in the functioning of the

women's collective.  At this stage of the women's movement, such safeguards

are still necessary, and only through a thorough economic, social and cultural

revolution can the conditions become manifest in which the necessity for

such demands will recede.

     Within the broad context of sexism we also recognize the conscious and

unconscious sexist roles which men act out.  The men in the collective reject

the dictates of present society to act out those roles, be that as oppressors

of women, and of other men--especially of our gay brothers who have been re-

jected by society for their failure to carry out their "male functions"--and

indeed, of ourselves, by denying us the human expression of fear, love and

co-operation.

     What we call for is a reawakening of ourselves as human beings, for a

creation of a new type of man, for the creation of a "revolutionary humanism".

We recognize the necessity for the struggle of women's liberation to be led by

women independent of the shackles of men. The role we, as men, must play is not

one of mere sympathizers but of activists--although in a special sense, act-

ivists of a secondary nature. We must, however, recognize the need of men to

liberate ourselves, to lead and direct our own struggle. A revolutionary human-

ism stands for the joining together of men and women in breaking the fetters of

our destructive society.

 

 

STATEMENT FROM THE BLACK COLLECTIVE

 

     We believe that it is imperative for Black people to come to grips with the

struggle that is taking place in Quebec. If this struggle is not solved in favor

of humanity, then our welfare will be seriously threatened.

 

 

ON THE BLACK ROLE IN QUEBEC

 

     Black people are a distinct minority in Quebec as well as in North America

and Europe. The Black population in Quebec is slowly increasing, largely due to

the fact of immigration from the United States and the Caribbean countries,

motivated by economic and other opportunities in this society.

 

     Black people have played, and still play, crucial roles in deadly world

Struggles. In Quebec, where race, class, and cultural factors are inter"

twined, struggles that are complex and many-sided and that demand political

astuteness, judiciousness and a concise national view of history.

 

     We have been in Quebec as well as Canada since the settlement of both

nations. We have been important for economic reasons. But because of the

blatant racism that prevails in a white-ruled nation, our history has been

disfigured and covered over, leaving only a few minor details as to who we

are and where we came from.

 

     However, it is wrong to assert that we are truly Quebecois. We have

managed to align, or have been aligned with, the English-speaking minority.

We have participated minimally in, and have benefited minimally from, the

systematic exploitation of the Francophone community. It would be equally

wrong to think that we have not been exploited by the White English minority.

A token few of us have been tolerated, but the Black community by and large

has been systematically screened out of the major, and even the minor institut-

ions of existing society. It must be understood that our criticism of these

practices does not take us far enough, but that our criticism is also of

the White system of colonization in Quebec, and of the nature of exploitation.

 

     We, as Blacks,  must organize and align ourselves with the working class

in a move to tear down the structure of this antagonistic society. But due to

the nature of racism, which has not been resolved in the White community, we

have the revolutionary right to remain autonomous. It is a fact that:

 

           "Labour cannot emancipate itself in the White

            skin where in the Black is branded."

 

So let us say that we will not integrate ourselves in any movement that

does not deal with its racism: this would be utter madness!

 

 

DEALING WITH THE BLACK BOURGEOISIE

 

     Does just being Black make you progressive? The answer is no. For

within the Black community, there exists a bourgeoisie as well as a working

class The Black bourgeoisie seems to be acting in the role of the traditional

"house-nigger." Historically, that role is one of reactionary compliance.

A "house-nigger" was a slave who, because of the privileges within the plantat-

ion household (better food, better day-to-day conditions) feared freedom

and feared losing his privilege. Thus, he did not align himself with the

struggle of the field slaves. The Black bourgeoisie today are maintaining

the status quo. They would like certain concessions, but within the overall

structure  they are the ones who have a few more material advantages, and a few

more privileges than the Black have-nots-- the lower class. Therefore, they

identify with the present power structure. If the Black bourgeoisie cannot

overcome this contradiction, and does not align itself with progressive elements,

both within the Black community and within Quebec, then it sets itself up as our

enemy and will be treated as such.

 

 

ON WHITE SUPREMACY

 

     In organizing with Whites, it is necessary to deal with the attitude

of White supremacy, the belief held by Whites that they "know it all".

 

     Because of the nature of   racism  , Blacks lead fundamentally different

lives than do Whites. White supremacy is reflected when White people say, ''O.K.,

we understand, and we won't oppress you", without really understanding or with-

out really confronting the issue. This battle is a struggle that all Blacks face

and will continue to face in White racist society. Therefore, it is imperative,

for a truly revolutionary movement and a general transformation of society, that

this attitude, and belief in White supremacy, as well as the subtleties of

class chauvinism, be constantly combated and corrected.

 

     Recognizing the importance of developing a complete revolutionary

struggle, we are working with Liberation School. Nevertheless, we demand the

right of autonomy and the freedom of self-determination in order to raise and

develop Black consciousness. For it is a double struggle-- the battle against

imperialism and external forces and the need to make that battle a truly human

 

 

 

 

           PART FIVE:  THE ORGANIZATION OF  LIBERATION SCHOOL

 

     McGill has tried, and will continue to try, to recreate us in its own

image. McGill's "apolitical"' slant teaches us to fear and distrust the Quebecois,

Liberation School stands as an alternative to this form of learning. We have

the responsibility to create and maintain an educational alternative which

brings people closer to the Quebec  liberation struggle.

 

 

HOW DOES LIBERATION SCHOOL DIFFER FROM A FREE SCHOOL?

 

 

     Free schools are created as a generalized protest against the present

university system. They were intimately involved with questions of student

power. Liberation School's goals do not aim for student power, but go beyond

this toward a positive involvement in the Quebec struggle for self-determinat-

ion. We must maintain the political basis upon which the school has been founded,

If we succeed, the necessity for a meaningful structure should be apparent to

all. A good structure will provide administrative facility and furnish a sense

of unity from course to course, division to division, and theory to practice.

As we look at the failures of free schools in the past, we see that their

distaste for organization was a prime reason for their disintegration.

 

 

SELF-RELIANCE

 

     Liberation School is an attempt to demonstrate that learning can be

meaningful if people seek to play a responsible and creative role in deter-

mining their education. To sustain the ideas and activities of Liberation

School, it is essential that the school remain free from the influence of

institutional benefactors. Since the school is a collective endeavor, the

responsibility for its financial independence rests with all its members.

     The first concrete task of the Liberation School was to ensure its exis-tence on a material level--to attempt to set up a good library and to rent a

house for classes and meetings. The Liberation School organizing collective

dealt with the problem of financing the school by tithing. Basically,

tithing is a method of raising money such that each member of the collective

volunteers to give a certain amount of money each month towards the mainten-

ance of Liberation School. Each person is free to give whatever amount

he or she can afford. Through tithing we not only solved part of the prob-

lem of meeting our expenses, but we ensured our self-reliance as a collective

and created a greater sense of community and trust within it.

     Another method of fund-raising will be the payment of a five dollar

registration fee for students. This will further ensure that the Liberation

School will function without institutional interference and that our politi-

cal direction and independence will be maintained without the influence of

student bureaucrats and other groups of people who might "hold the purse-

strings" of the Liberation School.

 

WILL LIBERATION SCHOOL BE DEMOCRATIC?

 

     Liberation School proposes a system of democracy which really works, which

provides the means by which students can participate. The right to make de-

cisions concerning the direction of Liberation School will follow from con-

crete commitment to its organizational and political work. In setting up a

representational structure,  we want to guard against a situation in which

everyone has the right to speak and be heard, but in which only a few are

actually listened to. We believe that by basing  decision-making  on tangible

commitment, there will be no divergence between the school's principles and

its political undertakings.

 

     In order to guarantee such a responsible democratic process, the school

will be administered by divisional co-ordinating committees and a steering

committee to deal with over-all problems.

 

DIVISIONAL CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEES

 

     Each course will have representation on the co-ordinating committee for

the division in which the course is organized.  The Divisional Co-ordinating

Committees will be the arena for political discussions, will see to the framing

of divisional policies and to the planning of tasks involved in publicizing

divisional activities.

     The six Divisional Co-ordinating Committees will in turn elect represent-

atives to the school's Steering Committee.  The Steering Committee will then

consist of (1) representatives from the Divisional Co-ordinating Committees,

(2) the collective of people who organized the school, and (3) a Liaison Group

consisting of representatives from sympathetic organizations who have co-

operated in the organization of the school(for example, from McGill, the McGill

Daily, Free Press, ISA, etc.).

 

THE STEERING COMMITTEE

 

     The Steering Committee is essential to maintain the political direction

of Liberation School.  The overall responsibility of the Steering Committee

is to co-ordinate the functioning of Liberation School, to assure the acquis-

ition of necessary resources, and to set general policy.

     While the Steering Committee will be the forum for serious political

debate, it must also serve as the body which gives final approval for political

actions taken by the school as a whole.  An approval mechanism of this kind

is necessary to maintain the school's integrity.  However, the members of

the Steering Committee will have the greater responsible to be self-critical

and responsive to the needs and desires of all the school's participants but

at the same time to insure that the political activity of the school is con-

sistent with its principles.

     Without principled political action Liberation School will fail to promote

self-critical activity and will, therefore, have no objective basis upon which

to judge its successes and its mistakes.

 

 

HOW ARE THE STUDY GROUPS IN LIBERATION SCHOOL ORGANIZED?

 

     Individual courses are the foundations for the Divisions.  The Divisions,

as part of the structure, are very open.  Divisions are simply a way in which

courses can be easily classified, related studies integrated and collective

actions organized..  Students are in no way limited to involvement in only one

Division.  Furthermore, the Divisions are not autonomous units; they are an

integral part of the whole.  Essentially, the Divisions will provide a cohesive

framework for the organization of courses and activities.

     It will be necessary for each course and Division to be financially

self-reliant because of Liberation School's limited amount of funds.  However,

when it becomes absolutely essential, some money will be available for books,

and publicity for political actions.

     Above all, the study groups should foster initiative and creativity in

putting ideas into practice.  The unity of study-investigation-action should

be the rhythm  of growth for participants in study groups just as it is the

basis for the growth of Liberation School.

 

 

 

 

 

COLLECTIVE STUDY AND COLLECTIVE WORK

 

     The word collective has many connotations, some good and some bad.  In

the negative sense it brings with it fear:  one thinks of people taking orders

and being responsible to a single leader.  Or it brings to mind a communal

setting where everyone does "his own thing" and is "off on his own trip,"

responsible to no one.

     However, a true political collective should be neither of these.  Instead,

the collective should consist of a group of people who have the respect for each

other which grows out of living, learning and working together.  Collectives

are built by people who share a common desire to change those political con-

ditions responsible for the exploitation, oppression and alienation which exist

in Quebec.

     Collectives grow and develop through their style of work.  The first step

is for people to reject their university attitude towards working and learning,

an attitude which always puts "me first".  A collective attitude is based upon

people's understanding that the betterment of the whole means the betterment of

each part of the whole.  We must all demonstrate our commitment to each other

by working for the full development of everyone involved.

     A collective style of work must be developed in each course, in each

division and in the Steering Committee.  Our attitudes must show our willingness

to understand and grow with each other.  Our working style must not alienate

people, but instead, must make everyone a working member of the group.

 

 

WHAT IS A COLLECTIVE STYLE OF WORK?

 

     A collective style of work is based upon respect for people, willingness

to co-operate with others, patience and commitment.  Because both work and

discussion are carried out collectively, it makes no sense to gauge a person's

commitment in terms of lists of tasks carried out or arguments sustained in

discussion.  The ability of collectives to stay together and carry out their

projects will depend not just on their willingness to co-operate with each

other, or their ability to voice suggestions and complaints freely, or on

the hope that each person in a group likes the other.  Instead, a collective

whose members co-operate on a task but fall to see it through to their satis-

faction must be willing to engage in discussion on the basis of that experience

and be able to establish what mistakes were made along the way.  There should

be no hesitation to point out a person's mistake frankly or to accept respon-

sibility for a blunder one has made.  If the primary aim of self-criticism

is the rectification of mistakes in a co-operative and collective spirit, then

the sting is taken out of accepting the blame oneself or criticizing another

group member.  In general, then, criticism and self-criticism are good safe-

guards against overlooking mistakes or letting things go.

     But whether or not criticism succeeds depends largely on the way people

work together.  Criticism may fail, for example, if work is not shared equally

by members of the collective—if, in other words, too much is being done by too

few people.  Or again, if a person is sincere in her or his work but has made a

mistake and is criticized in a hostile way, personal animosities can get in the

way of the rectification of the blunder.  Criticism will also fail when a

person's political credentials are on the line simply because he has asked a

seemingly naive question.  Even sincere people fall into the trap of taking a

more-progressive-than-thou attitude.  Arrogance and disrespect for others have

no place in a collective style of work.  Patience and a desire to share with

others must replace the false, competitive values which we have all been taught.

     Criticism is worthwhile when the confidence of people in the collective is

consistently nurtured, when there is a genuine affection among people in the

collective and when there is a willingness to understand criticism as a way of

carrying a project or discussion forward.  People's confidence increases as

their skills and experience grow.  When collectives start with realistic first

projects, everyone's skills can be put to use and individuals can appreciate a

personal contribution to their success.  Moreover, the discipline involved in

such a co-ordinated effort arms individual group members to accept criticism

and also to make criticisms fairly.

 

 

COLLECTIVE STYLE OF WORK AND DEMOCRACY

 

     In the light of the points made on collective style of work, a fuller pic-

ture can be drawn of the meaning of democracy within the school. Because people

participate in collective study groups out of real Interest, and work out goals

together, there ought to be no feeling among participants that they are being

ordered to do something, or that the need to carry out tasks within the study

group is an arbitrary requirement.

     Further, because tasks are assessed regularly and critically on the basis

of shared experience, there is a safe-guard against false first impressions or

individual misjudgements and premature pessimism. The more discussion within

collectives during the course of a project, the more confident people will be-

come either of the worth or misguidedness of it; the more confidence people

have, the greater will be their ability to proceed with the task or abandon it.

Whether the task is continued or abandoned, the collective will benefit immense-

ly from a detailed knowledge, gained through collective discussion and construc-

tive criticism of a success or a failure.

     Thus we can understand that the collective style of work is a truly

democratic process from first to last, from each collective study group through

the Divisions to the Steering Committee. Collective style of work assures a

truly democratic practice and contrasts sharply with the empty "democratic"

formalisms that we have learned to greet with frustration and cynicism.

 

 

ORGANIZATION OF DIVISIONS OF LIBERATION SCHOOL

 

     Liberation School breaks down into six divisions: Marxist Studies,

Quebec Liberation, Women's Studies, Media, Community Education, and Corporat-

ions and Imperialism. These divisions were chosen because they are reflective

of the major areas of study required by the Quebec situation and are de-

signed to facilitate the generation of political action within the divisions.

 

     MARXIST STUDIES. The ideas presented in this  division are  basic

to an understanding of the political principles and goals of Liberation School,

Marxist Studies  will develop a   perspective on the working class, with a

special focus necessarily on Quebec. It will also develop an understanding

of praxis, the integration of theory and action. Although the content of

this division lends itself to pure study, this study forms the basis for

action. The courses in this division will examine Marxist thought and its

embodiment in the revolutionary movements of recent times. Marxist Studies

will be the division which can develop position papers for the Liberation

School and provide an in-depth analysis of important events.

 

     Suggested topics:

 

           1. Political Economy.

           2. Study of Capita1

           3. Lenin

           4. Study of the social, and philosophical writings of

              of Marx and Engels.

           5. Rosa Luxemberg and European Socialism.

           6. Thoughts of Chairman Mao.

           7. Modern Socialist Revolution,

                a. Cuba      c. Korea    e. U.S.S.R.

                b. Vietnam   d. China    f. Eastern Europe

           8. Socialism vs. Communism.

           9. Marxism and Praxis.

           10. History of Marxist and Socialist Thought.

           11. Anarchism.

           12. Student Movements.

 

 

     QUEBEC LIBERATION   The Quebec Liberation division will elaborate an

analysis of the Quebec liberation struggle. It will be concerned specifically

with the involvement of English-speaking people in that struggle. Anglophone

students will be encouraged to align themselves concretely with the pro-

gressive sections of the Quebec movement, and to bring their understanding

of the Quebec struggle into their communities. Recognizing French as the

working language of Quebec,  we intend to create  Intensive French-language

courses so that all those who wish to learn French can do so. Furthermore,

for those who are fluent in French, and as others become more familiar with the

language, political workshops will be developed solely in French.

 

     Suggested topics:

 

           1. The Labor Movement.

           2. History of Colonialism and Exploitation in Quebec.

           3. The Quiet Revolution, National Chauvinism and the FLO.

           4. Multi-culturalism.

           5. Political parties.

           6.Socialism, Anarchism and Marxism in the Quebec context.

 

     WOMEN'S STUDIES This division is designed to give people tools to

combat sexism through a series of study and action groups dealing with women's

struggle. Since genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in

the process of socialist transformation of society as a whole, emphasis

will be placed on the role of women in class struggle.

 

     Women's Studies will develop as a center for women's organizing and

as a forum for the discussion of women's problems. By creating a news-

paper, women can oppose the oppressive and sexist nature of capitalist society.

At the same time, women can attain much-needed journalistic skills.

 

     Within the McGill community, the division intends to investigate the

university's treatment of women, both students and employees, with the

specific aim  of encouraging the women to demand that the university meet

certain of their fundamental needs.

 

     The division of Women's Studies is not geared solely to women students.

All women, whether from the community or the working sector at McGill-- the

library and cafeteria workers, secretaries etc., — all are needed in an

effort to build a women's movement in Montreal.

 

     Suggested topics:

 

           1. History of Women in Struggles.

           2. Women's Consciousness.

           3. Sexism, a class for men.

           4. Working women in Quebec.

           5. Gay Liberation.

           6. Self-Defense.

 

     MEDIA  This division will develop a radical critique of the established

media as a means of understanding cultural outgrowths of imperialism. For example,

the approved  methods of newswriting and the notion of journalistic objectivity

will be critically assessed. Attempts will be made in this division to learn

about both print and non-print media and their application to political work.

The Media division will also be charged with responsibilities in publicity

for school and divisional political activities.

 

     Suggested topics:

 

           1. Guerilla Theatre

           2. Citizen Participation in Broadcasting.

           3. The nature of media within the capitalist context.

           4. Documentaries.

           5. Publication of a journal or bi-monthly magazine providing

              a critique of Quebec for Anglophones.

 

     COMMUNITY EDUCATION  This division will study and implement educational

alternatives to the present learning structure. One proposal now being dis-

cussed is to provide Liberation School sources as an alternative to the

material now being studied in the public school systems. Other proposed

courses within Community Education are going to Involve research groups

on such topics as nutrition, legal aid, medical services and consumer infor-

mation. Finally, this research will appear in pamphlets for distribution

in the community, or as programs to be broadcast through the resources of

the Media division.

 

     Suggested topics:

 

           1. Nutrition— Consumer Affairs.

           2. Practical courses— Legal Affairs, Medical.

           3. Educational Alternatives.

           4. Role of present educational systems.

 

     CORPORATIONS AND IMPERIALISM  This division will study monopoly corporat-

ions and the domestic and foreign problems created by them. The recognition of

the controlling role played by foreign-owned multinational corporations

makes it possible to understand the nature of world-wide imperialism. Other

contradictions of the monopoly capitalist system, such as pollution and consumer-

ism, can be understood in this framework.

 

     Suggested topics:

 

           1. Ecology, Environment.

           2. International Relations.

           3. U.S. Imperialism.

           4. Anglo-American Colonialism.

           5. Imperialism and War.

           6. The Modern Multinational Corporation.

           7. History and Development of Modern Imperialism.

           8. Imperialism in the Third World.