Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Meaning-Based Translation

if you're like me and you enjoy translation, you may want to check out today's post by Mike Ely on Kasama blog... i thought in particular the discussion of words like "fuck", "con", and "motherfucker" was worth having, though it could of course be taken further...



Tuesday, December 18, 2007

[Le Drapeau Rouge] At Last the PQ Shows Its True Colours!



The below article in Le Drapeau Rouge; i felt it was well worth translating and sharing with you all.

At least in its newspaper, the Revolutionary Communist Party (the canadian one, not the Avakian outfit in the u.s.) is providing welcome leadership in opposing the rise of racism in Quebec, without ambiguity or compromise. While on the ground in Montreal most of the anti-racist organizing against the "reasonable accommodation" bullshit has come from groups like No One Is Illegal, the RCP benefits from greater organic ties to the Québécois revolutionary tradition, witness the forthright analysis of Pauline Marois' agenda in the Parti Québécois which follows:

Pauline Marois Demands a Makeover

At Last the PQ Shows Its True Colours!

With her proposed Québécois Identity Bill, the new Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois has shown that there is no limit to how low she will stoop to get back in power – even hunting for support on the ADQ’s terrain and leaping into racist and xenophobic manure. After several days of debate in which she did her best to defend her infamous Bill, the Lady of Île Bizard[1] once again tried to justify herself during the November 4 PQ commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the death of its former leader René Lévesque.

Sharing the stage with a follower of the Church of Scientology (the popular singer France D’Amour), Pauline Marois first denounced her Liberal and ADQist adversaries “who are using a populist and demagogic approach but have no concrete proposals” as to how to affirm Québécois identity. “Well I do!” she added proudly. It is true that on top of joining the others in adopting a populist and demagogic approach, the new deputy from Charlevoix had done them one better, shamelessly proposing that certain civil rights be withdrawn from immigrants who, having already obtained Canadian citizenship, fail to show an “appropriate knowledge” of the French language.

It is obvious that this initiative from the PQ’s leader is simply politics, as she is sure to have known that her Bill had no chance of being adopted, and even if it was passed it would have likely been struck down by the courts. Ever since the last elections, the Parti Quebecois has been worried that the conservative section of its traditional supporters might leave it permanently for the ADQ. So, under the influence of political strategist Jean-Francois Lisée (the king of all gimmicks, who has himself just written a pamphlet in defense of cultural nationalism[2]), Pauline Marois decided to outflank Mario Dumont on his right and do her part in feeding the climate of fear and xenophobia which has polluted public debate in Quebec for over a year now, all in the hopes of leading her troops back into the fold.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if her Bill becomes a dead letter: public opinion will remember that Marois wants to put “the others” in their place (the others being all those who are not like us) and oblige them to conform to the dominant bourgeois ideology in Quebec. The PQ is betting that this rhetoric will pay off in terms of votes. And what does it matter if the verbal attacks, mainly against the Arab and Muslim communities, end up also leading to physical attacks: this would just be “collateral damage” in this PQist march back to power.

When she delivered her first speech to the National Assembly on October 16, Pauline Marois devoted most of it to defending cultural nationalism and stigmatizing the “foreigners,” going so far as to beseech Québécois, “don’t give up your place to others.” She joined the chorus insisting that everyone must submit to the famous “common values” imposed by the Québécois ruling class, which boil down to speaking French, complete secularism and that famous “equality between men and women,” which apparently constitutes one of the most important elements of Quebec society. Need we remind Pauline Marois that Quebec was the last Canadian province to grant women the right to vote in 1940? That it was only in 1980 (quite a bit less than a century ago!) that women in Quebec won the right to sign a mortgage? That not so long ago the dominant model was still the woman in the home, submissive to her husband, whose main role was to bear children and perpetuate the “French Canadian race” (remember Lionel Groulx?).

The PQ leader – and all those others who are condemning, in the name of gender equality, the fact that Muslim women “dare” to wear the Islamic headscarf – would do better to worry about the fact that the song of the year which was crowned at the last ADISQ[3] gala (a demagogic hymn entitled Dégéneration, from the reactionary group Mes Aïeux[4]) sings the praises of “the good old times when our grand mothers had fourteen children,” and when, of course, we did not have that awful right to an abortion… we think that things like that are much more worrisome than the purely hypothetical possibility that one day a woman wearing a niqab might ask to vote without showing her face.

The silence emanating from the “PQ left” regarding this racism and xenophobia is deplorable, but not at all surprising. The leaders of SPQ libre[5], Marc Laviolette and Pierre Dubuc (or as we have called them, the Laurel and Hardy of left nationalism), narrowly avoided the new leader’s cutting block, as Marois apparently wanted to dismantle their “political club.” Marois finally agreed to leave them their toy, but not before she grilled them and seems to have received the promise that they would stay in their place and not criticize her in any way. In any case, these two representatives of the alleged “left” of the PQ are 100% in agreement with the turn towards identity being carried out by Marois, as they were already attacking the “civic nationalism” promoted by her predecessor, Andre Boisclair.

The only criticism from within the ranks of the PQ has come from the Groupe d’action politique des Québecois et Québecoises issus de l’immigration, which is the body responsible for questions of immigration within the party. In an open letter published on October 18 in the newspaper le Devoir, the group’s spokesperson Kerlande Mibel protested against the emergence of a “populist cultural nationalism” within the PQ, “which demands that everyone share the same values and way of life.” “If tomorrow everyone must share the same values as white francophone Catholics, that isn’t progress,” notes Mibel, adding that every Quebecker should have “the same rights and responsibilities” – a position which is clearly not in step with the rest of the PQ!

One is forced to admit that Pauline Marois is at least consistent: her right turn on questions of identity is perfectly in step with her social and economic positions. Remember that when she was crowned in June, Pauline Number One came with certain conditions, “take it or leave it”: amongst these was the “rejuvenation” of the PQ’s social-democratic rhetoric, in the style of Tony Blair’s British Labour Party.

Under her leadership the PQ will adopt the line of the “lucides”[6] (which is not at all surprising when you note that the “lucides” included many well known PQists). From now on the emphasis will be on “creating wealth before we redistribute it.” Amongst other things, Pauline Marois has come out in favour of the university tuition hikes proposed by the Charest government. Loyal members of the Lady’s Praetorian Guard that they are, over the past few weeks the young PQists within the student movement carefully maneuvered to sabotage the campaign for a general student strike which had been initiated by the Association pour une solidarite syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), and which as we know ended in failure.

The fact that the PQ is a reactionary bourgeois party is nothing new to Quebec workers, who have been subjected to its policies for 17 of the past 30 years. That the party is finally getting rid of its “progressive” window-dressing may have some noteworthy consequences. The PQ seems to be trying to compete with the ADQ to claim the political space traditionally held by the bleus[7] (i.e. the conservative right) in Quebec. As to the army of “followers” and civil servants which the party has generated within the civil society organizations, the question is how far are they willing to go down this path? There is a question which it is still too early to answer.

As workers, perhaps we should take advantage of this “political recomposition” within the Quebecois bourgeoisie to get rid of this scum once and for all; without a doubt, that would be the best result we could hope for.

Serge Gélinas, Le Drapeau Rouge Nov.-Déc 2007 translated by Kersplebedeb

all footnotes by the translator



[1] Marois, who was elected to represent the riding of Charlevoix, actually resides in a three million dollar mansion on a 41 acre estate in the suburb of Île Bizard.

[2] i have translated the term “nationalisme identitaire” (literally, “nationalism having to do with identity”) as “cultural nationalism.” Whereas the terms may not be a perfect fit, it strikes me as a more accurate translation than “ethnic nationalism.”

[3] Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la vidéo : the Quebec Association of the Recording, Festival and Video Industry.

[4] My Ancestors.

[5] A social democratic ginger group within the PQ.

[6] In 2005 the debate about which way forward for Quebec became characterized by two public manifestos, “For a Lucid Quebec” representing the economic right-wing and “For a Quebec in Solidarity” representing the social democratic position.

[7] Traditional party colours in Quebec have the liberals being the reds (!) and the conservatives being the blues.



Friday, November 23, 2007

La Guerre Larvée

Can anybody help me translate this term?

i've looked it up in Le Petit Robert, but can't seem to find it...

translations translations...



Thursday, October 04, 2007

l'état d'exception



a little translation question:

"l'état d'exception"

i know what it means - a state which due to some crisis doesn't follow the rule of law. any idea how to translate it though? "authoritarian state", "martial law" and "autocracy" are all in the neighbourhood but definitely not at the right address...

let me know if you can...



Sunday, March 11, 2007

A Brief Summary of the Official Crimes of the Montreal Police in 2006



The following text from COBP was translated by yours truly - the French original is available on the CMAQ site.

A Brief Summary of the Official Crimes of the Montreal Police in 2006

This text is primarily based on press releases issued by the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM), in which SPVM chief Yvan Delorme has attempted to reassure the public that any police officer suspected of committing a crime is immediately arrested and charged, while simultaneously celebrating the impunity enjoyed by killer cops... So the following does not deal with all of that abuse committed by the police which was never officially discussed by the SPVM. COBP will examine such cases in a subsequent text, but in the meantime here is a preliminary summary of the “official” abuse committed by the Montreal police in 2006.

On January 25th, officer Benoît Guay, a 13-year veteran of the SPVM, was arrested and charged with 22 counts of aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, forcible confinement, assault and uttering death threats in 2004 and 2005, on seven young women between 15 and 20 years of age. The SPVM suspended him without pay but also tried to protect him by concealing his identity and minimizing the affair, stating that he was only accused “of committing ONE sexual assault”! [emphasis added]

On February 17th, SPVM chief Yvan Delorme declared that he was “satisfied” with the Crown’s decision that no charges would be laid against the two officers implicated in the shooting death of a man – whose identity we still do not know – on July 4th 2005 in Montreal.

Also on February 17th, the SPVM announced that charges of assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm and simple assault were laid against the two officers implicated in the brutal arrest of Anne-Marie Péladeau on October 12th 2005, which had been filmed by a TVA news helicopter. One officer is suspended with half-pay and the other is reassigned to administrative duties.

On March 23rd, an officer the SPVM stated that an officer had been arrested and suspended without pay, although neither the identity of the officer nor the details of the charges were revealed to the public. What’s more, “the SPVM will not release any further details until this case is closed.”

On June 26th, the SPVM announced that “this morning investigators from the Internal Affairs Department arrested one of its police officers [...] on charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy to import a controlled substance [i.e. drugs, -trans.], laundering the proceeds of a criminal act and possession of stolen goods.” The police officer was suspended without pay “until the conclusion of legal proceedings.” The officer’s name was not released.

On September 20th, the SPVM stated that it “has suspended without pay sergeant Alfredo Munoz for as long as he remains before an internal disciplinary committee. The officer was suspended in accord with the disciplinary code of the Montreal City police. The investigation had shown that work he carried out for his company was incompatible with his work as a police officer.” The nature this work is not disclosed.

On October 7th the SPVM announced that an investigation had been opened by the Quebec Provincial Police. According to a press release, “Yesterday, around 11:30pm, police officers from Station 20 were investigating a case of fraud, following up on an earlier call from a business. When the officers intercepted the suspect at the corner of Bridge and Mill, the latter experienced chest pains. The 53 year old man was declared dead at the hospital.”

On October 16th, the SPVM announced that an investigation had been opened by the Quebec Provincial Police, “following events this morning in the Côte-des-Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood.” Officers from Station 11 had responded to a report of conjugal violence. The suspect is said to have threatened them “with a blade. The officers opened fire and hit the man [...] the suspect is in stable condition.”

On October 27th, the SPVM announced that “in the course of an investigation, an officer from the SPVM was suspended without pay for the duration of legal proceedings [...] he faces two charges of unauthorized use of a computer [...] the name of the officer cannot be released before his hearing.”

On November 6th, the SPVM announced that the Quebec Provincial Police had opened an investigation following the death of a man in Lachine. Officers with the SPVM had intervened following an armed robbery in a corner store; they located the suspect on the staircase of a triplex at which point, according to the police, he “stabbed himself several times with a knife before the officers could intervene [...] the suspect died as a result of his wounds.”

On December 7th, the SPVM announced that one of its officers with a support unit was suspended without pay, “following the arrest this morning, by the Quebec Provincial Police, of an officer with the SPVM accused of committing several sexual assaults [...] outside of his workplace, while off-duty.” To protect the police officer, the SPVM refused to release his name, all the while claiming that this was in order to “protect the victims,” minors that the police officer knew.

The Montreal Police Brotherhood Goes Oink Oink:
A Brief Summary of Statements Released in 2006


For the most part the following text is based on press releases issued by the Montreal Police Brotherhood, the Montreal police officers’ union. Here one can find various statements from Yves Francoeur, president of the Brotherhood, in defense of brutal and murderous police, as well as political pressure to eliminate any obstacle to police abuse, such as deontology and elements of the police legislation.

On January 13th, the newspaper La Presse published an open letter from Brotherhood president Yves Francoeur under the title “Restons clames!” [ “Stay Calm!”, - trans.]. Francoeur claimed to be writing “on behalf of the 4,400 members of the Brotherhood [...] who feel deeply uncomfortable following the demonstration last Saturday, in the tragic case of the death of Mohamed Anas Bennis.” He complained that “police officers feel betrayed and hurt by certain things that were reported in the media [...] We don’t understand why they are trying to make Montreal [...] out to be a banana republic where police shoot citizens on sight simply because of how they are dressed or their race.” Francoeur concluded by inviting “the Muslim community to be patient, even though this may be difficult, and to wait until all the facts are known before drawing conclusions. Nobody has anything to hide here and the police, both those officers who were directly involved in this case and those who feel attacked by the accusations which were made Sunday, are eager to put this behind them.”

On February 7th the Brotherhood released a press release stating that “Montreal police officers have never been tax collectors and this will not change just because thirty three officers have been assigned to traffic control. The police have only one goal: to guarantee the safety of Montrealers.” This is a reaction to “several recent articles and letters in the newspaper that describe the police officers assigned to traffic control as being plain old tax collectors.”

On February 17th Francoeur “protests” and “wishes to express the union’s great dismay at the suspension of officer Roberto Sforza” (in the Péladeau affair). The Brotherhood “feels that the police administration has committed a serious error by suspending the police officer (with half-pay) before he has even had his hearing [...], as nothing in the collective agreement forces it to do so [...] the Department is carrying out a public lynching of this police officer before he even has a chance to go to trial.” Francoeur claims that “the circumstances certainly justify giving police officers a chance to defend themselves before declaring them guilty in the eyes of the citizens.” He says that Delorme is infringing on the rights of violent police “to a full and complete defense” and “the presumption of innocence,” and that he is “simply giving in to political pressure, caring more about his image and spineless public relations than about justice.” He concludes that “Montreal police officers now know what to expect from the new police administration!”

On August 16th Francoeur released the results of two opinion polls which had been carried out by the Ipsos Decarie research firm on the Brotherhood’s behalf. The first conclusion, “despite what many people, including many police officers, may think, Montrealers appreciate their police officers and the work that they do,” and this despite the fact that “police are often called upon to carry out repressive and coercive measures.” The second conclusion was that the “organizational model promoted by the Police Department makes it difficult for officers to do their work well and to feel satisfied with this [...] The Brotherhood feels that, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater, it would be possible to revisit the Department’s organizational structure to set up a greater number of work groups.” Finally, the Brotherhood denounced the “secondary effects” of the June 2000 police legislation: “when they intervene, officers now feel less confident, less supported and more vulnerable. Because they do not feel supported and feel that the police legislation can be used against them to ill effect by criminals and their lawyers, without the police authorities rising to their defense. In certain circumstances, police officers may be tempted to turn a blind eye instead of intervening [...] The Brotherhood, along with the Quebec Federation of Municipal Police and the Quebec Provincial Police Association, would like to use this opinion poll to convince the Minister of Public Security to undertake a transparent and efficient revision of the police legislation” and to do so “in order to ensure that the measures of deontology established not be counter-productive.”

On September 29th the Brotherhood proudly announced that it had set “an absolute record” during the 40th day of bacon and beans, its annual fundraiser, delivering “20,600 complete deals, the main course of which was beans and bacon”... after which, why are they so surprised that we call them pigs?

Le Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière (COBP)
tel : (514) 859-9065
cobp@hotmail.com
www.cobp.ath.cx



Monday, November 27, 2006

The Case of Mohamed Anas Bennis, Eleven Months Later


Mohamed Anas Bennis,
shot dead by Montreal's killer cops
on December 1st 2005


Montreal's Collective Opposed to Police Brutality have released the following document summarizing the past year's bullshit whitewash of the police killing of Mohamed Anas Bennis. This killing, the brazen secrecy and disrespect on the part of the government, and the "mum's the word" complicity of the media are all scandals, and threats to take seriously.

There is a vigil organized by COBP this Friday December 1st at 5pm, and another one organized by the group Justice pour Anas on Saturday December 2nd at noon...

Translation provided by yours truly...

******************************************

Communique from the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality - (514) 859-9065 - cobp@hotmail.com - www.cobp.ath.cx

The Case of Mohamed Anas Bennis, Eleven Months Later:
No charges are to be laid against the killer cops Bernier and Roy, and none of the questions have been answered...


Montreal, November 13th 2006: On November 4th 2006, the government of Quebec released a brief statement to the effect that “no criminal charges will be laid as following the death of Mr Mohamed Annas Bennis” as “a thorough examination of the evidence did not lead us to conclude that a criminal act had occurred.” (1)

More than eleven months after the incident where an officer from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM – Montreal Police Department) shot Mohamed Anas Bennis twice, once in the heart killing him, a brief review of the facts is in order.

What Happened and What the Police Say Happened

On December 1st 2005, at around 7:20am, on the corner of Kent Street and Côte-Des-Neiges, the twenty-five year old Mohamed Anas Bennis was killed, shot twice by an SPVM officer from Neighbourhood Station 25. Mohamed was killed in the midst of a joint police operation involving the SPVM, the Quebec Provincial Police, the RCMP and even perhaps the FBI. “Operation Glory,” which ended up not to be so glorious after all, targeted a network of alleged Algerian scam artists who were suspected of ties to “international terrorism.” But although he was a young bearded Moroccan on his way home from Mosque wearing a skullcap and djellabah, Mohamed had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.(2)

The next day, the police version of events was published in the Journal de Montreal: Mohamed, described as “unbalanced,” was said to have jumped on a police officer with a kitchen knife, for no reason, stabbing him in the neck and in the leg. The officer then fired the two fatal shots, apparently in “justified self-defense.” (3) This version of events was challenged by Mohamed’s friends and family, who described him as an easy going young man who had never had any problems with the police, or any psychological problems. Furthermore, as his sister pointed out, “The idea of Mohamed Anas walking around with a kitchen knife as he left Mosque on the morning of December 1st, there is no way we’re going to swallow a story like that. We’d do better to believe in Santa Claus!”(4)

The Service de Police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ – Quebec City Police Department) was charged with investigating the case, as according to the “policy of the Public Security Minister of Quebec, that when a death or serious bodily injury which might result in death occurs during a police operation or period of detention” no police force can investigate itself or events in which its own officers caused someone to die.

The community mobilizes
Mohamed Anas Bennis’ father, Mohamed Bennis, as well as the Atlas Media Group, set up the Association for Truth Regarding the Death of Anas, which quickly received support from many people and organizations concerned with civil rights. On December 2nd it was reported that the police officer in question was “treated for superficial injuries which did not require hospitalization.” On December 5th, the SPVQ officer in charge of the investigation confirmed that there was a video tape of the incident. On December 6th, the father hired the lawyer Luc Trempe to expose what he referred to as a “bavure policiere.” [A term which means “police error,” but which is used to refer to police killings. - translator] The father traveled to Quebec City and met with Lieutenant-Detective Jocelyn Bélanger, who told him that the investigation was now in the coroner’s hands. On December 8th a source confirmed that on the police radio one could hear police shouting “Show us your hands!” to Mohamed. The police also claim that the video recording is of poor quality and “cannot be used.”(5)

On December 11th 2005, the Atlas Media Group devoted a radio show to the Anas affair, inviting a member of COBP to speak about police brutality. On December 15th, there was a special report on the case in the Atlas Media newspaper, with a circulation of 10,000 copies; other articles would be published in January and November 2006. Mohamed’s father denounced the bavure policiere, suggesting that his son was the victim of racial profiling, killed because of how he looked and the stereotype of Muslim terrorists. The fact that the killer cop was only 25 years old and has only been on the job for four years added to suspicions that Mohamed Anas Bennis was in fact a victim of racial profiling. (6) The family also denounced the investigators’ lack of transparency and the lack of communication from the police authorities. In an interview with La Presse, Mohamed’s brother Mohamed-Labri Bennis said “They refuse to tell us why” Mohamed Anas was killed. Even if the police were telling the truth, he asked “Is this the only way that two police officers with firearms can immobilize a man with a knife?” (7)

On January 7th 2006, a day when the temperature dropped to minus seventeen, roughly 2000 people participated in a demonstration called by the Association for Truth Regarding the Death of Anas. The vast majority of the demonstrators were from the Moroccan, Arab and Muslim communities. In fact, the Imams had put out a call to participate through the Mosques. Chanting “Justice and Dignity, We Want the Truth!” the demonstrators denounced the slow pace of the police investigation and demanded a public inquiry to shed light on the case. Speeches by family and organizers asked people to be patient and have faith in the police and the system. They even thanked the SPVM for having escorted the demonstration, and when someone shouted out “Killer Cops!” he was quickly told to be quiet by the protest marshals... Speeches called for “Montreal police to be better educated about Islam and the Muslim community, as many police officers are ignorant about how Muslims dress and their religious practices,” because without this “members of the police force will be influenced by the islamophobic and stereotyped media propaganda regarding Muslims.” (8)

Representatives of the Muslim Council of Montreal and the Black Coalition of Quebec also took part in the march, as did the former Liberal Minister of Immigration, Denis Coderre. Many people were justifiably shocked that this man, nicknamed “Mr Security Certificate,” had been invited to a demonstration for Mohamed Anas Bennis. Indeed, a campaign had just been launched to “Vote Against Coderre” and “deport him from parliament.” Amongst other things, Coderre had been responsible for signing three security certificates, one of which was for Adil Charkaoui (who was also present at the march). Coderre also oversaw almost 18,000 deportations, lifted the moratorium on deportations to Algeria, and had police brutalize undocumented Algerians in his Ottawa office, amongst other things. (9) Right in the middle of an election campaign and the sponsorship scandal, Coderre’s appearance at the demonstration was nothing but a disgusting attempt to get some political capital out of a man’s death by pretending to denounce police brutality and posing as a “friend” of the community... “Mr Security Certificate” was also invited to speak on the Atlas Media radio show the Sunday following the demonstration.

The cover up and clearing the police
Three days after the march, Katherine Wilton of the Gazette reported that the police “promised yesterday all the facts in the bizarre case will be made public once their work is complete.” She quoted Constable Hugues Lavoie of the SPVQ as saying “We are professionals and we have no interest in hiding anything.” (10)

According to officer Jean-Sébastien Roy of the SPVQ (we do not know if he is related to the officer Roy of the SPVM who was implicated in the incident on December 1st 2005), “our report was finished in March and we sent it to the Crown Prosecutor in Rimouski.” In late September 2006, Mohamed Anas Bennis’ sister Najilaa told the Journal de Montreal that “They are trying to hide something from us. We want to know the truth, whether my brother was a victim or was the one to blame. Yet we have no news. It is not normal.” Prosecutor James Rondeau, who had received the file on April 13th, claimed to “understand the concerns” of the Bennis family, but blamed “a heavy workload before the summer” and “sick leave following surgery on his arm” for the time it was taking. Trying to be reassuring, he explained that “I am not the kind who only does half the job. I spent some time on this file. I even went to Montreal to see where it happened. (...)” He said that it would be known before December 1st whether or not charges would be laid in the case. (11)

And so it was more than eleven months after the death of Mohamed Anas Bennis, on November 4th 2006, that the “substitute associate chief of the Attorney General of Rimouski” James Rondeau released his decision in the form of a press release. No criminal charges would be laid against the police officer who killed Mohamed Anas Bennis. Apparently “a thorough examination of the evidence did not lead us to conclude that a criminal act had occurred.” (12) And yet the report of Coroner Rafaël Ayllon, signed on January 31st 2006 in Montreal, left no room for doubt: he concluded that this was a “violent death” caused by a “hemorrhagic and cardiological shock which resulted from one bullet in the thorax and one in the abdomen which struck several vital organs including the heart.” The autopsy conducted by Dr André Bourgault on December 2nd 2005 showed that “Mr Bennis’ death is due to hemorrhagic and cardiogenic shock which resulted from two bullet wounds in the thorax and the abdomen. These wounds perforated several vital organs including the right lung, the stomach, the spleen, the left kidney and the heart, which caused serious hemorrhaging.” The report explained that “There were two wounds in the thoraco-abdominal area caused by two bullets shot from a firearm. The first wound was situated in the second intercostal space and the left clavicle measuring .9 cm in diameter and the second on the posterior surface of the left arm measured .7 cm in diameter.” The external examination confirmed that Mohamed also had cuts on his nose, mouth and forehead and “a superficial third wound (...) on his left hand at the base of the thumb measuring 3.5 cm in length.” (13)

The coroner’s report also revealed the names of the two SPVM officers implicated in the incident, without saying which one fired on Mohamed: officers Bernier and Roy of Neighbourhood Station #25.

This is how the coroner explains the circumstances surrounding Bennis’ death: “In the police report from the SPVM’s Station 25, officers Bernier and Roy were heading towards (...) Kent Street in order to join personnel participating in an operation headed by the Quebec Provincial Police that had been going on since 6:30am. The two officers were walking on the sidewalk towards the building when Mr Bennis headed southwest in their direction; when he reached the police he stabbed one of the officers in his neck and in his right leg for no known reason. The officer fired on him with his revolver and the individual fell to the ground.” Ambulance services took Mohamed to the Jewish General Hospital and “tried to revive him,” but he was in a “critical condition when he arrived,” and “at 8:04am his death was declared by the doctor in charge.” As for the police officer, he was brought to the Montreal General Hospital. (14)

Unanswered Questions
On December 7th 2006, the Bennis family’s lawyer Pierre Pâquet met with Prosecutor James Rondeau at his office. Rondeau read him a legal opinion which stated that “there is no reason to lay charges against the police officer involved,” but he refused to hand a copy of this opinion over to the lawyer! Rondeau also told him that he would have to fill out an Access to Information request in order to receive a copy of the SPVQ’s report. As the victim’s father said, “We have waited almost a year for information, and still we have received nothing official.” He added, “Everything is verbal, nothing is concrete” and “what they have told us is very contradictory.” (15)

In the November 9th 2006 edition of their newspaper, Atlas Montreal denounce “a press release which hardly says anything, which is empty, and almost anonymous as it comes from an information agency and not from the office of any authority.” Noting that the Coroner’s Report “did not say anything that the police press releases in December 2005 were not already saying a year ago,” they asked “What was the point of having fifteen investigators work for twelve months if it was for such meager results?” They also noted that “All of the questions that were being asked last December 2nd remain unanswered, and there are new questions too, such as why was the Bennis family’s lawyer denied access to evidence in this case, forcing him to rely on Access to Information requests to get around this bizarre ‘secrecy’, having to wait eight months to see if this would work.” In conclusion, “Let us speak plainly: what is there to hide in the Anas Bennis affair? Who has an interest in hiding these things, and why?” (16)

A spokesperson from the Minister of Justice told the Gazette that there would be no other statements beyond this press release. Prosecutor Rondeau from Rimouski could not be reached for comment, perhaps due to his “heavy workload” or another “sick leave”? As to the SPVM, they did not respond to any requests for interviews... the Bennis family’s lawyer Pierre Pâquet stated that “it has been a year that the family has not been told anything (...) So far all I have encountered are closed doors. I have been refused access to anything having to do with the investigation, as if it were all secret. It is very strange, because if it is as simple as they say I don’t see why the family cannot be told what happened.” Even some sources within the SPVM say they are frustrated as the lack of transparency in this investigation, but not for the same reason: they say they are certain the police officer shot to defend himself from an unprovoked attack... (17)

On November 8th 2006, La Presse quoted Montreal Police Brotherhood president Yves Francoeur as also denouncing the “abnormally long procedure” saying that the duration of the inquiry for an incident “as clear as a mountain stream” is “aberrant and sends the wrong message to police officers.” While he insisted he “sympathizes with Anas Bennis’ father’s pain,” Francoeur thinks it is especially hard on “the young police officer who was stabbed and forced to fire and who has to wait all this time. He started having doubts.”

As for Mohamed Anas’ father, he “questions the entire investigation” and has stated that “when a citizen is in a conflict with a police officer, there is another law which is applied. This decision may not sit well with the Arab and Muslim community.” (18)

In an interview with Atlas Montreal, Pierre Pâquet notes that if Mohamed had survived, he would have been charged with armed assault on a police officer, and would have access to any evidence and would have the chance to cross-examine witnesses. “So,” he asks, “why, when he is dead, should these rights which all citizens enjoy cease to apply? Why can’t his family get a hold of the file?” He explains, “There are a few possibilities that I can think of; I have heard 27 different versions of what happened in this case; I have a lot of unanswered questions in my head; but all of this does not measure up to one document, written in black and white, but they tell us we cannot have access to anything written and this is difficult to accept because I have this horrible feeling that the basic rights of the victim and his family (...) have not been respected.” (19)

Atlas Montreal asked these questions : “The public would have liked to know why a copy of the report, sent to the victim’s father and not to the family’s lawyer as it says in the press release (“I was never contacted,” says Pâquet), is dated January 2006 yet was only released to the concerned parties several months later (“a typo” was the official explanation given to the Bennis father). We would have also liked to know why the final report contains no mention of any video recording; why, despite Mr Pâquet’s expressed request, this recording was not safeguarded...” They conclude that “In the final analysis, we have the overwhelming feeling that someone, somewhere, is deeply embarrassed by this case, for reasons which remain to be made clear and which ‘they’ certainly do not want to see made clear...”(20)

The Moroccan newspaper Le Reporter also asks some pertinent questions: “How is it that a young quebecois, known for his easy going personality, came to attack a police officer for no reason? (...) How is it that a young man who weighed only 66 kilos, with no police record, constituted a serious threat to an entire team of police? To immobilize the aggressor, could the police not have fired anywhere but in his heart? The refusal to produce the so-called knife and video recording of the incident make one think that this is an attempt to cover up a police mistake just like what happened in the London subway.” (21)

Finally, one of the main questions (perhaps the most important one) which remain to be answered is that which the father asked back in December 2005: “Anas left the Mosque at 6:30am, and was killed at 7:20am. But nobody has been able to tell me what happened in those fifty minutes. Everything else comes after this. So the truth remains to be seen.” (22)

Mass Media Complicity
On his blog, Kersplebedeb has also criticized the role of the media in this affair: “If the tables were turned – if a cop ended up shot dead by someone claiming self defense, that the cop had a knife and wanted to stab them – you can bet the shooter would have already been tried and found guilty by the media, and certainly would not be walking the streets. But in this case not only was the shooter never identified in the media (so we are left guessing as to whether or not he has a known record of violent or racist behaviour) and the police version of events uncritically repeated, but the Montreal Gazette (to give one example) essentially tried to bury the story (pages A7 and A10).” (23)

He adds that “Again: this is a case where the police version of events was initially the only version presented in the media, and is still the main version. It is a case where protests by the community have been downplayed, and reassurances by the authorities have not been questioned. It is also a case where no reporters have done any real investigating of their own.” He notes that in actual fact “The Gazette tried to downplay this too – reporter Ann Carroll, who later admitted not even attending the march, simply wrote that ‘as many as 200 people rallied’ – while other media reported that ‘hundreds” (CTV) or even ‘a thousand’ (Journal de Montreal) people showed up.. None of them gave it the coverage that it deserved,” as it was “the largest demonstration against a police killing in years (...) and this on the coldest day in winter.” He asks “following the mass protests that surrounded the police killings of young Black men like Anthony Griffin and Marcellus Francois in the late 80s/early 90s, and after the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality and other groups managed to repeatedly call attention to police killings throughout the 90s… why are reporters so keen on not challenging the police and not actually reporting? Why are the papers burying these stories so much more than they did twenty years ago? Why are we no longer told the name of the cop who kills someone – shit, looking through the Gazette archives I note that in many cases we are not even told the name of their dead victims! Is there some new media protocol for how to handle police killings? Now that’s something that someone should report on…” (24)

Another interesting fact: an unofficial, or at least “plainclothes”, spokesperson for the SPVM, “Freezbee”, posted a text on the Centre des Médias Alternatifs du Québec (CMAQ – the Quebec indymedia – translator) on November 5th 2006 in which he quotes (without revealing from where): “The SPVM administration feels it is necessary to make the results of the investigation public in order to maintain a sense of trust between citizens and police. While we remain sympathetic to the family of the deceased, the SPVM is satisfied with the conclusion reached by the Substitute Prosecutor. The Service would also like to note that the police officers concerned have returned to work and are doing well.” It must be pointed out that there is no official statement on the SPVM website, and so this unofficial “statement” from the SPVM on the CMAQ website seems to be another attempt by the SPVM or one of its officers to convince people who denounce this police killing that “the police acted appropriately in this case,” according to one of Freezbee’s comments. (25) It is worth noting that another “Anonymous” made the same kind of comment on Kersplebedeb’s blog, stating that “The reason the Gazette is ignoring this police related death is that it was 100% justified”... (26)

As the people at Atlas Montreal note, what is at stake here is the confidence people have (or do not have) in the police and the government. In effect, “The community is greatly disappointed, and this fragile and vulnerable community may even lose confidence in those that govern and are charged with protecting citizens and safeguarding our rights and freedoms. Never mind the cynicism of this administration which didn’t pass up an opportunity to bill the Bennis father ten dollars for a copy of the Coroner’s Report and two hundred dollars for transporting Anas’ body from the site of the incident to the hospital where he died!” (27) Already last December the stated that if this turned out to be a case of racial profiling “It would be serous, very serious (...) It would mean that, as in other country’s which we will not name, xenophobia is rearing its head and that the violent death of the younger Bennis will not be the first, nor the last, case of racial profiling which we will have to endure and which will bring tragedy to our lives. If it turns out that this is the case and that the dramatic events on Kent Street were the result of cultural differences, then punishment – either administrative or penal – for the police officer concerned will be less important than making sure that no firearm meant to keep the peace is ever again used to sow death and disturb the lives of citizens.” (28)

Stop Police Brutality and Racism!
As for us, COBP denounced the decision of Prosecutor James Rondeau, the result of eleven months of what we expected: a cover up of a police killing that resulted from racial profiling, plain and simple. Everybody in Montreal should have the right to know if officers Bernier and Roy have in fact returned to work, and if so in what capacity (desk work or on the street) and if they are on the street, in what neighbourhood are they with their guns? It is impossible for us to have any trust in the SPVM which gets away with murder, the SPVQ which covers up the truth or the Quebec Minister of Justice which protects killer cops. The death of Mohamed Anas Bennis is certainly not the first case of its kind in Montreal: we remember Anthony Griffin, Martin Suazo, Richard Barnabé, Jean-Pierre Lizotte, Rohan Wilson and far too many others... We also remember that on February 17th 2006 SPVM chief of police Yvan Delorme released a statement in which he said he was “satisfied” with the decision to not lay any charges against the police who shot a man to death on July 4th 2005. (29)

The attitude of Yves Francoeur, president of the Montreal Police Brotherhood, certainly does nothing to make us trust the police. In an opinion piece he wrote after the January 7th 2006 demonstration he complained that, “We find it difficult to accept that people are trying to make Montreal – a city with hardly any racial tensions, compared to other big cities in North America – look like a banana republic where the police shoot citizens on sight because of their clothing or race.” (30) He also stated in August 2006 that “accusations of racism (...) are unjustified. The Montreal police are not racist.” (31) And yet even Alain Kashama, a football player with the Montreal Alouettes who was arrested last week in Little Burgundy, has said that “Yeah, it’s racism” (which led to their arrests) and that “That’s what happens when Black people drive nice cars...” (32)

It is past time to set up an independent public inquiry into the death of Mohamed Anas Bennis, before any more people fall victim to the SPVM. One week after Mohamed’s death, the president of the Montreal Police Brotherhood stated that “banning handguns is an excellent idea” and that “for years the Brotherhood has supported attempts to control firearms and impose longer sentences for criminals who use firearms.” (33) COBP thinks that it would be an excellent idea for the SPVM to lead by example by no longer using firearms and condemning killer cops.

One thing is for sure: the fight against police brutality is far from over! What’s more, this struggle knows no borders, for police everywhere kill people: in Oaxaca in Mexico, in Colombia, everywhere... As they say in Colombia: For the victims of State violence, nor a moment’s silence, but a lifetime of struggle!

NOTES
(1) "Aucune accusation criminelle ne sera déposée à la suite du décès de monsieur Mohamed Annas Bennis": http://communiques.gouv.qc.ca/gouvqc/communiques/GPQF/Novembre 2006/04/c8616.html

(2) For more details, see the January 5th 2006 statement from COBP published on CMAQ, "Affaire Mohamed Anas: Un policier tue un jeune marocain à Côte-Des-Neiges": http://www.cmaq.net/fr/node/23288

(3) Fabrice de Pierrebourg, "Abattu par la police en pleine avenue Kent, il venait de poignarder le policier", Journal de Montréal, 2 décembre 2005.

(4) "L'affaire Anas: Un marocain tué par la police au Canada": http://www.lereporter.ma/IMG/_article_PDF/article_186.pdf

(5) "Le fil des événements", Atlas.Mtl, No 30, janvier 2005-décembre 2006, p. 4: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal30page4.pdf

(6) "Mais que s'est-il réellement passé rue Kent ce matin-là?", Atlas.Mtl, No 30, janvier 2005-décembre 2006, p. 5: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal30page5.pdf

(7) Hugo Meunier, "Jeune homme abattu par la police à Montréal, La communauté marocaine se mobilise", La Presse, 29 décembre 2005, http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20051229/CPACTUALITES/512290416/5155/CPACTUALITES

(8) "Communiqué de presse sur la mort de Mohammed Anass Bennis, abattu par un policier à Montréal", Bel Agir, Montréal, 10 décembre 2005: http://www.belagir.ca/fr/images/stories/Communiques/manifestation_report_e.pdf

(9) "Votons contre Coderre! Déportez Denis Coderre, alias 'monsieur certificat de sécurité', du parlement": http://indaily.net/?p=133

(10) Katherine Wilton, "Details of Shooting by Cops to be Held Till After Probe", Montreal Gazette, 10 janvier 2006: http://www.caircan.ca/mw_more.php?id=P2231_0_7_0_C

(11) Fabrice De Pierrebourg, "Enquête/Des questions, La famille gardée dans l'ignorance", Le Journal de Montréal, 25 septembre 2006: http://www.canoe.qc.ca/infos/societe/archives/2006/09/20060925-093710.html

(12) "Aucune accusation criminelle ne sera déposée à la suite du décès de monsieur Mohamed Annas Bennis": http://communiques.gouv.qc.ca/gouvqc/communiques/GPQF/Novembre 2006/04/c8616.html

(13) "Rapport du coroner", copie conforme, Noël Ayllon, Montréal, 31 janvier 2006, publié dans Atlas.Mtl, No 44, 9 novembre 2006, p. 4: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal44page4.pdf

(14) Ibid.

(15) "Family not given a copy of report on son's death", Montreal Gazette, 7 novembre 2006: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=582e28dd-d13a-4718-af48-b2f836fec169&k=89680

(16) "Affaire Anas Bennis, Un an après...", Atlas.Mtl, No 44, 9 novembre 2006, p. 4: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal44page4.pdf

(17) Paul Cherry, "Police officer cleared after bizarre shooting, Investigation cloaked in secrecy. No criminal charges will be laid against cop after he fatally shot man who stabbed him", Montreal Gazette, 7 novembre 2006: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/montreal/story.html?id=81c23a51-28fe-41f1-b472-ea647e71438b

(18) Fabrice de Pierrebourg, "Mort d'Anas Bennis, La thèse de la bavure policière écartée", La Presse, 8 novembre 2006: http://www2.canoe.com/infos/societe/archives/2006/111108-063107.html

(19) "Affaire Anas Bennis, Les questions qui se posent encore, Entretient avec Maitre Pierre Pâquet, avocat de la famille Bennis", Atlas.Mtl, No 44, 9 novembre 2006, p. 5: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal44page5.pdf

(20) Ibid.

(21) "L'affaire Anas: Un marocain tué par la police au Canada": http://www.lereporter.ma/IMG/_article_PDF/article_186.pdf

(22) "Un appel du père de la victime", Atlas.Mtl, No 30, p. 4: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal30page4.pdf

(23)"Kersplebedeb", "Protesting the Police Killing of a Young Mulsim in Montreal", 7 janvier 2006: http://sketchythoughts.blogspot.com/2006/01/protesting-police-killing-of-young.html

(24) "Kersplebedeb", "The Police Insist: "We are Professionals And We Have No interest In Hiding Anything", 10 janvier 2006: http://sketchythoughts.blogspot.com/2006/01/police-insist-we-are-professionals-and.html

(25) "Freezbee", "Montréal: Résultat de l'enquête sur une personne arabe abattue par la police" et "réponse", 5 novembre 2006: http://www.cmaq.net/fr/node/25922

(26) "Anonymous", 6 février 2006, 12h20AM: http://sketchythoughts.blogspot.com/2006/01/lying-with-numbers-at-montreal-gazette.html

(27) "Affaire Anas Bennis, Les questions qui se posent encore", Atlas.Mtl, No 44, 9 novembre 2006, p. 5: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal44page5.pdf

(28) "Mais que s'est-il réellement passé rue Kent ce matin-là?", Atlas.Mtl, No 30, janvier 2005-décembre 2006, p. 5: http://www.atlasmedias.com/Atlas/journal30page5.pdf

(29) « Deux policiers exonérés à la suite de la politique ministérielle du 4 juillet 2005 », SPVM, 17 février 2006 : http://www.spvm.qc.ca/fr/documentation/3_1_2_communiques.asp?noComm=325

(30) Yves Francoeur, « Restons calmes! », Fraternité des policiers de Montréal, 13 janvier 2006 : http://www.fppm.qc.ca/intro/intro.html

(31) « Les accusations de racisme contre les policiers de Montréal : la Fraternité en a ras-le-bol », Fraternité des Policiers de Montréal, 7 août 2006 : http://www.fppm.qc.ca/flute/docs/2006/CommuniquedemissionPhilip.pdf

(32) François Ferland, « Kasnama et Estelle s’en sortent sans accusations », Le Journal de Montréal, 9 novembre 2006.

(33) « Bannir les armes de poing est une excellente idée… », Fraternité des policiers de Montréal, 8 décembre 2005 : http://www.fppm.qc.ca/intro/intro.html


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière
Collective Opposed to Police Brutality
(514) 859-9065
cobp@hotmail.com
http://www.cobp.ath.cx/
Montréal, Québec, Canada



Thursday, July 27, 2006

Charles Gagnon 1939-2005



On November 17th, 2005, Charles Gagnon – a veteran of the revolutionary struggles in Quebec in the 1960s and 70s – passed away.

Gagnon was a critically important figure in the development of revolutionary politics in Quebec. Unfortunately, most non-francophone comrades who were not themselves active in the 60s or 70s probably have no idea who he was.

It was partly because it struck me as such an unusually mature and balanced piece of writing, and partly because i think many anglophone comrades in Quebec are missing out on a lot of the inspirational history of the revolutionary movement in this society, that i first thought of translating the following article.

Then shortly afterwards i heard that Pierre Foglia had actually commented on this article in the newspaper column he writes for La Presse. Not only did Foglia misrepresent what the authors had written – accusing them of calling Gagnon a “traitor” and even “digging him up to put him in front of a firing squad” (!) – but he did so in order to attack the entire far left in Quebec. As if to say “these are the nutbars who still reject capitalism.”

At which point i felt “wow, gotta translate this”… and i did… and then you see i never actually got along to uploading it. Mea culpa!

So here, at last, i am getting around to uploading it.

A disclaimer of sorts before you read on: the following article was written by members of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party, a “left communist” organization. The IBRP’s line on reality – which you can check out here – is not my own. The differences should be obvious enough to those who read this blog (i.e. regarding the strategic importance of anti-patriarchal struggle, regarding the importance of anti-colonialism, regarding divisions within the working class), so i won’t go into details here. Except to say that, in regards to what follows, i would perhaps not be so harsh in my appraisal of the Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec and internationally, nor would i be so quick to generalize the critique of Quebec nationalism into a general critique of any and all national liberation movements.

But then again, i never knew Gagnon, i was not active in the 60s or 70s, i was never a member of an ML group… so i’ll just shut up and let the authors speak for themselves… for not only do they pay their respects to Charles Gagnon, but hopefully they may also provide a glimpse at the realities and complexities of recent revolutionary struggle in Quebec…

Charles Gagnon 1939-2005

An Intense Commitment, A Sincere Revolt – But To What End?

“The Leader of Quebec’s Communists Is Dead” was the headline of Le Devoir on November 19th, 2005. Some might be surprised that a left communist publication [the IBRP’s Notes Internationalistes] would note the death of Charles Gagnon. Most people may have lost track of him some time ago – but it would be wrong to forget him.

We readily agree with Karl Marx’s statement, Nihil humanum alienum est Nothing human is foreign to us. Gagnon was an important figure in the Canadian social movement for over twenty years, and so it is worth retracing his political itinerary. We are all the more interested in doing so for once upon a time some of us followed this same path.

Furthermore, we don’t want to leave the last word to the (big and little) bourgeois press, which was generally quite uncharitable and unforgiving in the various obituaries they devoted to Gagnon. Without a doubt, the nationalists wanted to make him pay one last time for all his criticisms – no matter how inadequate – of the Quebecois nationalist movement, indeed of all national liberation movements.

Gagnon was a leading member of the Front de Libération du Québec, and later General Secretary of the Canadian Marxist-Leninist organization En Lutte!, of the Maoist variety of Stalinism – so Gagnon, at least in his public life, was very far removed from the political positions we defend. We are talking here about Charles Gagnon’s public life, for after En Lutte! dissolved he seemed to retreat into a life where personal disillusionment and the need for distance combined, and generally won out over any ideas of once again intervening into current events.

Our critique of Charles Gagnon is political, not personal. It is intended to analyze ideas rather than the man, no matter how noble his intentions may have been. Karl Marx, in his famous preface to the Critique of Political Economy pointed out that you cannot judge a man based on what he thinks of himself. Our political tendency has already stated its skepticism elsewhere as to the role of this or that individual in history. In Le Bordiguisme et la Gauche italienne, we wrote: “First of all, how can we size up the work of a militant from the revolutionary vanguard, evaluate the contributions he made to general, economic or historical theoretical problems, or those that relate more directly to political practice and tactics? We believe such judgments should be considered as impersonally as possible, even when they are in fact extremely personal. In this way the revolutionary, whoever they happen to be and in whatever period they happen to have made their contribution, is always working with material provided by the historical experience of the class. They take up elements that others before them were able to develop to a certain point, as determined at the time by the level of development and experience of the class subjected to the objective conditions and necessities at that point in the history of capitalism.”

Born into a large and poor family in the Bic, Charles Gagnon pursued his classical studies at the Rimouski Seminary in the 1950s. In the early 1960s he enrolled in the University of Montreal’s Faculté des Lettres where he was active in student groups and briefly collaborated on Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s magazine Cité Libre.

In 1963 he met Pierre Vallières, with whom he would work so closely (we remember the Vallières-Gagnon Committees) in various left nationalist projects. These included Révolution Québecoise, Parti Pris, the Mouvement de liberation populaire and the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) in 1966 [1]. That same year he was arrested along with Vallières in New York City (they were trying to establish a multi-national liberation front) and the two were extradited to Quebec in January 1967, where they were held for an extended period of time in Bordeaux prison. It was there that Gagnon wrote Feu sur l’Amérique – Une proposition pour la révolution nord-américaine. Released in February 1970 after spending 41 months behind bars and being acquitted of charges of murder, he was once again imprisoned during the 1970 October Crisis and was finally released on June 16th 1971.

This was the beginning of a new chapter in his life.

The first sign of this new stage was a very public break with his comrade and friend Pierre Valllières, who in 1971 had published L’urgence de choisir and joined the Parti Québecois. The usual explanation for this break between the two longtime comrades is that Gagnon understandably refused to follow Vallières into the PQ. But this explanation conveniently forgets the fact that they in fact parted company before that, following differences regarding the armed activities of the FLQ, which Vallières would support right up until his spectacular conversion to the PQ (2).

Gagnon responded to Vallières’ PQ turn with a small unimposing work of forty pages, Pour le parti prolétarien, published on October 29th 1972. This document was widely distributed and discussed in activist circles. We remember that when we first read it we were struck by the following paragraph, which represented a real break with what we had believed before, and with anything we could have expected from the Charles Gagnon of the FLQ period:

“Already our history shows us that the ‘nation of nationalists’ is a very deceptive idea. In nationalist party programmes and during election campaigns, the ‘nation’ refers to everyone: firefighters, workers, politicians, police, judges, businessmen, housewives and the unemployed, everyone except the Jews and the English! But as soon as they win, come the first important conflict, we see the ‘national’ State sending the ‘national’ police to attack the ‘national’ workers, all of which is legally sanctioned by the ‘national’ judges. The ‘national’ housewives and their children go without and the ‘national’ businessmen, whether or not they are Jewish or English, maintain their profits while the ‘national’ banks make money hand over fist…” (3)

At the time it was as if someone had removed a blindfold from our eyes. At last we could see! That said, when we read this pamphlet again thirty four years later, we were struck by how the whole document remained stuck in the trendy lefty nationalism and third-worldism of the time. Unfortunately, things have not really changed in that regard. This manifesto would become a founding document of the “Marxist-Leninist” movement in Quebec, which at its height was one of the strongest in the western world, along with those in Norway, Portugal, Belgium and Spain. (4)

An Équipe du Journal (EDJ) formed around this document, and on May 1st 1973, the first issue of the newspaper En Lutte! appeared in French. Later in September that year the EDJ began publishing this newspaper every two weeks, distributing it across Quebec. From that point on En Lutte! was affiliated with the Comité de solidarité aux luttes ouvrières (which was involved in the very heavy and frequent proletarian struggles of that time) and with the Atelier Ouvrier, which was mainly made up of workers from the shoe industry, and which notably produced a particularly insightful critique of the role of collective agreements and trade unionism.

In November 1974 the group En Lutte! held its first congress; it was built around the document “Créons l’organization marxiste-léniniste de lutte pour le parti” [translation: “Create the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Struggle for the Party”] (5), which was published in supplement #29 of the newspaper. The initial critique of trade unionism was rejected as was the Quebec national liberation struggle. The organization was decidedly “Marxist-Leninist” and “anti-revisionist”.

En Lutte! was the product of an entire generation of rebels, not just in Quebec but around the world, who were rising up to fight against all forms of oppression and exploitation, and who were disgusted by what they knew about the gulag in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. Nevertheless, they swallowed whole the belief that the socialist project might be renewed by Maoism and the “youth” movement. We know what came next. Barely ten years later, En Lutte! joined dozens of other “new communist movement” organizations around the world who were blown away one after another like so many straw houses.

This phenomenon would be worth analyzing in and of itself, and our group will soon publish a critical analysis of Maoism, which is enjoying a mild comeback in North America and still remains strong in Asia (so much so that the prestigious Financial Times has recently devoted an article to the subject).

All of which is to say that after a promising start, En Lutte! was repeatedly shaken by one atrocious Chinese foreign policy decision after another, and this while Mao was still alive, the Sino-Albanian split which spread throughout the “Marxist-Leninist” movement, the war between the “socialist” countries of China and Vietnam, the horrific news of what happened in Cambodia, etc.

Monique Simard, a former trade unionist and failed politician who has recycled herself as a film-maker, has tried to explain the failure of En Lutte! and the Workers Communist Party (see note 4) as proof that these organizations had fulfilled their underhanded  “anti-nationalist” function during the 1980 referendum [on Quebec sovereignty – translator] and could now disappear (see Il était une fois… le Québec rouge). Such ignorance and conspiracy mongering leaves us speechless… but nevertheless, it is true that in Quebec, the position in favour of spoiling the ballot in the referendum did help to provoke the group’s liquidation.

Today many former “MLs” have become big-shots in various nationalist organizations. Gagnon never did. In fact, both his desire “to be a very bad nationalist” and the fact that he never supported Canadian federalism (regardless of the lies spread by the bourgeois press) probably contributed to his professional difficulties later on.

As En Lutte! was nearing its end, Gagnon carried out theoretical work and produced critical articles of a rather high caliber, displaying a relatively independent line of thought given his ideological affiliations at the time. In June 1982, at its fourth convention, En Lutte! voted to dissolve, and Charles Gagnon never quite got over this. His deep bitterness regarding this period was as much the result of friendships ruined and betrayed during the intense internal struggle, as by the ideological and organizational disarray that followed so many years of hard work and sacrifice.

The following years were marked by a certain isolation. Certainly, the last period of his life was difficult on a human level. While he only sporadically intervened politically, we think it is worth pointing out that these interventions remained critical of capitalism. And yet his writings became more and more vague, and increasingly he referred to imprecise humanist concepts and/or appealed to non-class entities such as “youth.” Indeed, he became something of a Shakespearean character, losing himself in his thoughts all the while nurturing the desire to once again get involved. It was as if he was waiting for us to call him back to action.

In the last text published while he was alive, he wrote nostalgically about his years of activism: “I knew why I was getting up early and why I was going to bed late. I was happy to be with my comrades. Together we were going somewhere, we knew where we were going and we knew why.” (6)

Retreating back in himself, relatively isolated from the social struggles which had initially fed his own revolt, his political thought and commitment, Charles Gagnon reminds us of the figure of Antaeus from Greek mythology. Antaeus was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Gaia, the Mother Earth. He was a great warrior who was invincible as long as he was touching the earth, through which his mother Gaia could magnify his strength. Yet Hercules guessed this secret source of strength, and in one decisive battle managed to lift him up from the ground, at which point he could break his bones, keeping him suspended until he died.

Similarly, Charles, who had not been broken by years in prison or by the public and personal difficulties he encountered while playing such an important public role for so many years, was finally defeated politically by his self-imposed isolation. Cut off from the struggles and from contact with the proletarians with whom he had been able to communicate with so easily and “organically” (7), he gradually lost the thread of the relatively promising theoretical work (8) he had undertaken in the period leading up to En Lutte!’s dissolution. At that time he was taking stock of things and trying to understand the failure of twentieth century socialism, with the aim of surpassing it, of an aufheben (9) of his previous leftist and Stalinist positions. Even though we had recently renewed a discussion about trade unionism with Charles, we have no idea how he came to his theoretical deconstruction/confusion. Marx often speaks of the “false appearance of things.” In Capital he writes that “A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very complex thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” Just think how complex a human being is!

Especially an exceptional human being like Charles…

When En Lutte! dissolved many of his old comrades openly renounced Marxism (10), but for some of us theoretical reflection and ongoing participation in workers’ struggles led – with more than a few detours and false starts – to Left Communism and the International Bureau for a Revolutionary Party. Those of us who chose this difficult path will remember Charles fondly as a deeply human and sincere human being and activist, but one who sadly did not fare as well as we would have hoped when faced with all the difficulties of the communist struggle.

Of the times we shared with him, we will try and remember his “moments of truth,” while at the same time pursuing his struggle for a proletarian party in different ways. It will not be the party of a mere Québecois or Canadian revolution, but an international and internationalist party of a global workers’ revolution. It is this revolution, and only this revolution, that will be able to save the world from the environmental and social decay caused by a system based on production-for-profit, and which will be able to replace it by a system of production based on social usefulness and sharing.

Goodbye Charles!

Réal Jodoin
Richard St-Pierre

(1) In a 1986 interview with the magazine Révoltes, Charles explained: “I was a member of the FLQ in 1966. I insist on this distinction because the first FLQ groups, from 1963, were much more nationalist that those of 1966, for whom social questions were more important. The group I was a part of mainly carried out actions in workers’ conflicts like Lagrenade and Dominion Textile.”

(2) We are especially grateful for this self-criticism, as it certainly prevented the needless loss of human life, repression and imprisonment. Gagnon’s reputation and the certainty that this new position had nothing to do with fear or backing down definitely helped to put an end to these sterile and hopeless “years of the gun”.

(3) Pour le parti prolétarian, October 1972, Third Edition, En lutte!, page 25.

(4) Prior to this there had been Jack Scott’s Progressive Workers Movement on the West coast, the Canadian Party of Labour (close to the U.S. Progressive Labor Party) and also Hardial Bains’ series of organizational hallucinations (of which the CPCML remains today). Nevertheless, it was Gagnon’s text that caught “public opinion”. Even if he would later lead an even larger organization, the Workers Communist Party (the official Chinese Communist Party franchise in Canada), Roger Rashi would never enjoy the credibility of Gagnon.

(5) Many similar texts were written by various groups at the time. Some would join En Lutte!, others would go on to form the Canadian Communist League (Marxist-Leninist) which would later call itself the Workers Communist Party. This organization would be the servile Canadian franchise of Chinese Stalinism and its “Three Worlds Theory”.

(6) Il etait une fois… Conte a l’adresse de la jeunesse de mon pays, in the Bulletin d’histoire politique, Lux, vol. 13 #1, page 56. [http://luxediteur.com/lyber_pdf/lyber_15.pdf]

(7) One of the authors of this article can recall a memorable meeting with several dozen miners of the Normétal Mining Corporation as well as similar exchanges in the “country and western” bars of Abitibi.

(8) The documents he worked on at this time, no matter how inadequate they may have been, nevertheless broke with the boring truisms, the moralistic preaching and the formulaic catch-phrases that were being churned out by the other supposed leaders of the world proletariat (Klonsky, Jurquet, Dinucci, Aust, Hill, Palacios, Rashi, Bains, Avakian, etc.) We can already hear our local Maoists raising their voices in defense of Avakian. In a few months we will answer them with a political argument against Maoism. Indeed, the text Pour une appréciation juste de la question de Staline which appeared in Arsenal #5 has given us an opportunity to identify and deal with the different issues now more than ever.

(9) A German word which does not really have a French (or English?) equivalent. It more or less means “to conserve/to suppress” and Hegel used it to describe a dialectical process whereby a superior form of thought succeeds an inferior one, while retaining the “moments of truth” of the latter.

(10) Needless to say, we are merely using the word “Marxism” for the sake of readability here. The Stalinism and Maoism of En Lutte! ruled out any possibility of that organization ever actually being Marxist. Amongst those former members who completely abandoned the class struggle, several have found comfortable homes in the business world (and not modest ones either…), while others can today be found in the Québec Solidaire reformist recuperation racket or in the highest levels of the trade union bureaucracy. It is to Charles’ great honour that he never wanted or would have been able to find a place in that world. Yet most of the “ex-MLs” never did compromise themselves in such business or political opportunism. Our own experience and contacts lead us to believe that a majority are still willing to get involved and fight during the next wave of anti-capitalist struggle.