After Quebec City: Towards a New Left

New Socialist Magazine


The tear gas has cleared. The demonstrators who came together in such large numbers and with such impressive determination have dispersed. All but a few of those arrested have been released. What now?

In this expanded issue of _New Socialist_, we present a package of articles about the Quebec City protests against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) and their significance. We encourage you to send us your thoughts about this milestone in the growth of a new movement in North America.

What should we make of this movement, which leaped to prominence in the Canadian state with the Seattle protests of November 1999? It's not a broad mobilization of the working class in workplaces and communities, like the Ontario Days of Action of 1995-9, or a movement of an oppressed group like the women's, Black and gay and lesbian liberation movements that emerged in the late 1960s.

The global justice movement is developing unevenly in the advanced capitalist states - the US, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, Japan - but it is growing. Taken as a whole, the global justice movement is the most significant political radicalization in these countries since that of the anti-Vietnam War protests in the late 1960s-early 1970s.

A small but significant minority of people are taking a stand against the investment and trade deals and institutions of global capital. For many, their critique of society is moving from a liberal one, which sees problems as isolated, to a radical analysis, which sees the problems as deep-rooted. Many radicals openly identify capitalism as the enemy.

Young people are in the lead, but the movement is not only made up of students. Some combative labour unionists and community activists have joined in, seeing the links between targets like the FTAA and the ongoing capitalist offensive under the banner of globalization and neo-liberalism. Many more sympathize with the "kids in the streets," even if they have not yet taken to the streets themselves.

As in all political radicalizations, a variety of political ideas are being considered. But there is a real openness to anti-capitalist ideas. Many people who were in Quebec (or wished they had gone) are grappling with the question "what kind of society do we want, globally?" not just "what party should be in government?" True, the city-wide one-day strikes of the Days of Action were more of a blow against the profit system than the Quebec City protests. However, the Days of Action were kept under tight control by union officials and did not generally lead participants to ask such radical questions about capitalism.

Where should the movement go? Activists are talking about protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank planned for Washington DC in September, and against the G-8 summit if it is held in Ottawa in July 2002. But, as some have rightly argued, "summit-hopping" is not enough. Global justice activism needs to be connected with struggles against the ways that the capitalist offensive is hurting people every day in the places where we live and work. Getting involved in local struggles - not just to organize demonstrations, but to try to build movements of resistance - is very important (in Ontario, OCAP's next campaign will be an important opportunity - see the article in this issue). Yet this doesn't fully answer the question of how the ferment around global justice can make its fullest contribution.

The Left in the Canadian state is in a moment of transition. The NDP is in a deep decline. The social democratic party of the Left in English Canada for decades, it has adapted to neo-liberalism when in opposition and implemented it when in government. The fact that NDP leaders went to Quebec City won't be enough to revive the party's flagging fortunes. But although many people have quit the NDP or become inactive, and plenty of leftists are active outside it, there is no political organization that represents a credible left alternative.

The global justice movement is still in its early stages, and brimming with possibilities for building a new Left. Could its radical global vision and dynamism fuse with militant labour and social movement activists who daily resist capital's agenda to create a new force? An organization created by this kind of convergence could be rooted in community and workplace struggles, connecting anti-capitalist politics with people who are fighting back but also reaching out with jargon-free radical ideas to broader layers of the working class.

We at _New Socialist_ find this a very exciting prospect. The New Socialist Group has taken part in Rebuilding the Left (see www.rebuildingtheleft.org) in the hope that this initiative could take at least a first step towards such an organization, one which we could enthusiastically join as a current that supports a renewed socialism from below.

So far, there has been little progress on this front. In coming months, there will be other projects launched in response to the crisis of the NDP and the rise of the global justice movement. Prominent individuals may push to create a new left-wing but not clearly anti-capitalist party.

If a new party oriented mainly on elections - in which fewer people are bothering to vote - many from the global justice movement wouldn't join. Such a party would also have a hard time attracting some of the best frontline activists from other movements. A new party that wasn't democratic and didn't allow different political currents to exist inside it would likely flop.

The biggest danger here is that the opportunity presented by the crisis of the NDP and the new radicalization would be squandered. Instead of the best elements on the Left uniting, the gaps between different layers of people who want to fight for a different society - rather than accept this one with a few changes - could persist or grow.

The "New Left" of 1964-1976 did much, but it failed to produce a radical organization that could challenge the NDP (and in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois) for the support of large numbers of labour and community activists. If the next Left fails to build a radical alternative to the NDP (and the other capitalist parties), it will be a setback of historic proportions. A left alternative cannot be put together overnight, but work to build one can and should start today.