Abstract
The Quebec Social Forum (QSF) took place 23-26 August 2007 in Montreal. It attracted about 5000 people from across Quebec. Both organizers and observers viewed the event as an unqualified success. In this article, we seek to describe and document this historic gathering and to understand it in its Quebec context, against the larger organizing process which produced it. We also situate the Social Forum, both as event and process, within the longer history of social mobilization in Quebec. Historicizing the Social Forum in this way helps us interpret its cleavages and conflicts more adequately and apprehend its larger significance. We argue that the conflicts that have plagued the organizing of the Quebec Social Forum are a reprise of those that appeared in the movement in the late 1990s and came to a head in the 2001 massive demonstrations against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas in Quebec City. The chasm then was widely perceived as one over tactics but we argue, then and now, it is more substantive than that. It is about the clash of profoundly different ethics, practices and theories of democracy and, beneath them, different horizons of hope and visions of transformation. The organizing of the Social Forum is the occasion for this debate, which may say something about the significance of the Social Forum more generally and the challenge it poses to established cultures and practices of politics on the left. The cleavage is generational but not only or simply. It signals a struggle and transition but the outcomes are not yet clear and are certainly not pre-ordained.
Highlights
The Quebec Social Forum (QSF) took place 23-26 August 2007 in Montreal on the campus of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
We think the Quebec Social Forum helps us perceive the contours of a politico-cultural struggle and transition in social movement politics that has been underway in Quebec for the last decade and that we suspect is symptomatic of seismic shifts in the nature of politics more globally that the appearance of the World Social Forum augurs
Political assessment of the value of the QSF would be determined by the concrete actions and outcomes, not those that are taken in the name of the QSF, but that flow from the event, not in the praxis of organizing it, nor in the quality of the event itself. We argue that these two different and sometimes concurrent visions of what the QSF should be have resulted in tensions that have characterized the organizing of the Quebec Social Forum and which are evident in the two perspectives expressed above. We argue that these tensions are a remix of those that appeared in the movement in the late 1990s and came to a head in the 2001 demonstrations against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas in Quebec City
Summary
The Quebec Social Forum (QSF) took place 23-26 August 2007 in Montreal on the campus of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) It attracted about 5000 people from across Quebec around the slogan, “It’s our turn to think another Quebec” in the largest assembly of progressives in Quebec’s history. The Forum could certainly help facilitate the convergence of struggles of the organizations present but, he said, “it is not the QSF which will change things but those who participate in it.” From this perspective, what is primary is the creation of a pre-figurative space, conceived of as both event and process, that is the most inclusive and horizontal possible in which both unaffiliated individuals [les citoyen(ne)s] and activists articulated to movements and organizations [les militant(e)s] find their place The Forum could certainly help facilitate the convergence of struggles of the organizations present but, he said, “it is not the QSF which will change things but those who participate in it.” From this perspective, what is primary is the creation of a pre-figurative space, conceived of as both event and process, that is the most inclusive and horizontal possible in which both unaffiliated individuals [les citoyen(ne)s] and activists articulated to movements and organizations [les militant(e)s] find their place
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