L’espoir C’est la Lutte: Reflections on the Night Demo of July 19th

Report on a recent autonomous march in solidarity with Palestine in so-called Montreal. Originally posted to Montreal Counter-Info.

On July 19th, under a calm night sky, over 60 people assembled in downtown Montreal to march for Palestine. The demonstration was publicized without using social media, resulting in no police presence visible at the gathering location. The account that follows comes from a couple of participants in the demo. We hope to share an understanding of what went down for those who weren’t there and make some suggestions for next time.

Around 10pm, the march set off, a front banner announcing “L’espoir c’est la lutte” alongside a circle-A, and a banner reading “Liberation to the people, liberation to the land” bringing up the rear. Snaking through streets beneath skyscrapers and chanting, the energy in the crowd gradually rose as we acclimated to the strange reality: no bike cops, no riot cops, no cops in front, in back, or on the sides, just us and our friends and comrades, and their friends and comrades, and theirs, our black bloc and keffiyeh bloc protecting us from the hundred or so surveillance cameras that would inertly record our stroll.

The march lasted sixteen minutes. Fireworks were set off upon reaching Square Victoria, site of the Al-Soumoud camp, dismantled two weeks prior. Demonstrators quickly began breaking bank windows, hitting a CIBC and Scotiabank. Heading against traffic on Saint-Jacques, we were greeted ecstatically by Friday night party-goers, who stepped into the street to cheer, and drivers who rolled down their windows to high-five black-gloved militants. Some supportive passersby began excitedly following the demo as it continued towards the Caisse de Dépot et Placement du Québec (CDPQ). The CDPQ, which had been singled out by the Al-Soumoud camp a block away, has $14 billion invested in companies complicit in the genocide in Palestine. Though its windows appeared challenging to break, several were tagged, several others shattered, and a smoke device was tossed through an opening into an office space, hopefully setting off sprinklers and causing water damage.

Police sirens could be seen and heard from multiple directions, but before SPVM commanders understood what was happening, the crowd dispersed and disappeared into the night. There were no arrests, and no one was injured.

While corporate media ignored the demo, video showing the march and direct actions circulated widely on social media, including on an arabic-language account with hundreds of thousands of followers.

The local struggle in solidarity with Palestine has seen a fair variety of tactics tested in short order over the past nine months. Night demos organized without inviting the police are a new one in this context. We may want to consider doing more of them.

A week earlier on July 12th, the SPVM sent riot cops to flank both sides of a small night demo announced on social media following the dismantling of the McGill camp. The cops entered the street alongside the march and pre-emptively attacked a side banner, ripping the banner out of people’s hands, swinging batons and deploying enormous quantities of pepper spray. The crowd’s tenacity was impressive, but it was not possible to overcome this degree of police violence and begin transforming the march into something greater. One role that a night demo without police can play is to respond to events like these, tending to our militant spirits and repairing our confidence, while showing that the SPVM is putting its units in danger for nothing by intimidating and brutally repressing demos, because our targets will get smashed regardless.

We also want to reflect on how different forms of demonstrations make it more or less possible to reach beyond our existing networks. What is striking in the interactions with enthused passersby on July 19th is how the normal police presence at a combative demo would have rendered these interactions impossible. Police doing traffic control typically redirect all vehicles away from a march, and the scale and aggression of police units on all sides of a demo is extremely intimidating, limiting the possibilities for action in the minds of onlookers – and objectively. No unprepared civilian in their right mind would try to join us. Without the separation imposed by the police, we can imagine doing more in the future to enable willing passersby to take the street with us. This could look like bringing a supply of masks to distribute to people, explicitly inviting them to join, and quickly sharing any important safety information in a friendly way with joiners.

A number of windows on the demo route unfortunately withstood the blows of hammers and rocks. This raises a question of tools. Chunks of porcelain as projectiles are more effective at breaking windows than either hammers or rocks. They’re also harder to source (ask a comrade), and more care must be taken when throwing to avoid injuring anyone. In the future, perhaps “hammer teams” could make the first attempt, and if a target proves too challenging, hand it off to a “porcelain team.”

The enthusiasm for this new tactic shows that the community is looking for a new format for demos. Beyond shattered windows, exploring what autonomous groups can do within demos without police suggests new horizons. We can test new tactics and mixes of old ones, or even police response times around different strategic areas in the city. We can also improve our speed and comfort level employing different tactics so we are not attempting things for the first time with cops breathing down our neck.

With the challenges of the past few months in demos announced on social media, even in contingents, perhaps this new format can also be seen as a mobilizing strategy. If we play our cards right, we can use it to speak to the public, spreading anarchist ideas and practices, so when we show up as a contingent in a public demo our orientation is known to those around us and they might be more encouraged to join us in actions. Hopefully, it will allow us to strike a balance, to be ready to raise the stakes and be strategic in enacting a successful plan, as well as being ready to respond combatively to police violence in bigger public demos alongside hundreds or thousands of others.

Friday raised morale, built confidence and strengthened bonds of complicity. We need to find opportunities to achieve wins even when they are small and celebrate them. The same tactic can be utilized at strategic moments like a major event in the city, or to achieve strategic goals on short notice, or in response to significant police repression.