Summit of the absurd

>> Or how I learned to stop worrying about the issues and enjoy the many benefits of police protection

by PHILIP PREVILLE

It's 5 p.m. on a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon in Quebec City. It's open season between protesters and law enforcers on at least three fronts. The sounds of mayhem are everywhere: the rattling of the perimeter fence, the bang of percussion bombs, the hiss of gas canisters, the squeaking dart of sneakers and the marching of boots.

I can't hear any of it. I'm inside the perimeter. More precisely, I'm inside Restaurant l'Oeuferie on the corner of St-Jean and Honoré-Mercier, a quaint little brunch eatery with exposed brick and floor-to-ceiling windows, a mere 40 yards away from the most acrimonious of the confrontations. I'm witnessing it all from my window seat in total silence, as though watching a muted TV. I'm enjoying a tasty beer in a frosty glass. I'm hauling on a cigarette.

I really don't want to be here. Where I really want to be is at the revolving restaurant atop the Hotel Concorde, enjoying a beer while taking in a panoramic, aerial view of all the skirmishes at once. But I can't because the American delegation has taken over that entire hotel. The Secret Service is using the restaurant as their own private air traffic control tower.

What I'm doing right now--lounging around, wearing a shit-eating grin--is the most irresponsible, despicable, reprehensible thing I could possibly do. It's also the grand culmination of my week's work, and the only thing I've done that makes any sense.

Trade? What trade?

My assignment was to spend the duration of the Summit of the Americas inside the security perimeter. My inner policy wonk was giddy with anticipation: me, locked inside a cage with hundreds of trade bureaucrats! After years of listening to activists tell me that South America was being fucked over by the IMF, I'd ask some flesh-and-blood South American officials and get the story straight from the horse's mouth. I would speak to Panamanians, El Salvadoreans, and Guatemalans to find out why, despite all the talk of how terrible free trade is, they still wanted to sign a deal. I would untangle the weave of issues that make up free trade and get some clear, balanced answers to some of the most complex questions of our time. Such was my plan, anyway.

Upon accreditation, I received my Summit ID, a Canadian Pacific shoulder bag, a bottle of water courtesy of Telus Corp. and a stack of press releases from some company called Cisco Systems. Nothing about trade. No backgrounders on non-tariff trade barriers, monetary policies or most-favoured-nation clauses. No statistics showing the links between increased trade and decreased poverty.

I flipped through my media handbook looking for phone numbers, hoping to set up interviews with numerous countries' delegations. No such luck. I had to ask the Summit's media politburo to call the delegations for me; if they're interested, they'll call me back.

Only the Brazilians returned my call, offering 15 minutes with Celso Lafer, their Minister of External Relations. I emerged from that rendez-vous with a 15-minute audiotape of limp generalizations and other diplomatic warblings. I attended other, pre-arranged, similarly vacuous press briefings ("The Prime Minister and the President talked about the Montreal Expos"; "Relations with Argentina could not be smoother"). No slippery politician was going to give me the kind of straight talk I was looking for, but only politicians and platitudes were on offer.

In a nutshell, the information tap had been welded shut. I wasn't the only one suffering the drought. Inside the Summit's media centre, mainstream daily columnists were in a panic: deadline was approaching, and nobody had anything to write about. When protesters breached the perimeter fence late Friday afternoon, we all rushed to drink from mayhem's fountain--only to be told that we were in lockdown and could not leave the building. For a while, the Summit politburo even refused to air live coverage of the confrontation on the 12 large video screens inside the media centre, leaving us all staring at a still, placid aerial photo of Old Quebec.

Reporters then engaged in their own Mini-Me standoff: a horde of us gathered at the exit doors, trying to question and demand and unequivocate our way past the line of three (count 'em) RCMP officers blocking the doors. I eventually broke from the pack, wandered the halls, charmed some RCMP detective into letting me outside, and spent the rest of Friday charting the supply and demand curves for tear gas canisters.

Taffy-licking First Ladies

On Saturday, the media centre's brownshirts were even less helpful. No one could give me a list of the day's trade briefings. No one could tell me when the police were going to have their press conference. And as for the official Summit program, well, if you wanted to bear witness to any event, you had to sign up for it; from the list of hundreds, central planners would then chose 20 or 30 names at random. I signed up for them all--working groups, plenary sessions, photo ops, you name it--in the hope they'd pull my name from the hat for something. Anything.

I got the spouses' program.

Shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, as industrial quantities of tear gas were being hurled at protesters, the First Ladies of the Americas lined up for their official photo. After that, Prime Minister Chrétien's wife, Aline, led them into the Bar St-Laurent of the Château Frontenac for a maple syrup taffy pull--which media were not allowed to witness.

At first I was livid. What the hell? You mean I can't even watch the wives get kétaine with maple syrup and popsicle sticks? But as they emerged from the taffy pull to shop in the hotel boutiques, something clicked. I finally tapped in to the let-them-eat-taffy bubbleheadedness of life inside the wall. Since I was on the inside, I could no longer see the point of being contrarian about it all.

With the weight of journalistic responsibility lifted from my shoulders, I lavished in the opportunity to stroll through the historic streets of Old Quebec without the hassle of dealing with ordinary people such as those of you reading this article. I saw riot cops on call, chilling in the afternoon sun. I watched Summitista trade-babes click through the streets in short power skirts and heels.

I smiled and waved a big hello to Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano, who was standing outside the Quebec City Hilton, smiling, chomping on a cigar and looking, as he always does, like the country's most powerful Mafia don. Mr. Gagliano doesn't know me from a hole in the ground, but now we shared something in common: police protection. And if you watch protesters from over policemen's shoulders for too long, you start to see them the way the police do. You have no idea who they are or what they're about, and in the heat of the moment it doesn't seem to matter. Armchair criticisms start to come easy.

I strolled along with Industry Minister Brian Tobin and asked him what he thought of the protests. "You have to ask yourself the question," he said. "What would happen if those people got past the police?" But by this point, I was finding Mr. Tobin all too serious for my tastes. Why should I ask myself that question? Why should I ask any question? No answers were forthcoming about anything. I asked Mr. Tobin a question, and he replied with another question--and before I could volley back yet another query, his aides whisked him away. All these questions were making me dizzy. Time for a beer. Off to Restaurant l'Oeuferie. My work here is done.

The Summit junket

By and large, news reporters are jealous of their colleagues who write for other sections. Sports journalists get to see games for free; film critics never pay to see a movie; music reporters get to do quirky interviews with their favourite bands and are rewarded with great seats. Political hacks are always begging favours. And our bitterness works in our favour, because it makes us ornery. Since we won't get any freebies for being nice, we might as well be feared.

I'm left to conclude that our government has figured this out. And they set out to throw a wet blanket over our bloody-mindedness by turning life inside the Quebec City perimeter into a Club-Med-style travel junket. Welcome! Here's a phone, here's a computer with Internet access, here's some free food. Relax, kick back. Take a few pictures. And never you mind the hordes at the gates--we'll take care of them. Just don't think about anything for a couple of days.

At this point, I'm supposed to do what every other journalist does, which is to act indignant about it. But so far as I could see, their ploy worked on all those who spent most of their time in the cage. Anyone who arrived with their own agenda for coverage was soon lulled into complacency by the blah blah blah of summit pageantry. It seems too intellectual to keep up any blusterous pretense to the contrary.

Mad masked city

>> Documenting the sights and sounds on the streets of Quebec City

by CRAIG SEGAL

Thirty to sixty thousand people took over Quebec City under a hot sun to protest last week's Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting. They inhaled deep quantities of noxious chemicals, slept little, and got shot by gas canisters and rubber bullets. Some expressed themselves by jumping skateboards over a large street fire in the middle of the night, or rambling piss-drunk into a microphone in a talking circle on the last day. I was there for three days, and I talked with loads of people. Here's what they said.



Friday, April 20

"We want to disturb, to the maximal extent possible, the Summit of the Americas."

--Anti-FTAA organizer Jaggi Singh at a press conference several hours before he is hit to the ground and thrown into an unmarked van by undercover police in a designated "non-violent zone."



"We're gettin' energetic, pumped, 'cuz we're superheroes who are going to help out anyone who needs it, who are feeling super supportive 'cuz we're giving super support."

--"Shumway," one of half-a-dozen frat types in homemade superhero costumes walking in Friday's peaceful march from the University of Laval to areas near the wall.



"They're not letting the protesters into the Provigo."

--A journalist talking into a cell phone during the march on René-Lévesque, during a brief stand-off between protesters barred from the entrance by store security, and patrons, who are barred from the exit.



"The [Quebec police] stopped us and asked what we were doing. Luckily an indie film crew showed up to make them think twice about doing anything more than ask questions. They didn't ask us for ID. But they copied info from our T-shirts and told us not to go anywhere near the airport."

--The Concordia Student Union's Dave Bernans, who biked to Quebec with the anti-FTAA Bikesheviks.



"Can we tighten the spring?"

--A middle-aged man talking to another middle-aged man who may or may not have been the creator of a large catapult that is later used to launch padded teddy bears at padded police.



"There's no excuse not to be here."

--Robin, from Montreal-based Bloodsisters, a menstrual-health collective for women.



"No pictures."

--An angry Black Bloc member when I try to photograph a group of Black Bloc at the point where the march split between pacifist and not-so-pacifist protesters.



"I was in the army for five years, but I got enlightened. I realized the emperor wears no clothes. In order to be a soldier you have to give up your mind. You have to stop thinking for yourself. If it was designed in any other way, it wouldn't allow them to do what they do, which is the business of death, right? The fact that they have a fence up there means that we are slaves and they don't need us."

--Ex-army guy Jim from Edmonton, dressed in fatigues and green face-paint with his girlfriend Yuka's photo on the inside of his shield for inspiration.



"I haven't seen this since 1976. It's the return of the Left."

--Victor, an "International Communism" supporter, shortly before the march reaches the big battle at the fence.



"I'm here today because I profoundly believe the FTAA harms the environment."

--Aaron, a 17-year-old high-school student from Toronto.



"Walk, don't run!"

--A phrase protesters yelled when the police fired big tear gas grenades into the crowd and everyone rushed backward.



"Medic!"

--Another thing people would yell. Many protesters went to the Summit as volunteer medics, wearing red crosses on their arms or backs and taking care of people hit by rubber bullets or tear gas grenades.



"They're tossing it back!"

--Inevitably followed by cheers and loud praise, this phrase was yelled whenever a protester picked up a tear gas grenade and sent it sailing back at police in a high smoking arch.



"Hole on. Hold on. Hold the vision. Until it's born."

--Lyrics to a song sung by pagans dressed in blue who formed a circle and held hands. Thousands of people rushed past them at the corner of Turnbull and Lockwell after the battle at the fence became too crazy, as massive gas- and water-spraying trucks were brought in behind the protesters. Strangely, the song calmed people down and stopped them from running too far.



"Fuck you!"

--One of the many phrases yelled at police when activist Jaggi Singh is kidnapped by undercover police 15 feet away from me in a non-violent zone. According to a protester I spoke with seconds later, men dressed as protesters hit him to the ground and kicked him, cuffed his hands behind his back, and threw him into a parked van and took off. Protesters tried to interfere but were pushed back and many hurled objects at the van as it left.



"Close the door, François!"

--Our waitress in a greasy spoon on St-Jean talking to a bus boy when tear gas floods in because of a confrontation in the street.



"Even when we were getting tear-gassed, it didn't feel real."

--Fernando from Toronto.



"I worked in children's theatre and I would just run up to the cops and I would grab one and push in his back and tell him to stand up straight--'cuz a lot of the cops were slouching."

--Dan, a very excited videographer I met around 11:30 p.m. Friday night as he left the ongoing gas-filled street battles.



"I got shot in the head with a tear gas canister."

--Tina, with a big red bump on her head.



Saturday, April 21

"Wear a bandanna and goggles if you go outside. It's full of gas."

--A journalist walking into the alternative media centre at 10:30 a.m.



"The FTAA is going to push wage levels and working conditions down. It's not going to work."

--Stuart Ryan, of the Carlton University employee union, before a big labour march.



"My brother gave me this walkman and I use it to diffuse information."

--A young man walking around with a yellow walkman yelling bilingual news announcements sprinkled with emotional political commentary.



"This is extraordinary. People want to come despite all the fear and the gas bombs they saw on TV."

--Louis-Serge Houle, CSN Union rep from Montreal.



"We're concerned about the corporatization of the world."

--Marjorie McPherson, 60, from Welland, Ontario, who closed her bookstore after a Chapters moved in.



"It's not hard to keep up, thanks to the strong winds."

--One of many people holding a cord attached to a 20-foot-tall, helium-filled, Greenpeace condom float with "Practice Safe Trade" written on it.



"They want people to stop on our station when they're channel surfing."

--CNN reporter Tim Wall, after a teenage girl asked why CNN was only showing the fence battles.



"I'm feeling very hopeful. The solidarity here is incredible. I wish the media would pay a fraction of attention to the violence in our hemisphere as they are to the violence here."

--NDP MP Svend Robinson, walking alone on the street Saturday afternoon.



"I certainly think it's an overreaction."

--Liz, a "first responder" medic on the police use of various gases and plastic bullets.



"People are so organized. They communicate so fast from one end of the city to the other. They were the first to know the meeting had been shut down. They knew before we did."

--Michaëlle Jean, a TV reporter from Radio-Canada.



"At 5 a.m. this morning a cop hit a 60-year-old man in the head and so we took the cop hostage and beat the shit out of him."

--A drunken member of the Black Bloc who showed me the police cuffs and cuff holster he took off of the police officer he beat up.



"Matthew, we'll try another song."

--One of two girls singing to a teenager with a cracked skull so he would remain conscious after receiving a concussion from a gas canister Saturday night. He was removed 30 minutes later by a Red Cross van.



"I'm not a member of the Hells Angels."

--Jaggi Singh to his judge, according to Saturday's Journal de Québec.



Sunday, April 22

"The number of protesters left in the city is pitiful."

--An activist at a long outdoor meeting to organize a delegation of activists to support prisoners.



"People don't really grasp the fact that our rights are strong. We have a right to protest in the streets. The government is saying we're doing something wrong, but they're the ones doing something wrong. They have taken our rights away."

--Connie Fogal of the Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee.



"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were going to hurt me like you did yesterday. Do you like that? Do you get off on that? Do you like hurting your kids? Do you like hurting your parents? I hurt people for a li-ving. I'm a fucking officer."

--A female activist to a police officer after he tapped her shoulder lightly to get her to move out of the way so a car could drive through an opening in the fence.