Challenging Empire In Edmonton

Saturday started off well with an early coffee at Timmies, courtesy of our own Dr. Caleb--who, it turns out, is a computer engineer (can you say volunteer material...) Not quite the Prince of Darkness even if he has the car for it. The coffee was espeically appreciated because the promised free coffee and muffins at the conference turned out to be coffee-less, since they couldn't find an outlet to plug the coffee machine into that didn't blow the breakers--in the Engineering building no less (paid for by large corporations such as Suncor). Then it was into the first session, an excellent lecture by James Laxer, called "The Empire Knocks: The Imminent Threat of Continental Union." He touched on his experiences in writing his new book, The Border, and the treatment of Maher Arar, in order to make the point that what law enforcement agencies do is no accident, and harmonization of our security with the U.S. (especially since Sept. 11) made it inevitable that something like this would happen. Laxer also covered the strong push by the Fraser Institute, the C.D. Howe Institute etc. for full integration with the U.S., which he called a "clear well-thought out plan for integration." He noted that while the Canadian Alliance is pushing for integration all at once, the Liberals are also pushing for it--just as more of an installment plan. Laxer explained that integration would not mean annexation--i.e., we would not get to BE Americans, with voting rights etc., because Canadians are too liberal by U.S. standards. Instead, Canada would simply lose its ability to make decisions, and would therefore cease to be a country in any fundamental sense. As Laxer put it, we need to have a right to say NO to U.S. policies, including U.S. imperial wars. He was also careful to draw a link between soveriegnty and democracy--as he said, without sovereignty, there is no democracy, and without democracy, there is no sovereignty. His final words were stirring--"This is our last chance. We must win this debate!"

Laxer did have a question period after his lecture, and Vive's good friend and columnist Robin Mathews stood up--which led to a touching moment, as Jim Laxer said, "Is that you Robin? Sorry, old eyes seeing old friends." It also allowed me to locate Robin, who I've been speaking with via email for about a year now but had never met in person. We met after the lecture and spent the next hour and a half speaking with each other and some of the other fascinating people Robin knows--which unfortunately meant I missed the session on "Canada, Quebec and Empire" by Claude Denis. It was worth it, however, to meet Richard Harding, from CAW Local 200--one of the most passionate nationalists I've yet met, and a strong advocate of building a sovereigntist movement through labour--even in opposition to union leaders, who according to Harding, are often being co-opted into elitist business power structures. He writes for Scoop, a free Windsor paper distributed to auto workers and dealing with issues of sovereignty and labour, and is part of a radio program through the University of Windsor that addresses those same issues. I was fortunate enough to attend his lecture, with Ramon Antipan President of the Edmonton Local of CUPW and Vice-President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, on "Labour-International Solidarity or Popular Sovereignty." Harding's main point was that national popular sovereignty and international solidarity are not mutually exclusive--as he put it, "if we love our home we can be in solidarity with others fighting for their homes." However, both panelists pointed out that international unions do not necessarily mean international solidarity--connections must be made at the level of the workers.

It was then on to a session on sovereignty and the environment by the ED of the Sierra Club, which touched on how sovereignty is often used as an excuse to avoid fixing environmental problems in individual countries at the same time as they give up sovereignty to international trade agreements. The bulk of the lecture was about the push to get international agreements like the Kyoto Accord into place, and how the U.S. has disrupted that process.

And that was it for Saturday for me.

Sunday started off productively with a morning meeting with Jesse, our technical director/webmaster, and our treasurer Nick Hoang. We signed the incorporation papers for Vive which will be filed this week or early next--meaning we're very close to being an "official" organization. Then it was into the first session, by U Leth's Tony Hall and Chief Garry John. You can read Hall's paper on this site, although unfortunately without his humourous asides--and I highly recommend you get his newly released (and very heavy) book, The American Empire and the Fourth World. Chief Garry John's portion of the session highlighted the fact that aboriginal nations are also working for sovereignty, but that his own people have come to the conclusion that they must work together with others in order to accomplish that goal--it's too difficult to oppose the numerous attempts at corporatization of things such as water or land speaking only as a minority. For me this underlined the fact that in Canada we have sovereignties, not just one sovereignty (English, French, Native) but that they are not necessarily threatening to each other--if we work together, those sovereignties can in fact be a source of strength when challenging U.S. empire and corporate globalization (remember 1812?).

Next it was into my favourite session of the entire conference (apologies to all the other excellent speakers)--a panel called "Where to Build Solidarity--Locally, Nationally, or Internationally?" It was set up as a debate between Gordon Laxer, director of the Parkland Institute, and Scott Harris, an Edmonton-area activist. Harris (who went second) argued for internationalism rather than nationalism. His basic arguments were that Canada is imperialist because it is capitalist and a member of the G8 etc, that Canada benefits from it's relationship with the U.S., that the Canadian state is racist (e.g. treatment of First Nations), that he is a human being and not a Canadian, that nationalism is by nature about us versus them, and what is nationalism anyway? Fairly similar to arguments made by Paul Kellogg (but without the charts). Harris also said in his opinion Canadians and Americans are really not any different from each other (an argument which drives me nuts--obviously Harris hasn't read Michael Adams--see Fire and Ice).

Gord Laxer, on the other hand, argued for nationalism. He was first careful to explain that he considered a nation as its people, not the state. Then he asked whether progressives are stuck in a local/global dichotomy, and forgetting a third level of action--national. Laxer explained how the current globalization protests assume that transnational civic communities diminish the need for individual sovereignty--that they aim not to stop globalization but to globalize from below. In essence, they buy into the idea of a borderless world, and accept the inevitablity of globalization as is touted by big business and elites. That in fact serves the purposes of transnational corporations because it makes space for the powerful to abuse borders--while in fact, for regular workers and citizens, those borders remain very much in existence. Labour doesn't move across borders, for example. He noted that it is very difficult to organize at the level of 6 billion people, especially for regular people without a lot of resources--it's difficult for everyone to afford, for example, to travel to other countries to oppose trade agreements (such as at Miami). But countries form natural communities, which can have common memories of struggles. They are big enough to challenge corporate power but small enough to do bottom-up democracy. Laxer's point was that therefore globalization can in fact be re-imagined as re-colonization--and that the site of resistance can be struggles to reclaim local and national sovereignties.

He also explained that nationalism is not good or bad--unlike other isms, it doesn't have a coherent ideology to it, but gets its content by its context. We must also not make the mistake of assuming that Canadian nationalism is the same as U.S. nationalism. U.S. left positions are generally anti-nationalist because U.S. nationalism = world domination, and is also often associated with racism (anti-immigrant, etc). This misleads in Canada. According to Laxer, there are five criteria for judging whether nationalism is progressive or not:

1) How inclusive is it?
2) Does it respect deep diversity or are unity and conformity primary?
3) How deeply democratic is it?
4) Is it expansionist or not?
5) Is it inwardly looking or built on people to people internationalism?

According to Laxer, nationalism in Canada can be progressive because "no significant group has combined racism with Canadian nationalism since the 1950s" and the elites in this country want to integrate with the U.S, meaning that nationalism in Canada is an expression of popular or grassroots sovereignty and it challenges the U.S. empire rather than bolsters it. However, the challenge is for citizens to turn corporate-oriented states into citizne-oriented states.

After lunch and a short session discussing building communities at the human-to-human level (the definition of which was not clear and actually a big part of the discussion), it was time for the main event of the conference--a speech by the "rock star" of the Canadian left, Naomi Klein. Klein spoke to a packed Myer Horowitz Theatre, giving a speech retitled to "Bomb, Then Buy." It was an excellent speech with made the point that the goal in Iraq was to destroy the existing nationalized systems in order to create a blank slate and recreate the country in the image of U.S. free enterprise--just without the obstacles of democracy, since democracy has yet to be established in Iraq. As Klein said, Iraq provides the potential to establish an even more extreme or unlimited version of capitalism than exists in the U.S. itself, where capitalism is still somewhat limited by democracy. She explained that capitalism acts like a drug addict--and expansion is its heroin. Iraq was attractive not only for its oil but for its services and infrastructure, all of which could be turned into profit e.g., prisons, health care, etc. This is indeed happening as U.S. companies land gigantic contracts to "rebuild"--ie, remake the country into a free market paradise. However, as she noted, it is in fact illegal to destroy the laws of a country when occupying it, even by the standards of the U.S. army itself, so once Iraq gets back on its feet it has every legal right to re-nationalize its public services and resources. She also stressed the fact that the anti-globalization struggle and the struggle for peace are the same thing, and are in fact bundled by the U.S. government (which included funds for dealing with anti-FTAA protestors in its latest budget allotment for Iraq) and that these movements must therefore work together.

Unfortunately, like Parenti, Klein also avoided a question period, having the moderator instead tell everyone to "go ask each other your questions" (which seemed like a bit of a cop out, since obviously not everyone is an expert or privy to information she may have). Overall though it was an excellent lecture and full of a lot of food for thought.

So what did I take away from the experience? One, a better sense of the theory and ideas behind this struggle--and therefore a clearer sense of its justification. Two, a lot of respect for the fascinating, tough and committed people I met. We're fortunate to have such compelling and courageous thinkers and leaders. Three, a conviction that this is in fact a real movement, and one that is incredibly important for the future of this country and the world.

This is a struggle we have to win.

- Susan

Note: Parkland Institute Rainbow Bridge Communic... James Laxer The Border Robin Mathews Hall's paper The American Empire and... Paul Kellogg Fire and Ice