Protest, Party, or ?

The protesters are gone, the fence is down, all that remains is the clean up. The third Summit of the Americas, in which Canada hosted democratically elected heads of government from thirty-three countries in North, Central, and Southern America, has come to an end. Participants are hailing the Summit as a success – one sign of which is the creation of an energy group to explore energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. And Canada’s official Summit Report makes it clear that the creation of an FTAA - a Free Trade Area of the Americas, the successor to the Free Trade Agreement – will go ahead.

The thirty- thousand-plus protestors (some estimates put the numbers as high as sixty thousand) who amassed in Quebec City over the weekend are claiming victory as well. However, whether or not the efforts of the protestors can be labeled a success is unclear. Certainly they grabbed the lion’s share of media attention. Television and newspaper reporters alike seemed fixated on the images of protestors chucking heavy rocks at the police, and the police responding by using tear gas (protestors lobbed the canisters right back), and even shooting rubber bullets. Many of the protestors wore gas masks to protect themselves; at least one was arrested and subsequently charged with “wearing a disguise.” While the level of violence employed is much less than you would find in many of the countries represented at the Summit, there’s no doubt that security procedures will be evaluated in its aftermath.

The tone for the summit was set when the police erected a fence around the area of Quebec City where leaders were staying and meeting. Inevitable comparisons were made to the Berlin Wall, although the made-in-Canada version proved much easier to penetrate, as demonstrators used pliers to remove sections several times throughout the weekend. When questioned about the security arrangements, the Prime Minister had no objections to the wall – not surprising given his previous lack of sympathy for political protests (this is the man who responded to the pepper spraying of APEC protestors by joking that he had eaten pepper for dinner). Chretien pointed out that it was necessary to ensure the safety of Summit participants. Reasonable enough, but he went on to suggest that many protestors were heading to the Summit merely to have a good time and “blah, blah, blah.” (Mind you, it didn’t help that one of the protestors was quoted as calling the Summit “the Woodstock of my Generation.”) In any event, the image of a wall gave protestors the vehicle they needed to attract media attention.

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