While I might get trashed on ProgBlogs as a neo-Con troll for being contrarian, let me elaborate my thoughts on the future of the CAPP protests.
Over 200,000 people joined the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group in the past few weeks, impressing everyone (except those who cannot be impressed by their opponents), and somewhere on the order of 25,000 people turned up to protests yesterday morning (which I reluctantly admit slipped my mind when I slept in after a late-night on Friday).
NDP and Liberal partisans want to see this as a win for the left and for progressive causes. A reaction to Stephen Harper and all his evils over the past 4 years.
And it would be really great if we could see it entirely as that.
But when you listen to many of the quotes coming from the non-partisans in the crowd, you hear lots of “get back to work” and even on CBCs Test The Nation, the politician team was faced with similar heckles.
This leads me to feel that while their is a strong anti-Conservative element to the protests, much more of it comes from the (smart) framing by the organizers as though all politicians are getting a 3-month holiday or vacation.
Which is of course somewhat false, as every politician does have a lot of work to do outside of parliament.
I think it bears a little comparison to last years protests over the coalition (of which there were sizable pro- and con- positions, however both sides were pretty heavily partisan), in that from the average person or Conservatives point of view, politicians were being slimely and trying to change the election (I know that’s just the Con lie, but it did work). Meanwhile, on the coalition side, we saw Harper being slimely, and we didn’t like it. All-in-all, Canadians I think get really pissed when their apathy is taken for granted. We seem to want our politicians to make very slow, minor changes and to not really stir the pot. Treat our democracy like crap, and we get mad.
So we’ll have to see how this “movement” transforms between now and the March resuming of parliament. Will it translate into anything beyond a bunch of people pissed at Harper granting a paid vacation that we all wish we could take, or will it actually culminate in some real changes?
Will this result in democratic reforms on the powers of the executive as the NDP is proposing, some form proportional representation, as Ignatieff is almost now hinting at, another election that could see the end of Harper the PM (or yet another Harper minority, which might result in the same angst from within) or just more of the same partisan brinkmanship that has defined the past decade of Canadian politics?
Only time will tell.
WordPress
Facebook
Google +
I am one prog blogger who won’t berate you. In fact, I’ll go further. I don’t think CAPP should become a movement. Movements against something or someone (Harper) hardly ever manage to sustain themselves. The CAPP people would have to find something to be *for*, and given the huge political spectrum represented in that group, I find it unlikely they could find enough common ground to form a “positive” movement. Perhaps around proportional representation, but then, that movement already exists, and can be found at fairvote.ca.
I think that now is the time for the various political parties to cozy up to those protesters who share their ideology, and turn their focus towards the next election. Our non-partisan efforts were fun, and effective, but we can’t pretend that they have “healed” the divide between Green, NDP and Liberal.
I am ‘unsure’ what the future will be of the anti CAPP movement but hope that those concerned with current PM tactics will remember them whenever that election comes
Now, that’s what I call impressionism!
The “get back to work” sentiment is largely a slogan summarizing a variety of feelings and insights made by those who spout it. If pushed, those who say “get back to work” would most likely be able to produce a more coherent argument if they had the time. Those engaged in the CAPP movement are not engaged in a shallow talking-point-based set of arguments like the Tea Party nonsense down in the United States. The speakers at the rallies were impressive, including large numbers of people you would never normally hear at rallies – constitutional experts, historians, other academics, politicians, and activists – all presenting well-developed arguments that went beyond barn-raising rhetoric (however exciting that may be). Nor are the discussions on the CAPP facebook site as pathetic as the nonsense you’ll find on, for example, the anti-coalition site. People who are talking about prorogation are not just expressing anger – they’re trying to figure out why it happened, and how it can be fixed – and now “what next for CAPP” which entails a richer discussion of politics that most people never experience in their lives (ie: being part of a social movement).
Even if someone’s objection to prorogation is as sophisticated as “get back to work” – it doesn’t mean that sentiment is written in stone. That sentiment can lead to something more developed. We don’t wake up in the morning with a complex, well-rounded argument in our head against prorogation. It requires some thinking, some reading and talking to others. There’s no reason the “shallow” opponents of prorogation will not become more politically sophisticated because of this whole thing. That’s precisely the great potential power of social protest movements – developing a deeper political consciousness and conviction among previously unengaged people.
Whether or not CAPP can sustain itself as a movement is another thing. I don’t know (and kind of don’t think) it can survive the shoals of party politics, but I hope it stays together as an extra-parliamentary opposition group that can at least stick around to the next election and produce a campaign around democratic accountability in our government that can have an important influence on all parties in the election and hopefully get some shots in on Harper.
Even if CAPP does fall apart, it has been quite important – it has shown that facebook is here to stay as an organizing tool, but it also shows that facebook needs to compliment other more intimidating and arduous organizing methods – leafleting, petition drives, public stalls, public meetings, a newsletter, etc – the sort of “off-computer” stuff that builds and sustains movements in the long run. CAPP has also shown that organizing rallies do matter. It has also been instrumental in finally breaking much of the mainstream media away from its softballing of the Tories with a series of strong anti-prorogation editorials being published in papers that could hardly muster a word over the disgusting Tory actions on the detainee scandal. It has also introduced a whole slew of people to activism and in the long run, many of these people will remain politically active and be the people who lay the groundwork for future political protest movements – hopefully ones that are bigger and more powerful. Either way, CAPP should be built upon, even if it crumbles. It is the sort of grassroots political activism this country desperately needs if we’re actually going to turn this country away from the Tories. The opposition has proved itself useless for five years. If the parties can’t be the opposition, the public has to be.