Canada - Mac Scott

Interview Details

• Region: North America
• Language: English
• Interviewee: Mac Scott
• Interviewer: Lesley Wood
• Date: July 29 2018
• PGA Affiliation: Direct Action Network
• Bio: Mac Scott is a longtime organizer from Toronto. He was involved in supporting the PGA during his time in Victoria (VPIRG), New York City (Direct Action Network) and in Toronto (No One is Illegal, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Movement Defence Committee). He is an immigration consultant in Toronto.
• Audio File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oldlm1ziopnqila/PGA%20Canada%20US%20Scott.MP3?dl=0
• Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rg7hd3ik9fvbpq4ntwkt2/PGA-Canada-and-US-4-Scott.docx?dl=0&rlkey=yen0khbu4aud1r7alfs4um5ys

Transcript

Lesley Wood: All right, so this is a PGA interview on July 29th.

Mac Scott: Yep.

Lesley Wood: And I will give you the form.

Mac Scott: I give the full verbal consent and including use of my name.

Lesley Wood: Ok. I will still be sharing it with you.

Mac Scott: Yeah

Lesley Wood: And, your transcripts are for you. So how did you hear about PGA?

Mac Scott: Well, it would have been during the anti-globalization period and- or before that actually by email, because I think, you know, after the Zapatistas arose, who helped to found the PGA, there was was the first really interesting use of email by movements. And so I think actually I might be getting my dates wrong. But we started reporting on PGA activities on the UVic (University of Victoria) radio station when they first started off.

Lesley Wood: Ok. Do you have any sense of what year that would have been?

Mac Scott: When were they founded in?

Lesley Wood: 1996?

Mac Scott: So yeah, we’ve been around 1996 or 1997. When was on that radio station? Yeah.

Lesley Wood: What was your relationship to the Zapatistas?

Mac Scott: Well, we applied to go to the Encuentro. The first one. And I went with the crew from UVic. We had to get certified and we made it. Most of us made it all the way. I did not make it all the way because my partner at the time got sick, so I had to take her back home. Mm hmm. We made it as far as Mexico City.. I was on a radio station news radio station at UVic, and we I would. It was my first email account. I was getting all their emails, so I was reading them off on the radio because not a lot of people had access to email at that time.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Did you hear anything about the encuentro in Chiapas?

Mac Scott: We did hear afterwards how large it was, how militant it was, how beautiful it was. Yeah.

Lesley Wood: So what was your next kind of knowledge of the PGA people’s global action?

Mac Scott: Well, really, there was a bit of a gap because I moved to Toronto and did work with OCAP (the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty). We didn’t at that point have much of a relationship with PGA. It was when I moved to the States and I got involved in PGA organizing in New York City.

Lesley Wood: Can you tell me more about that?

Interveiwee: So I mean, my memory is failing me in my old age, of course, but my partner and I got involved in organizing the U.S. basically involvement at the PGA. We got involved. The thing I remember the most is we got involved, very involved in the North American gathering of the PGA, which was in upstate New York.

Lesley Wood: So what was that like? tell me as much as you can remember about that?

Mac Scott: There was a lot of involvement from Montreal and a very principled involvement. Before that, I would have been informed of the principles, the 10 principles, which, you know, I’ve been in various organizations that have followed over the course of much of my activism. Quebec was very principled about their involvement. They really wanted to see North America’s involvement forefronted by people of color and especially poor people of color. There was an attempt to do a caravan of PGA people through southern United States. That was had some issues and that end up involving a lot of the conference, as well as the split between people saying, “let’s send poor people of color” and “let’s just, you know, send who we can,” and then trying to figure out a strategy for fundraising to send poor people of color, people of color and organizations.

Lesley Wood: Can you explain to send them where?

Mac Scott: There was going to be a global gathering. I forget where in… Where was it in?

Lesley Wood: Bolivia?

Mac Scott: Yes.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Cochabamba.

Mac Scott: Yeah, that’s right.

Lesley Wood: All right. Can you can you describe the North American gathering, right? Can you describe what was? Who was there? How big was It? What was its goal?

Mac Scott: It was very big. It was big. And I mean, the goal was; so the PGA involved out of the Zapatistas, right? And the idea was to have a global network based on 10 principles good principles. It was always interesting to explain the feudalism principles to people in North America, the anti feudalism principle. It was very much led by the global south, especially India and also parts of Central America. It was definitely anti-capitalist, anti patriarchal, anti-imperialist organization, really a beautiful attempt to build a global movement. It was bottom up, right? So the idea was that you would build basically your caucuses. There’s a different name for them from each region, and they would go to this gathering with the mandate or the persondate from their region, their area divided by continent and mostly by continent. And then that that would be how they would build the organization. Canada took a very pivotal role. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers actually became the secretariat for the organization, doing a lot of like the administrative work due to the fact that at that point and still that CUPW was a very radical and still is a very radical union.

Lesley Wood: Mm hmm.

Mac Scott: So the goal, as I understand it, the conference was to build our delegation, build our idea on the principles and then basically where we would go from there and also to build structural stuff.

Unfortunately, the conference somewhat fell apart around this idea of sending people of color as our main delegates, which I have to say, from Quebec, was a very principled.. I agreed with it. But there was reaction within the the conference. The conference was huge. I would say for better or for worse, it was well, for worse. It was majority white people. There was a lot of people who disagreed with the idea of sending people of color as the main leaders. You know, this was this was at least we didn’t have Project South. We didn’t have mean people of color organizations, but we had Quebec, which put forward this this principle. And there is people from New York who did anti-racist work that really supported this, but there was definitely huge reaction. Mm hmm. And then you could see that reaction because we passed the idea of it, if I remember correctly. But there was no follow through and you know, I’m guilty of this as well. But of like actually doing the logistics work and the fundraising to make sure that people of color got down there to represent Canada and the United States and the indigenous territories.

Lesley Wood: Do you remember what date this was?

Mac Scott: Geez, I would guess that before. It was pre-2001 is pre-9 11, so I would guess 1999 or 2000.

Lesley Wood: You know, it was it was June 2001,

Mac Scott: 2001. Ok, before, yeah, before 9-11. That makes sense.

Lesley Wood: It was during your birthday.

Mac Scott: That’s right. I would also point out that we also had a tech conference about two or three years before that about internet safety that was also very interlaced with the PGA.

Lesley Wood: Ok, what was that?

Mac Scott: It was in Syracuse, Syracuse. And the idea was to talk about how to use the internet as more of an organizing tool. But there was there was discussion in that conference, if I remember correctly about the PGA. And in some ways, that was very connected to the PGA.

Lesley Wood: I’ve been trying to remember what that conference was about. And it was I remember some of the sessions, but I don’t was like the goal of that was

Mac Scott: It was about basically. And there was a debate back and forth at that conference. Yeah, but the fact at that point, at least, that most people in, like most of the people that we would want to organize with, like poor people, poor people of color had no access to the internet. So why are we discussing this? But we also did discuss the PGA there. I’m pretty

Lesley Wood: Sure. I’m pretty sure we did, too. And I was trying to remember whether it was a Zapatista solidarity network conference or whether it was a it was connected to the internet,

Mac Scott: It was connected to Zapatista solidarity. I mean, I think the reason the two are connected is that the Zapatistas were probably the first radical movement to really make use of the internet.

Lesley Wood: Mm hmm.

Mac Scott: And through Texas right, there, they had solidarity at the University of Texas, who set up the first like they didn’t have a website, but did regular email updates, which were the ones we read at UVic. And really, like, actually used the internet as an outreach tool and as a communication tool.

Lesley Wood: Great. So after the the conference in wherever it was? Yeah, Western mass, actually.

Mac Scott: Yeah, it was Western Mass.

Lesley Wood: What do you remember next about PGA? And were you involved in any way or so?

Mac Scott: I mean, I’ve been I was I was still part of PGA North America. 9-11 created a particular moment and we were all very involved in dealing with the repercussions on Muslim movements and Muslim communities. I mean, you know, the mass detentions. So it kind of didn’t follow through that much there. But we continued with communication with the PGA. There was the march in Mexico and Mexico City where I didn’t go, but comrades of mine went to support with the Zapatistas, you know, we’re taking not a softer approach, but they’re taking a more political approach. And that was supported very much by the PGA, if I remember correctly. I joined a Movement Defense Committee. Well, actually, at that point, it was a legal collective in Toronto. I moved back in 2003, which had the PGA principles as its core program. In fact, the group I’m still involved with the Movement Defense Committee has the PGA principles still as a program. But I mean, the PGA began to peter out at one point.

Lesley Wood: Mm hmm. Do you see any of it sort of effects or do you think it’s had any effect or how has it affected both your activism and movements more generally?

Mac Scott: I mean, I would have to say the most coherent global program I’ve ever seen is their program in terms of being an actual revolutionary program, not a reform program in terms of bringing together anti-capitalism, anti colonialism and anti patriarchy in terms of uniting struggles in the global north and global south, while at the same time bringing an understanding that the global north struggles not always but need to be led by the global south. It was. It was an inspiration that still exists for me to this day. I would say it’s sad that young activists now don’t know about it. By and large, it’s sad that it petered out. I mean. Also, I would say, you know, is decentralized, right? It wasn’t a party. It wasn’t where a program was set, like the program was set at international gatherings by the people for the people. It wasn’t a party that’s handed down papers to you and told you what to do. And while I wouldn’t say it was specifically anarchist because it wasn’t, I would say it had many of the same ideals that I hold as an anarchist. I would say it was a beautiful thing. I wish it was still active and effective. I think it’s still holds sway over people of my generation. What’s sad is that younger activists and revolutionaries don’t really, aren’t even really aware of it.

Lesley Wood: What would be the lessons that would be learned about what works and what didn’t work for the time?

Mac Scott: I mean, so the other thing I would say that going back is that in the nineties, we would have these international days of Action, right? It was the old days, so it was done by fax and phone. And I think that maybe I’m wrong. No, maybe I am wrong.

Lesley Wood: No, I don’t know.

Mac Scott: I think that led into the PGA in some ways, like in that built global networks that that helped to build the PGA. Like, I think a lot of the same people who would fax each other over an International Day of action were involved in the networking that built the PGA. What’s different now is it’s a void, right? Like, we have nothing. We have the social forums which but they’re not revolutionary on themselves. They may be a forum where revolutionaries come together, but there’s not a structured forum. history teaches us that when you build revolution in a void, when you have an election of a socialist government, let’s say in Venezuela that the state, the global north state, will figure out a way to isolate you and destroy you. So we have to do it. I mean, you know, this is what Che Guevara taught us. This is what Trotsky taught us, is you have to build the international struggle. And the PGA was a great step. And to this day, I’m not sure why we fell apart. But I wish we hadn’t.

Lesley Wood: Any last lessons for the young folk?

Mac Scott: I would just say, you know, we have to build this kind of network. We have to envision beyond and I have no problem with identity politics, we need to envision beyond identity politics, beyond the day to day struggles. We need to build these international networks. We need to have identity politics. We need to realize that any revolution that’s going to succeed worldwide needs to be led by the global south and particular communities. And there, you know, there still is lots of networking. We have No One Is Illegal who go down and do organizing or learn organizing in the global south. But personal networks are not enough. We need international networks that are structured, that have revolutionary politics, and that can allow for global organizing from the bottom up.