Canada - Mostafa Henaway

Interview Details

• Region: North America - Canada
• Language: English
• Interviewee: Mostafa Henaway
• Interviewer: Lesley Wood
• Date: December 2016
• Bio: Mostafa Henaway was involved in York University’s Mobilization for Global Justice Toronto, Canada, and is now based in Montreal.
• Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pf6il3u3m47pyubajsyz0/PGA-Canada-2-Henaway.docx?dl=0&rlkey=956xvl4u44lzvw2p0qo84an2i

Transcript

Lesley Wood: So, and… PGA: you know there is a lot of different stuff you can say about it, but why don’t we start with what was your connection to it?

Mostafa Henaway: My connection to the PGA, uh I would say was probably in the lead up to Quebec City. And I would say, I mean I was like…aware of the days of action, because my political involvement was through a student anti-globalisation group at York University. York Mobilization for Global Justice…and so we had been working around Washington D.C., the IMF World Bank meetings. And from there, also involved in solidarity actions with Genova happened—the G8 meetings in Genova, and there was a solidarity demo at the Italian consulate. And the, really, Windsor and Quebec City—so I guess my involvement, I mean, we were involved…I mean there was an interesting process going on in the anti […];So from the first period of 2000 to 2001, there were two types of organising, there was much more sort of the People’s Summit, kind of NGO-based networking through the people’s summit collabo, Windsor, or Quebec City. And there was the more anti-capitalist grassroots organising that was taking place, not PGA as an institution, but consultas as a model or a framed in the principles of the PGA.

So, I remember it was CLAC and CASA who were holding those consultas to organise days of direct action for Quebec City, under the principles of PGA and we had participated in those consultas. So my first time […] and we, adopted both organising model around those principles, which was grassroots, anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, also respect for diversity of tactics with a focus on sort of direct action, or mass-based direct action being a tactic to […] —and I think, based around those principles, you felt connected to all the stuff that was happening, you know. I mean regardless of whether one was participating in a group, going to those consultas, people were going to those demonstrations, people felt that they were part of something much bigger, you know. You felt like you were a part of the same movement that was taking place in Prague or in Nice, in the larger sort of days of action around that period or that moment in the anti-globalisation movement. That for me was the first time really, where I got exposed to like the organising principles of the People’s Global Action network and how that sort of built relationships, personally and virtually—in the early days of the internet as well—there was a PGA website that had the principles and the days of action. It was the first moment of independent media online, so I think the principles were really important, even though there was a diversity of groups, maybe ideology. Maybe, people didn’t even accept them fully, all of the principles, but that sort of gave a large umbrella to a large part of the anti-globalisation movement, that just didn’t want to talk about trade agreements, but talk about how they fit into a larger, systemic question about capitalism, imperialism, feudalism, sexism, you know and like, and sort of was […] it wasn’t like you had to go to a meeting that was highly bureaucratic—no, it was, “We’re going to organise around this banner”, and all of a sudden you were a part of this broader umbrella. So, I would say that was really the first time I came in contact with the PGA and the principles, and the organising model and that part of the movement around Quebec City and the demonstrations around OAS, Windsor in 2000.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, it was 2000. […] Did you do anything that was particularly like PGA, like did you go to the conference, there were the caravans or the international consultas, was there anything? Or was it more like the framework that was linking things?

Mostafa Henaway: For me, my involvement was always just the framework linking all of those things. I never went to the international conferences or—it was always being part of networks or collectives that were using the framework for quite some time. I think it was even after some groups stopped using the framework, the anti-war organising, like after 2001 we continued to use the PGA framework. And then in Montreal there were several attempts to create, to continue to use the framework—to revive CLAC—but it was calling it the PGA network or the PGA bloc, during the demonstrations of the Strategic…the SP, which was the other wing of NAFTA, Security Prosperity Partnership—

Lesley Wood: [chimes in] Prosperity Partnership. Montebello!

Mostafa Henaway: Montebello! So it was always part of the framework, I never got to participate in any of the larger…

I don’t think there were that many things like that in North America, like it was…maybe in Europe there were more events that were PGA. Although, there was PGA Bloc in Ottawa.

Lesley Wood: Yes!

Mostafa Henaway: There was the attempt to bring—‘cause like after the consultas around Quebec City, which were then hosted by CLAC and CASA, there was no real […] sort of then 9/11, sort of everybody saw the waning of, even though there was the demonstration around World Economic Forum in New York in January 2001, which was incredible, and there was, at that time, was it organised around PGA?

Lesley Wood: Well, Direct Action Network was still there. That’s what we’ve used, yeah it was a different moment.

Mostafa Henaway: And we didn’t go as a part of very big contingent, it wasn’t organised, not a lot of people from Canada went, but I remember in Ottawa there was the PGA Bloc for the George W Bush visit. We had organised the PGA Bloc for the G8 in Kananaskis, and there was dissension, because one part of the movement wanted to take the resources and go to Kananaskis and I think this was the debate about, I think this really opened up the debate about I guess strategy to some degree, about focusing on these summits or do we protest where we are, do we still build mass mobilisations without having to go to very remote places because it was clear that the elite were just so bogged down by the security costs of having these summits in major cities, that remote places—I think Kananaskis was the first time they they took one of these larger summits to the middle of nowhere, thinking no one will get to us.

Lesley Wood: I think that’s right.

Mostafa Henaway: And so, the Ottawa protest for the PGA, for me was like the starting of the PGA Bloc, because there was a callout and there were none of these unions were actually involved because they were focusing on Kananaskis that the demonstrations were mainly organised—and the date, and essentially the whole calendar was organised, to my recollection, by the PGA Bloc, it was groups in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, different collectives that organised under like, almost, it was the first time in a regional sense, there was a framework that wasn’t just about a day of action—I mean it was leading up to a day of action—but it gave a bit more structure to the PGA principles for a basis of networking across cities. And I think it was also effective because it led to the organising of counter Bush demonstrations shortly after, I think in 2004?

Lesley Wood: The fall of 2004.

Mostafa Henaway: Also at the same time, trying to infuse the anti-war movement with anti-capitalist politics, and I think that was like a huge success of the PGA Bloc, it gave like a sort of principles and research around trying to intervene—that the anti-war movement needs to focus on direct action, but also, targeting you know the war machine, and corporations that are profiting from this occupation in Iraq, as a strategy of disrupting these corporations, as a strategy for an anti-war, anti-occupation movement, and that came not out of the anti-war movement but the PGA bloc. And also, sort of the other migrant justice organising, the “No One is Illegal” also came out of PGA principles and CLAC.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, ‘cause June 30th anti-war group in Toronto?

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah, June 30th 2004. And then we organised for the Bush thing in November 2004.

Lesley Wood: Uh huh. I know, I remember we talked about it. I feel like the last meeting we had, for the June 30th group was the one that came up with the name, like formalised it and then we never met again [laughs]. Which is fine, in some ways, right?

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah, it was sad that, that moment fleeted sort of so…quickly—

Lesley Wood: But there was definitely a reference to PGA at that point, and the bringing together, you’re exactly right, the occupation, the anti-war, anti-capitalism…but some good actions around…

Mostafa Henaway: SNC Lavalin and their production of bullets for the US military. Even like the first June 30th, in like being able to push the anti-war movement in a different direction…or like bring about a different set of politics through like street actions. Uh then we were also able to organise for the Bush demonstrations, and then the shareholders meeting for the SNC Lavalin.

Lesley Wood: …and they divested after, right?

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah, we were able to…we made it on the business press. It was your idea!

Lesley Wood: I don’t know… I feel like that was probably an accident

Mostafa Henaway: You were like, “Nobody is going to pick it up if we were only focusing on business journalists”.

Lesley Wood: It’s funny that worked so effectively, it was a bit of a fluke

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah, and oh we did the Night March?

Lesley Wood: What was the Night March?

Mostafa Henaway: […] We ran into the hotel the SNC Lavalin was having…

Lesley Wood: Oooooooh yes!

Mostafa Henaway: And it was so successful, like the cops couldn’t even get us, we all got on the subway before they got on?

Lesley Wood: [Laughs] Yes, although xx got arrested.

Lesley Wood: What worked about this framework and what were the challenges, those are the two questions I have, I guess. I mean, why then? You kinda hint at what made that possible. Start with that one, I guess.

Mostafa Henaway: So, why then? I think, I mean, to me, uh, I guess like my understanding is why then was like, I mean—from the mid-90’s on, like the inspiration from what the Zapatistas were able to push, in terms of another kind of politics, in their critique of neoliberalism, but also their critique of uh, a model of also organisation, human organisation and trying to bring that back into your organising reality. And also, I guess the failures of the Organised Left, and also not having an mass-based, anti-authoritarian uh way of putting those principles in practice, that’s targeting capitalism, or neoliberalism felt possible because you had all kinds of different initiatives at the time, but no broad umbrella, maybe the Organised Left had broad slogans but such a hierarchical way of organising, it becomes so outdated, or the experiences of State socialism, you know? Sort of authoritarian party-models having its failures up until, you know like, from the 80’s into the 90’s [made the] necessity for something to give expression, and to be an umbrella for a broad movement. Also, not just expression, it was a way of being able to focus on—you know, people just think everybody sort of just was involved in in an anti-globalisation movement, but it was a sum of so many different movements, people focusing on food justice, ecology, people focusing on poverty, uh people even focusing on indigenous solidarity, migrant justice, even then? But then there was no sort of broad umbrella, and also the idea that a lot of the inspiration was coming from the global south and not the global north, you know the Zapatistas, Korea, South Africa, the MST in Brazil, you had all of these movements challenging what was then known as globalisation, and that there wasn’t an effective—I mean people wanted to be in solidarity, but there wasn’t an effective way of bringing people under one umbrella. Even if people were challenging sort of particular trade agreements, or people were trying to find solidarities to fight, I think it just became important—it became a way of being able to critique the system as a whole. It wasn’t just about a trade agreement, or about capital flight, or the impacts of financialisation—you know it was about a whole system, and I think…the way that the Zapatistas were able to articulate what was actually happening in the 90’s, the transformation of capitalism, gave it a real expression. And also, I mean to me, why it was so important then, it wasn’t just about a particular section of the Radical Left, it wasn’t just some platformist, anarchist group—it was broad, and it was about trying to capture all the anger at what capitalism, under the name of globalisation, you know transforming social relations, the environment: all the things we see happening now. Which is also maybe like, we were really maybe too right, in terms of the impacts of globalisation, and I think the idea of wanting to, and I wish this is something we can reflect and go back to, uh, we acted globally, not in a sort of immediate solidarity way. It felt…that then, if you’re going to challenge global capital, then you need a global movement, and I think that was fundamentally important. And I think, that’s what gave it a lot of impetus—where it was like, if global leaders were meeting, then we should be able to meet as movements and strategise. If capital’s gonna bounce around, we also have to find ways to…I mean it was still to me, so critical that it actually that it made them scared at a certain point. I remember there was a quote from the Economist [which said], “The greatest threat to globalisation is the anti-globalisation movement.”

Lesley Wood: [Laughs] And that’s wild!

Mostafa Henaway: And to think about it now, like 16 years later, you’re like I wish we were that kind of threat. But still.

Lesley Wood: What’s the lesson then? What do we take from that? Like, from that moment to now?

Mostafa Henaway: The lesson is that, the idea that we can…I mean there were so many debates at the end of the period, and I think unfortunately what people took away were the wrong…negatives, like they…especially in the global north more than in the global south, was like, there was this focus of this false dichotomy between the local and global, but that was a tactical question about summits or non-summits. Doesn’t mean you stop having large mobilisations, days of action that could empower people through direct action. And like, targeting the system as a whole, and the broad ideas, you can’t reform finance capital, you can’t reform…and I think what people just took away was like, “Oh we can’t do this global thing anymore because they just move their summits around.” But that was a tactical problem, that wasn’t a problem we encountered in the course, they changed their tactics so we had to change our tactics. Doesn’t mean we change sort of like our broad principles, of like it’s not on the other side of capital, it sucks. There’s a lot of demonstrations when we meet as the global elite, does this mean we stop meeting as the global elite? No, we just move it from one place to the next. But like, it doesn’t change our strategy of global capitalism. So the idea that we don’t need a global movement to challenge globalisation or capitalism is like absurd. So we built this false dichotomy and everyone just sort of retreated into this idea that we have to really focus on local…

Lesley Wood: [Laughs] I just remembered you at one point in Montreal, [mimics] “Why did we say washing the dishes was a revolutionary act?”

Mostafa Henaway: [Laughs] Yeah it was just like, what is the local? And yeah, in the global south they get it. You do base building, and you do all of those things, but if you can’t connect it to a global broader movement that’s challenging oppression at its core, what’s the point of doing that work and that organising. And I still don’t think we’ve learnt fully that lesson here. I mean, you have movements that have popped up that have still the, I mean, the PGA isn’t dead, the principles aren’t dead, what happened was you sort of have an anti-capitalism that was it’s like morphed into different phases.

But no one has stopped to think back on, 1) What are the positive lessons from that period? and 2) how do we reconnect that to what’s taken place in the last few, sixteen or twenty years—are we more effective in this era of everyone try going local, it felt like a retreat of movements, and then like, and then you have the financial crisis, and then you have a knee-jerk response, maybe a lot of that was crafted by people also still involved. I mean it wasn’t like Occupy wasn’t so spontaneous, we had people from Direct Action Network that were at its core, the same squares in like Greece or like Spain and like there was a new layer of society that was angry, and it took a different form, but what was different was there were all of these movements took place, from Occupy to [incomprehensible], maybe if there were more mobilisations…think about the biggest mobilisation we had—it was 80,000 or 1,00,000 people in Quebec City, think of the mobilisations at the peak of Occupy. Those mobilisations were much bigger but did it have the kind of, did it put like fear in the hearts of the elite, in the same way we could in the 90’s. It’s like we didn’t have a systemic critique under like a broad umbrella, you have all these movements that are trying to critique capitalism as a whole, it’s not just finance, bad bankers, it’s all of these things; and great important projects trying to make all of these links like Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall Street, doing different things after all the Occupys were taken down, but did all of those movements were under a same umbrella sort of like how the PGA served for all kinds of movements, that sort of gets like direct—like yeah, we are all going to do this on one day of action and under these principles and we are going to build these alliances between the global north and the global south and we are trying to facilitate that process…but that didn’t happen in the post-Occupy movement, right?

Lesley Wood: It’s interesting I agree with you that I feel like the principles, there are still people there who are not conscious…therefore, if you don’t know about it, then it loses a certain amount of intentionality, especially around things that aren’t super visible, like the international lines, so there’s this sense of the internet being there and being connected anyway, but yeah there isn’t…there are key bridge people the xxx of the world, or you, that have this stuff in the way that they do things, but people at Occupy didn’t have any idea, in general. How did it play out in Quebec?

Mostafa Henaway: Occupy?

Lesley Wood: I’m thinking PGA’s impact in the more recent era.

Mostafa Henaway: Oh that’s interesting! That’s like whoa, I mean I think the one thing that, the impact the PGA would have in Quebec that it maintained sort of an anti-authoritarian, broad sort of anti-capitalist ideals around collectives and intentionality about organising around radical organising and movement-building was able to last, ‘cause there were so many instances where they tried to revive the PGA Bloc and then CLAC finally came back, but then [laughs] what it did was help maintain those principles in movement-building through different transformations and different moments—to have a large anti-capitalist May Day, to some of the stuff around, some of the organising around the impact of austerity in Quebec, also the solidarity with Latin America still being done in PGA principles…

Lesley Wood: Do people refer to PGA principles at all, or no?

Mostafa Henaway: In the Latin American solidarity work? Yeah, they do ‘cause the people still relate very strongly to the Zapatistas, in a very concrete way, I don’t know if that’s because of activists from Mexico coming to Montreal and living in Montreal, they still have this sort of, whether it be around indigenous solidarity or more generally, people will try and make the links between what’s taking place in Mexico and what’s happening to the indigenous people here, and you have non-status Mexicans pushing the Zapatistas, you still have a general connection that still lasts to this day…

Lesley Wood: There’s a collective memory or a collective sense of…which I don’t know if there is in Toronto

Mostafa Henaway: No, I feel like people are much more like, sort of the organised Marxist left where they pick the group, like “Solidarity with Bolivia”, “Solidarity with Venezuela”, but like…very little about Mexico and Chavez being another mob, but in Quebec it’s a very important thing because it’s coming from the Mexican activists, people from CLAC or the PGA network, who are still involved in Latin American solidarity who are still doing movement work, so that lasted and that reverberated and also, sort of the student organising maintaining around the model of direct action, anti-capitalist sort of syndicalist model but still being connected to a global movement was important…it’s the legacy of Montreal, in Montreal we see ourselves as a part of sort of grassroots alien struggles, we don’t see ourselves alien to it, we have responsibility to other movements around the world, we take lessons from other movements, so I think there’s an influence, like a high influence, not just only the principles but other PGA related groups…the influence in Quebec, I think like—the one sad non-influence, let me be very honest, let me bring up the CLAC thing here. CLAC served as a convergence, right? Because people organised much more around the anti-authoritarian collective model in Quebec or Montreal, CLAC was sort of a clearing house, much like a local version of a PGA-like framework, right? But when CLAC died and reappeared, it was the problem was that it kinda didn’t adapt, where CLAC became a zombie…it wasn’t about taking lessons or non-lessons, it sort of wanted to reproduce itself, but without the kind of organic momentum from that period of 2000, and because it would organise anti-capitalist May Days, but it wasn’t a dynamic convergence of individuals and groups or networks, and are still sort of that missing link, I mean because you have the stuff on Latin American solidarity, the black injustice stuff, you have groups around like direct support [incomprehensible], the anti-gentrification, the police brutality stuff, so you have these small things that came out of CLAC, but CLAC isn’t able to regroup them outside of people just showing up for May Day.

Lesley Wood: It becomes an identity rather than…

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah and CLAC itself is six or seven people, like the consultas assembly model is really important in the student movement, but not for CLAC per se, where they try, they weren’t able to reproduce the same kind of dynamism of like before. Now unfortunately, also…unless it can figure out an anti-capitalist way of intervening in stuff that’s going on outside of May Day, right? Like there’s no anti-capitalist radical group working around austerity, or like…outside the student movement. What you have is, this coalition of groups under the red hand but it’s community sector, it’s paid—I mean there’s nothing, no radical like [incomprehensible]. Even after the student’s strike, after there was such a huge wave of people wanting to…I mean I’d go from Occupy to student movements…I mean there were a lot of people involved in like Occupy than in the student strike, there was enough people who were key in the radical part of SA were also active in Occupy, like um, but and then CLAC bloomed for a while and then it totally dissipated because there was a generational gap, and then what became the important anti-capitalist group was the IWW, sort of like the PGA…big by the radical, fringe, anti-capitalist…consistent they have a couple of hundred members. I went away and…the IWW is the biggest really? And you have stuff like neighbourhood assemblies at the height of the student’s strike but again like, no, it’s like…that didn’t last either. In terms of the remnants, it’s unfortunately like it’s all of the very local, specific, issue-based organising, but not regrouping under the bigger umbrella, trying to strategise around bigger…I would say that’s kinda lacking or the lesson not learnt, we’re not strategising around how to like actually build a global anti-capitalist movement, the World Social Forum was like when it wasn’t over, it’s like even the social democratic left wasn’t like really involved…it was just. You weren’t there?

Lesley Wood: No, I didn’t go…

Mostafa Henaway: Oh this was really just, it was not—I’m not a fan of the World Social Forum, but like this was like someone put the coffin…it’s coming

Lesley Wood: it came to you!

Mostafa Henaway: Coffin, World Social Forum, ’99, 2015 it was really bad but there was no—

Lesley Wood: It could have been a real opportunity

Mostafa Henaway: It could have been an opportunity, and I think part of it is like that we got embedded in this idea that like, I mean, I don’t know—I am still sort of obsessed with that debate of the global/local and then like, now the electoral and national, do we just focus on these defensive struggles around austerity at the national level in a radical way…

Lesley Wood: And also like, and the suspicion of NGO’s—not like it’s not a reasonable one—maybe locks us into some stuff? Like, if things get tarnished with that brush then it’s done, right? And yeah

Mostafa Henaway: And yeah then the electoral like, obviously like the radical I mean, it’s amazing to see these phases play themselves out. PGA played such a critical role, then we went local, then with the PGA people involved in all these phases—not being able to find a way being able to respond to the crisis in 2008—feeling weak like, and then finally okay where there’s this Occupy movement where we’re finally building a movement around finance capital, against global capitalism again. And then again, being usurped into the radical left should go into electoral politics, which I don’t even know how it happened, how it really became the epicenter of anti-capitalist politics…

Lesley Wood: In Quebec, as well? Well, what was that party?

Mostafa Henaway: Well, in Quebec there was Partie Quebec Solidaire…

Lesley Wood: Which not here now, but obviously in Europe, yes.

Mostafa Henaway: And in the US with the Marxist…in Seattle, the election in Seattle, and like being a way of power, a question of power—do we take power, diminish power, and the amount of…what we’re balancing and reflecting on all of those things…oh where is this rant going!

Lesley Wood: It could go in a lot of different ways but I want to take you back to thinking about—so if, we could talk about a lot of stuff, but how did PGA affect your organising or your trajectory within all of that, if it has, by the way you think about all these things?

Mostafa Henaway: It affected me as the idea, of which I still hold to in terms of ideal, in terms of organising, maybe like now I’ve reconsidered a lot of, maybe a Marxist analysis of the way the world works…but in terms of the organising principles PGA would fit best with of how I see both the end vision of a radical movement and as a way of getting there, right? I think it influenced me greatly, like maximum participation of people in our movements, how to build movements that can empower people through the structures, through the kind of movements we build, also being able to talk about it in a global sense, this is part of a global revolution or movement, having the principles of direct democracy, of non-hierarchy, those are really important in ways that are movement-based, and are not very, you know, “Circle A”, dogmatic, we all have to look like Joe Hill, sort of like a Left that might not be able to adapt to the realities of the people we are trying to bring into political and social movements. I feel like the PGA principles and the framework, as a way, the influence for me, the influence of the Zapatistas—I was just thinking about my organising, where I am always trying to facilitate a process of people being able to fight for self-definition through mass-based movements that aren’t just symbolic, and can empower them through direct action. To me, that is still the bigger…I think that’s how we’re going to win. I still truly believe in it. The impact of the PGA was still very highly important in terms of the principles. I think the saddest thing is that somehow we haven’t been able to link up the successes of then with what’ve built to now, and I think if we’re able to do that in the global north, our movememts will have the same kind of dynamism they do in the global south.

Lesley Wood: Uh huh, yeah. I think you’re right. We need to be thinking about it much more directly—I mean at the, last thing I’m formally going to keep asking. Like, I know you, but I need to ask you, can you give me a brief trajectory…you started the interview talking about a [incomprehensible]

Mostafa Henaway: —I was involved to a degree of student politics, but it was really the moment when I went to Washington for the World Bank-IMF demonstrations, it really was a turning point.

Lesley Wood: I thought we met you there…

Mostafa Henaway: And that was my turning point, that was to a day like, that was like, to see the power of movements and the repression of the State, and there was no going back from that moment. And my commitment really started at that point…and so from there I was involved in anti-war work, and then June 30th and I guess then I got enveloped in long-term organising more, and thinking about if we have to do local and do base building in Toronto, for me the natural focus was always immigrants and immigrant workers were always on the global fault lines of capitalism, and knowing they have power of manifestations against capitalism…since then I’ve been involved with the Immigrant Workers Centre at Montreal but always trying to link it to anti-capitalism and building solidarity with the student movements, and immigrant workers, or we always participate in the anti-capitalist May Day, trying to radicalise the base of people we work with, through connecting them into deeper anti-capitalist politics…my trajectory has been in working in solidarity with Palestine and the Middle East. I guess, my personal trajectory in Toronto and in Montreal, for me, I guess it was after the death of June 30th, afterwards I moved—I was involved in OCAP but then I moved to Montreal shortly after, in 2006.

Lesley Wood: What else do you have to say about PGA and then I can turn off the recorder and just talk…what do you want to know which we’re asking and trying to figure out…

Mostafa Henaway: I mean the one thing that will be great is to see what other people pull out sort of the both, the particularities and experiences of the different places—both the positive and the negative—and being able to reflect and think how do we re-engage them, or at least share those experiences with younger activists and organisers being radicalised in this moment, right? You know, it’s a sad thing, even during the Trump election—I remember in 2000, at the height of the anti-globalisation stuff, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian organising and you’re like, no one, ever talked about strategic voting. There was much anger towards Al Gore, but the DNC protest was huge, I mean Rage performed at it, it was a battle zone, just as much the RNC was. And it is only through the whole movement, and not the electoral process you can critique the electoral stuff, right? The whole system is rigged for the 1%, rigged for capital, you can’t go into the system, you can only challenge it—and that both parties participated in it.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, I’m thinking about that. And thinking about what we saw in Egypt, I mean not to go too far, but like some of the model is there too, but maybe not from the same roots, I am not sure, but like, getting stuck in the electoral seems a bit rough there too, of course

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah, and the consequences it had. People were like, “if we had a stronger electoral left, we wouldn’t be in this shitty situation” and you’re like, “well, maybe we had a stronger infrastructure in terms of social movements there—even if there is a reformist electoral left or left, it shouldn’t be a focus because they’ll pop up their heads anyway, and are going to rely on us, maybe as much we unspokenly could rely on them, counter-balance,” right?

Lesley Wood: When we were in Europe, just before, between Indignados and Occupy, and went to a meeting of movements around Mediterranean…it was really interesting, because we were in Nice, and Cannes—it was interesting because there were folks from Tunisia, from Egypt, from Spain, from Greece…

Mostafa Henaway: Oh wow

Lesley Wood: and Israel actually—Israeli and Palestinian activists who were involved in Occupy, and there was a discussion of, “Okay maybe it’s much easier to tear it down than to build it up” and we were like what do we do. Earlier it was much more about the exchange of information and thinking about where we’re at, and it had that feeling, like we do share a common understanding of the problem here—but there was less certainty about how to think about how to move forward…I’m not sure. I wonder if we were to have a PGA today, what would be different?

Mostafa Henaway: Hmm that’s a really interesting question…

Lesley Wood: I think of that moment, the WTO was emerging, which also gave it a focus because the institutional infrastructure was shifting, now it’s so bilateral, now it’s about trade agreements.

Mostafa Henaway: But it’s bilateral because of us to a certain extent!

Lesley Wood: Of course, it is! Like, we won some stuff, we stopped things from happening. The FTA is not there, the WTO is not there…but also there’s this nationalism and the electoralism…[sighs]

Mostafa Henaway: Yeah and like, maybe if the PGA was around, maybe we can even, if we thought it through—I always hated the Robin Hood Tax, you know—in terms of strategies of limiting…what’s interesting in Quebec, what’s really popular, I mean I get weary, they’re really into the fiscal tax-haven stuff, like the hiding of money they’re really into it…

Lesley Wood: Who’s really into it?

Mostafa Henaway: A certain section of the left which does direct action stuff, which made me feel like it’s like going back into time a bit, like we did an action and occupied the foyer of KPMG, there were unions and community centers, and like KPMG target was, it was sort of the…not the radical left, but the left with a base and they were focusing on global capitalism, right? I find this fascinating! If changed a few words, this would be a perfect way to try to continue to respond to the fallout of the, like the crisis, you know. ‘Cause the problem is now that nationalism, both on the left and the right is the only—like, global capitalism is a problem and the response, for a certain time was from the far left to counter-act it, limit it and limit what states can do, but then now the response from both the left and the right is nationalism. Either a left nationalism or a far-right nationalism, like that’s the response, as opposed to, no, we can organise to limit the power of the IMF, we can organise—there should have been like, the IMF shouldn’t have been able to meet in Washington as they’re destroying Greece, and that would have been power and not Ceresa; I was in Berlin when they were passing the stuff around Greece and it was pathetic—it was like 2000, it was like the biggest demo was like 2000, there was a bigger demo at the ECB, the founding was 40, 000, it was a big mess, it was really good, but when the referendum was happening, it was like 2000 people in Berlin. None of them, were like “Greece is screwed, and Greece isn’t the problem. You can vote in a left government, you can do all of these things, then what?“

Lesley Wood: Yeah, then what?

Mostafa Henaway: And you’re like the responsibility…

Lesley Wood: There’s a problem with the vision for sure. There’s this thing right now, and I keep coming against people critiquing the language of solidarity and I’m like where is the global and the trans-national, where is solidarity? If we’re not talking about solidarity, what are we talking about…I don’t know if you’ve run into that, like there’s a suspicion around it, there is some of the same stuff around power dynamics, colonialism and stuff