Canada - Sarita Ahooja

Interview Details

• Region: North America - Canada | Montreal, Quebec
• Language: English
• Interviewee: Sarita Ahooja
• Interviewer: Lesley Wood
• Date: November 2016
• PGA Affiliation: CLAC
• Bio: Sarita Ahooja is a grassroots anti-capitalist organiser from Montreal. She has worked in community-based develpment, human rights, and indigenous sovereignty movements throughout the Americas, as well as in India and Palestine. Some of the orgnisations she has been active in since the early 1990s: Project acompagnement Quebec-Guatemala, EZLN National & International Solidarity Movement, UNAM Student Strike, la CLAC, NOII-Montreal, SAB-SSF, UFCW migrant worker unionization, Montreal neighborhood housing rights groups.
• Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7ki545w21mt2lvuupomwa/PGA-Canada-3-Ahooja-uploaded.docx?dl=0&rlkey=oxaobd58r6yt33t3jxsgmumju

Transcript

Lesley Wood: So, tell me how PGA played out here, and how it translated what people who were doing Zapatista solidarity work to the local context. Can you say something more about that?

Sarita Ahooja: Montreal became one of the co-conveners for the Peoples’ Global Action network in North America because a lot of people were involved with anti-capitalist organizing in different sectors at the time - which is why a convergence of groups and individuals formed CLAC to begin with. We were building on years of student and anti-poverty activism, and Latin American solidarity work, like the most recent global Zapatista solidarity movement. North America was reorganizing international solidarity work at the time, so a lot of those organisers were organically linked to the organizations forming networks around the Peoples’ Global Action platform, internationally connecting in order to locally fortify our self-determined struggles against the multinationals. It takes place in this context. In Montreal, we’ve got Alternatives’ NGO social forum networks, as well as the Maoist’s International League of Peoples’ Struggle. It’s a moment of renaissance around internationalism. You know, these are waves that we go through, I think, in Leftist movements.

In Montreal, there were a lot of people from diverse organisations already involved with the Zapatista Encuentros. The Peoples’ Global Action has the same model of organizing that the Zapatistas were talking about. I think it could be ideologically linked to their horizontalism, which was the main Zapatista message to the Left. They were saying, we have to regenerate, reassemble, renovate, and rethink how to link up our struggles. Montreal becomes that co-convener. We’ve had Encuentros here in Montreal, when Canadian Mexico solidarity groups convened here for the Zapatista encuentros in ’95. A lot of those organisers come back and form the anti-FTAA coalitions, but more specifically the anti-capitalist convergence, CLAC. Out of CLAC, comes the external committee, and the external committee does the liaison work with these international networks that are coalescing, and that have convened in places like Seattle and Prague. We see a dynamism coming out of these networks. CLAC is a point “person” because it was a contact during the Quebec City mobilization. CLAC has now been recognized here in Montreal as a vehicle through which we can link up to other resistance movements that we want to connect our local struggles to. The external committee goes to certain meetings with the PGA network; we met up with others that are working out of the U.S., like the Tampa Bay Action Group, made up of activists that organize around local issues such as the Immokalee Workers in Florida.

Lesley Wood: Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: You know, migrant worker alliances, and the Immokalee Workers campaign specifically, were really strong. They had also adopted the PGA Hallmarks and were appointed as the other convener, because North America is huge and diverse, even politically. Montreal is different from other urban centers within the Canadian borders, so, you can’t just have a CLAC representative for North America. But, we were definitely very active in communicating with other anti-capitalist organizations that were congregating around these big mobilizations regarding Peoples’ Global Action. We would always have a point person at our general assemblies. There’s certain things that we would attend to. What’s business? Well, there was administrative business within CLAC, and external business. So, the PGA was a priority. We adopted the principles. We said that this organization is important and we committed to developing the PGA, Peoples’ Global Action. Plus, key people had gone to the Prague mobilization.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. September 2000.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. There were people that had been in Geneva too…

Lesley Wood: For the founding meeting?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes, and they knew people in that founding meeting. So, [name redacted] knows a lot more about that.

Lesley Wood: Okay.

Sarita Ahooja: I was in Mexico at the time.

Lesley Wood: I see.

Sarita Ahooja: I was working with the Zapatista movement. I was part of a Zapatista organization, and I was doing work with the grassroots committees in Mexico. So, I joined later, when CLAC was starting to constitute itself. [Name redacted] is a founding activist of CLAC, and member of the external liaison. She brought her years of experience to CLAC, and her experience includes organizing out of the Zapatista solidarity network that later became central actors in PGA networks.

Lesley Wood: I don’t know that I know about, or I’ve forgotten about, the Encuentros in Montreal.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes, there was one Encuentro.

Lesley Wood: Okay. And they brought together folks who were doing Zapatista solidarity stuff across the country?

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: Ha. Do you know what year that was?

Sarita Ahooja: I believe that it was in ’95, because I worked on it, and I was here in Montreal.

Lesley Wood: Okay.

Sarita Ahooja: I went to Chiapas to work down there later on. So, I think it’s in 95’, and it was held at UQAM. We organized the Encuentro; the ‘Mexican Solidarity Network’.

Lesley Wood: Because I went to one in Syracuse. Maybe ’96? Maybe ’95. Okay, but I think that must have been a relationship between those.

Sarita Ahooja: I’m sure, but now I don’t know that.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, no, no. It’s okay. I just…

Sarita Ahooja: (inaudible) wouldn’t know, but maybe there is talk…

Lesley Wood: But that’s interesting.

Sarita Ahooja: But maybe it was also more French, in Montreal.

Lesley Wood: Well, you know. Sometimes Toronto goes south rather than East [laughter].

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: Which is weird, but, you know.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, because it was definitely very Francophone at the Encuentro.

Mainly. Majority, I would say the majority of organizations, you know, were from Quebec, and then maybe a few people, you know, from Ontario or Vancouver or something, but who represented the unions. You know, with the union organizing internationally…

Lesley Wood: Right. Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: They would’ve come.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Well, that maybe (inaudible) no, there was…

Sarita Ahooja: ‘Cause there was a lot of union organizing, too, at that time.

Lesley Wood: That makes sense. I’m curious about two things. One, is why this model resonated with you? And then, the other question is, how the translation between the international hallmarks worked locally, because I suspect that’s different in every place.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah […] for the Peoples’ Global Action, it’s the idea that everybody can be the actor in this, and I think it boils down to the fact that the Peoples’ Global Action was a manifestation of what the Zapatistas were proposing as a way to organize ourselves. Because in Mexico, they have to make a place for the Indigenous peoples, networking diverse worlds offers an avenue for the survival and flourishing of Native peoples.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: So, when you’re trying to decolonize or trying to, you know, uplift the minority voice, I think, you often come up with the solutions [laughter] - out of the predicament, because of white supremacy, and because of capitalism. That’s just the way the machine operates. So, you know, the old Left was dying out as the proposal of guerrilla-led peoples movements failed to create a new decolonised world. You know, because the Natives were not able to partake throughout the guerrilla movements in Latin America, and were not able to get themselves recognized. So, plurality and horizontalism, I think, comes from another way of existing. It comes from a Native cosmovision rooted in an ecosystem, and Native organizations highlight this plurality as a political option forward. That’s how I understood it. Also, coming from biracial Canada, if you will, I mean, I am a proponent of plurality, because I am plural. Just on a personal level. But with Peoples’ Global Action, it resonated with so many people because it was saying, “There’s a place for everybody.” Now, we see that in the newer generations, although it gets trivialized. Nowadays it’s like, “You be you, I be me.” Okay? No. I believe that is Capitalism taking the message, and making it into garbage again. Reducing it to an individual thing. But PGA was about how we can coordinate all the needs for everybody?

I feel like the Latin American solidarity in Montreal has a tradition here, and it has often followed these people’s revolts. And in those people’s revolts in Latin America, you have sectors of society that are always organized. In Montreal, the union solidarity work is going on at the same time as the grassroots solidarity, and radio solidarity, and all these people converge when Latin America rises up. I think that is what happens. Then, out of those people, there are also people that organize with Natives here in Canada on a ongoing basis. A lot of those people were part of the international Zapatista support networks, involved in the commemoration of five hundred years of struggle against colonialism in 1992 and such events.

Sarita Ahooja: A lot of people were involved in that. Why ‘92? Well, because of 1990, near Montreal right here, in Kahensatake. See, all that’s connected too. All those radical people are all the same people that are walking along supporting those voices, and end up also rotating around Peoples’ Global Action stuff as well.

Lesley Wood: Here. Not everywhere, but here.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, here.

Here, the Peoples’ Global Action organized a delegation to go to Bolivia, eh?

Lesley Wood: Yes. Well, because out of the Amherst PGA-NA encuentro, there was a discussion that Montreal was really central in – correct me if I’m wrong – where the decision was made to have the Canada-U.S delegation be comprised of at least 50% people of colour and Indigenous people, poor people, and women, and that they be regional representatives.

Sarita Ahooja: Well, CLAC pushed a lot of debates, here, in North America regarding that, as well as using the words “capitalism”.

Lesley Wood: Ah ha.

Sarita Ahooja: diversity of tactics.

Lesley Wood: Yes. Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: We had an agenda.

Lesley Wood: And you went in with that agenda. You knew.

Sarita Ahooja: We went in with that agenda, and that’s what we were set to do. We were gonna push for this, and the organizations that don’t follow then don’t follow. The PGA platform in North America is one where you will find more organizations that are anti-capitalist and anti-colonial.

Lesley Wood: That’s right.

Sarita Ahooja: Anti-racism too, right? And anti-poverty. We clearly wanted to push it, push the formation of this organization towards more anarchist leaning principles.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: [laughter] And our agenda in Quebec, too, was that.

Lesley Wood: Yeah!

Sarita Ahooja: And we went into all the discussions about organizing with the unions, students groups and NGOs with our agenda all the time. And it was also to say, “Include the voices of the Native, the immigrant, the excluded.”

Lesley Wood: That’s right.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, which I think sort of created a crisis internally. I remember having this debate with [name redacted], because he said, “We can’t pull it together, this sort of a representation for the PGA-NA delegation. Wouldn’t it be better if we just send people – like, white people, presumably [laughter] – because we don’t have the capacity.” And he was right in that there wasn’t capacity. The movement of the people who were showing up to the Encuentros, like in Amherst weren’t necessarily representative of marginalized voices. I said, “No, then we’re just reproducing the hierarchies.” I still wonder, because what happens next? In Canada, or in this territory, it played out a little bit differently because of some of the leadership of CLAC.

Sarita Ahooja: But then once CLAC dissolves…

Lesley Wood: So, what happens?

Sarita Ahooja: Peoples’ Global Action disappears from the map of Montreal.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: No one talks about Peoples’ Global Action. There were certain people, at a time, who knew about it, but I would say a lot of the Francophone organizations didn’t follow what was happening after Prague. Montreal is composed of both Francophone and Anglophone activists. Yeah, I don’t know how to answer that. So, like what happens? What happens after that?

Lesley Wood: Yeah. What happens? So, there’s, well, a lot that goes on, but CLAC goes to Amherst in 2001, mobilizes for the Bolivia encuentro, and somehow manages to pull it off. Then, I don’t know what happened…

Sarita Ahooja: It’s also [name redacted] too.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: A strong voice, advocate wherever he goes for this.

Lesley Wood: That’s right.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah?

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: In any form. It could’ve been called ‘the Peoples’ Global Rendezvous’, I don’t know, in any case, he would’ve come to that meeting [laughter] with the same proposal.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: So, that’s also another thing, we have to understand the work that [name redacted] put into keeping CLAC involved in those debates. It was [name redacted], most of the time.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. He has those networks. He has that trust.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. ‘you wouldn’t see me on the internet all afternoon, weighing in on some of these debates that were taking place at the time.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah. No, I know. I know.

Sarita Ahooja: I did not have the time, or I had to work.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah. No […] So, okay. Does CLAC go to Bolivia? I don’t even remember.

Sarita Ahooja: So, yes. CLAC goes…

Lesley Wood: 9/11 happens.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. Then the authorities want to shut it down.

Lesley Wood: Ah ha.

Sarita Ahooja: And they label it ‘terrorism’. CLAC had a representative from the anti-poverty movement here in Quebec.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: It’s called the OPDS. Protection of social rights in Quebec. We had [name redacted], a mother of two adult girls, and who was involved in the movement since her time in Algeria. She knows what anti-colonial liberation struggle is first hand. She was involved in anti-poverty organising in Quebec for a long time, and she represented an anti-poverty voice that revindicates a citizens’ salary. What is a citizens’ salary? Well, you could say quickly, that it is…

Lesley Wood: Basic income?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. It’s a basic income that any person needs to have a decent living. We have welfare and what have you, and they play with numbers. This would be a fixed, higher income.

Lesley Wood: You could actually live off.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, you could have a good rent, eat regular food, you know. So, that was her thing. Then there were two Native representatives that were from Akwesasne at the time, involve in the border struggle. I would have to recheck that and actually [name redacted] would have the names right off the bat, because he, you know, his mind is there all the time with the people he’s working with. And then there was a representative from CLAC who was a student. That was a contentious issue within the external committee, because she was a white, middle-class student that now has moved on with her life and has obtained the position that she wants within academia and doesn’t represent an excluded part of this society.

Lesley Wood: The struggle.

Sarita Ahooja: Okay, now at this point in her life, as a student, yes. Because the student movement here in Quebec is a voice that tries to restrain neoliberal policies and reforms and so on, so it’s an important actor. It is, you know, a very important one that can mobilize. Over two hundred thousand people can be mobilized by this, you know, organization of this sector. So, at the time, I would say she’s not really an excluded person. She did have privilege growing up and so on, so she doesn’t represent, you know, in that sense, so there was contention around her, but she did go.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. When CLAC…

Sarita Ahooja: So..

Lesley Wood: Sorry. Go ahead.

Sarita Ahooja: And then, I’m trying to think here…

Lesley Wood: It more just like, what happened then next? So, when they came back, was CLAC still around at this point?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. Having difficulties.

Lesley Wood: Did the PGA translate into projects that were on the ground here? Not so much? Even the hallmark?

Sarita Ahooja: Nothing came out concretely other than us using the PGA as a reference in talks…

Lesley Wood: Right. So, it was a…

Sarita Ahooja: to explain the possibilities of global movements. To convince people that it’s worth fighting.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: [laughter] That’s what you spend your time doin’.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Well, and saying, “Look over here!”.

Sarita Ahooja: Look here, look here, look here. We can do it too. You can do it too. How do you do it? Okay, then the people start putting up posters or they start going (inaudible), but, you know, I mean, never go any more than that.

Lesley Wood: It’s funny.

Sarita Ahooja: And a few fundraisers, and a few events.

Lesley Wood: You guys had some roadshows, right? I think you brought in people…

**Sarita Ahooja:**Yes. From Argentina.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: Okay, that’s what I’m saying. We do a lot of that work. That’s time consuming for an organization. We have to raise a lot of money, which we do. We do it all, but that’s a lot.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, it’s a lot.

Sarita Ahooja: Consuming your time.

Lesley Wood: Well, and it’s focused, I mean, it’s important, right? I’m not saying it’s not, obviously.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, but it’s like, the convener role kinda still. Disseminating the message. Tryin’ to do the proper educational development, what’s going on and how we can do it.

Lesley Wood: As a model, what worked and what didn’t work is where I’m going, and what lessons do we have from that period? Because there’s nothing like PGA now, right?

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: There’s the internet [laughter]. That’s different.

Sarita Ahooja: The internet, yeah. Facebook. Well, the internationalism converges around different moments now. Like around the Arab Spring, if you will. Or the internationalism around, you know, climate change. You know what I’m saying?

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: There’s a lot of that. The organizations that are doing direct action and would, like the idea of Peoples’ Global Action are concentrated on climate justice or local anti-poverty issues here. Gentrification is one where people are just back into that.

Lesley Wood: No One Is Illegal.

Sarita Ahooja: No One Is Illegal is very, very, slow here in Montreal, the collective, the people have disintegrated into their lives slowly [sound effect denoting decline].

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Sure. And Solidarity Across Borders?

Sarita Ahooja: It’s the organization that takes on the role of No One Is Illegal now, you know, as a place where it’s the allies that organize to help those that are detained are being deported. Whereas, before, it was like another dynamic.

Sarita Ahooja: ‘Cause the thing is too, Peoples’ Global Action, I felt like it was parallel to what was going on with CLAC, because we would insert it in. In the general assemblies, there was no definitive organizing around it, but, at a certain point, people complained in the general assemblies that we were just rubber stamping CLAC approval, a whole bunch of organizations that most of the people in the general assemblies had never met. There was no real contact with any of this organizing. It was all in this virtual world. It all sounded wonderful. The ideas were good in the sense that CLAC was pushing the agenda towards a certain way and, you know, was moving along fine, kinda thing. You know what I’m saying?

Lesley Wood: Yeah!

Sarita Ahooja: And that we stamp, okay, they’re doing, you know, okay, Washington D.C. Okay. And some of these, the local organizations, they’re in their local logic too. That’s all. They just come to CLAC to get exposed to that internationalism, but is it real? So, Peoples’ Global Action was a reference for us, I think, a lot of the times when we were talking. No, it didn’t become anything more than a few events I would say. Great events probably. You know, educational and so on from Latin America. The unions loved it when Argentina came up, you know, and they got involved.

Lesley Wood: Which unions are we talking about?

Sarita Ahooja: Well, the CSN. The CSN is a federation, the second largest trade union in Quebec, it can be a variety of unions, right?

Lesley Wood: Okay.

Sarita Ahooja: But it is political, let’s see. Who would be in the CSN? Who could I tell you? They’re blue-collar workers.

Lesley Wood: Okay. That’s cool.

Sarita Ahooja: [Name redacted] would tell you which sectors of the…

Lesley Wood: ‘Cause his time at PGA was all in Toronto. So, he was tellin’ me more about it via…

Sarita Ahooja: There, yeah.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: Which is probably a different thing going on too, ‘cause yeah, it has to resonate a little bit with what’s already going on on the ground. I’m telling you really from my perspective too, I’m coming at it like, [name redacted] and me are more Zapatista linked. The other people that were part of the external committee who would be involved with the PGA too are people like [name redacted], you know, he came down with us, but he didn’t really do much more than, like, he didn’t continue organizing much. You know what I’m sayin’?

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: So, then there’s lots of stuff like that in your external committee. A lot of people that are coming and going, in their personal lives too and organizing. So, then you got something like [name redacted] and [name redacted] who are on the internet all the time. They’re the ones that kinda maintain the course of that and, like I said, [name redacted] was somebody who had already gone to a lot of the Encuentros. Her and [name redacted] anyways are the ones that call for the formation of CLAC. They already were involved with PGA.

Lesley Wood: So, CLAC…

Sarita Ahooja: So, I ask myself, if those people had not been involved with it, the ‘mondialisme’ that created Peoples’ Global Action, would CLAC have been a convener? I don’t know. I don’t think so, because they, you know, local organizations here would never have had much access to that kind of thing.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: Your anti-poverty groups here…

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: Know what I’m saying?

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: A lot of the CLAC members came from the student population organizing against poverty.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: Okay? They were involved involved in the anti-gentrification movement too. A lot of them were coming out of that, and coming in to this, and going out of it. You know what I’m saying? That’s the stream.

Lesley Wood: And it seems like – correct me if I’m wrong – but I looked at who went to the early social forums, which is this other model, and some of the big feminist organizations in Quebec…

Sarita Ahooja: FFQ (la Fédération des femmes du Québec).

Lesley Wood: Were in the women’s march ?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes.

Lesley Wood: Those ones…

Sarita Ahooja: Because they are the Bread and Roses international organisers (1995).

Lesley Wood: Right. And, so, this local difference that is sort of fueling both.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes, because they are one of the social forum networks founding-member organisers.

Lesley Wood: That’s right.

Sarita Ahooja: The money’s coming out of Montreal. The bank for the social forum is sitting right down here on Park Avenue near my house.

Lesley Wood: Right, right, right, right, right.

Sarita Ahooja: Okay? They are fueling the social forum organizing. We are up against them [clapping with each word]. Face-to-face [clapping with each word]. CLAC and Alternatives. That’s your divide here in this city.

Lesley Wood: Which also fuels CLAC, you know.

Sarita Ahooja: It also fuels CLAC, because it makes them a reference point for other organizing, and it creates (I’m not sure what this is – thirty:thirty eight), if you will. CLAC is a reference, but now it’s nothing.

Lesley Wood: Right. But now, ‘cause CLAC still exists, but that connection…

Sarita Ahooja: The ability to say, “There’s a meeting downtown of x, you know, this and this powerful something-something. Let’s go and protest them” They are not mobilizing.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though they seem to kind of during the Quebec student mobilization a little bit.

Sarita Ahooja: They produced.

Lesley Wood: They became reinvigorated a little bit, no?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes.

Lesley Wood: Or was it more of an…

Sarita Ahooja: They tried.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, they tried to. Okay.

Sarita Ahooja: They tried to, but it was…

Lesley Wood: But not PGA, at all?

Sarita Ahooja: Noooo.

Lesley Wood: ‘Cause isn’t it, so, the hallmarks are still used even though people…

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: In Toronto…

Sarita Ahooja: An identifier.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, so the movement defense committee in Toronto uses the PGA and hallmarks. There’s other little shadows [laughter] that are still there even though most of the people involved have no idea what PGA is or was. And that’s fine. And then you have Ottawa, which created the PGA Bloc. Right?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. Yes.

Lesley Wood: From Montebello and…

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. To organize out of. That was their vehicle of organizing.

Lesley Wood: But it was nothing to do with the international.

Sarita Ahooja: No.

Lesley Wood: Not really. I mean, it…

Sarita Ahooja: There were international encounters of the leaders though, like G8, G20. So, that’s globalism.

Lesley Wood: Yesss, but in the sense that they had no connection to an international network.

Sarita Ahooja: Ah! Yeah.

Lesley Wood: They just called it PGA, so it’s so weird, the different ways that it…

Sarita Ahooja: Funny, eh?

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Like, it’s more […] it was more real in Montreal than almost anywhere.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. Well, we, I mean, we were trying to be legit. Meaning that, accountable too. Right? And we had general assemblies, right? So, we had, after Quebec City, you’ve got general assemblies where there’s four hundred […] people trying to make decisions about, you know, your next mobilization, your request from such and such an organization…

Lesley Wood: These are CLAC-organized general assemblies?

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. Your PGA that’s saying this, then what should we do? Will we be a co-convener? We have a proposal. We’d like to do this, this, this, this.

Lesley Wood: Did anybody go to Bangalore?

Sarita Ahooja: Noo.

Lesley Wood: ‘Cause there was a PGA conference.

Sarita Ahooja: There too. And that was something [name redacted] also explained to all the CLACers, that not necessarily people understand what it is to fight feudalism, but that was one of the things.

Lesley Wood: Things that came out of…

Sarita Ahooja: Comes out of Bangalore. Very important for [name redacted] as something that he will often, you know, educate people on.

Lesley Wood: Mhm. Yeah, ‘cause the hallmarks change at that point.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes.

Lesley Wood: Feudalism gets added, and then they get into this very, sort of, roundabout way of being diversity of tactics by saying…

Sarita Ahooja: Promoting life.

Lesley Wood: [laughter] Well, it was a way of getting at it. You know, the actual important point of it, because violence is such a silly word.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, and also because in India, also context matters. Of course, life there has no meaning compared to here. You know, lives can just be…

Lesley Wood: So, lessons.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: [laughter] Like, seriously, ‘cause it was a particular thing. What do we have to tell people, the youngsters coming up today, about what could be learned from that moment?

Sarita Ahooja: […]

Lesley Wood: Or that structure? Or that way of doing things?

Sarita Ahooja: […] Well, it’s that convergence and, consensus-making model, you got a little bit of Americana in that, because it’s a very well-developed science, a model there. They do it very well for their large globalization actions, and, people can adopt it and use it and so on. It can work for a certain time. For very specific things. It is not a long-term build-your-new-world thing all the time, I don’t think. ‘Cause it’s not sustainable, really, I don’t think.

Lesley Wood: PGA or consensus?

Sarita Ahooja: The PGA structure.

Lesley Wood: Ah! Why? I mean, I think I have an answer, but I’m curious about what yours is [laughter].

Sarita Ahooja: Well, ‘cause, I mean, for CLAC, for example, to be able to develop these struggles that we need, too, here and then also have the time to know about what’s going on in the international level. And then knowing then, you know, there’s certain people that are, like in the PGA, there were certain individuals that were known to be really the people behind everything. Yes? And they have an enormous amount of money. There was one figure…

Lesley Wood: Who are you thinking of?

Sarita Ahooja: I don’t even know. See, [name redacted] is the one that told me about this. It’s a Genevan fellow.

Lesley Wood: Oh yeah. Yeah, I know who you’re talking about. I’ll remember his name in a moment.

Sarita Ahooja: I don’t remember the name, but…

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: And apparently, I mean, the story was, you know, once you get more and more into the whole PGA structure and stuff like this, there was one person that had an enormous amount of money, so they could dedicate a lot of time to keeping this going and then obviously has an enormous amount of influence too in the organizations. And it’s the kind of thing that the more you’re involved, the authority you have in organization like that […]. I mean, us being co-conveners with Tampa. We don’t have much in common with Tampa. Yes, we support the Immokalee Workers. We got that support through our general assembly. We supported officially also. And political ideology against, racism and so on. So, that wasn’t a problem, but it’s like in real life, was anybody in Montreal boycotting the tomatoes that these workers, we don’t know. You know what I’m saying…

Lesley Wood: Yeah, yeah. It’s too light.

Sarita Ahooja: They really still stay so removed from peoples’…

Lesley Wood: Day-to-day.

Sarita Ahooja: real organizing world.

Lesley Wood: So, could we imagine a model that doesn’t fall into that. That actually tries to build real international solidarity. I wonder what that would look like. It would make it real. Or maybe it’s not relevant. Maybe you don’t need to. I’m not sure.

Sarita Ahooja: And have international solidarity?

Lesley Wood: Well, obviously, maybe, but, you know, in the sense of like that tension between the local and the international. Would there have been a way to avoid that problem?

Sarita Ahooja: […]

Lesley Wood: I know some of the exchanges and the caravan that brought a whole bunch of organizers from India to Europe.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes, they did that.

Lesley Wood: They tried to do it, because they were like, “If we have face-to-face…”

Sarita Ahooja: Encounters, yes.

Lesley Wood: “…encounters, we’re more likely to build some sort of real exchange”

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, because I do believe that that is the way to do it. I just think it’s just very hard to. So, the internationalism is necessary to inspire people. It’s necessary to show us things that we can possibly adopt that could be useful in our local struggles. Beause we’re always learning, that’s part of why internationalism is important, because we do learn from other people’s tactics. We do see possibility, and it can open up avenues for your local struggle. I think that it’s also important for people, when they are doing their local struggle, to always remember that it’s connected to global politics. Well, then how do other people deal with it? I mean, it helps. It helps, right? But how can you maintain genuine communication and a congruent structure, I mean, it was a very free thing. All you had to do was adopt the principles. You just adopt the hallmarks, and you were a part of that structure. You could go to any Encuentro, you know, you need a few vouches, but it was very open. It’s a very porous thing. People coming in and out of that very easily, so I’m like, “How could you make it better?” I’m not sure in terms of accessibility, because the idea is that democracy has to be accessible.

Lesley Wood: Mhm.

Sarita Ahooja: So, I mean, an association of Punjabi restaurant owners here. If they had adopted the PGA principles, they could’ve gone as your small businessmen, that are associating to defend their little piece of the puzzle.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Yeah, sure.

Sarita Ahooja: They would’ve been allowed to speak, and you know what I’m saying?

Lesley Wood: No, I mean, that was some of the hilarious contradictions. You had people representing MST or the Bangladesh Fishery Union that represent, like, two million people or something next to the anarchist squat from Amsterdam that has six [laughter].

Sarita Ahooja: Yeahhh, that’s it. It’s wild.

Lesley Wood: I mean, it was a counter to the, NGOs and the very resource-rich international things that were dominated by the North. is this particular way. they had these criteria to try and kind of break up that power structure, but the lack of resources actually also had this downside. Yeah?

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. Lack of resources. That’s it. I mean, reality is that no matter how you organize it, the economic structures still permeate the way in which we meet face-to-face.

Lesley Wood: And some organizers, hoped that the Northern organizations will pay for the South to come, but the Northern organizations that were involved didn’t have much money [laughter], so it was like…

Sarita Ahooja: Spending our time raising money all the time.

Lesley Wood: [laughter] Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: And you burn out on that, you know?

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: I mean, that’s what, we were raising money all the time. All the time. Plus, you’ve got the arresteess that you raise money for. Then you’re raising, you know, for the deportations. Then you’re raising for whatever. I mean, there was always something.[laughter] Raising the money to do something.

Sarita Ahooja: I don’t know, you know, really. It’s just […] even now, with the Zapatistas, right? They put forth the whole Intergalactica, you know, which is kind of the same thing as the PGA. They retreated for a long time, and they come back with an electoral proposal […], you know. Right now, some people on the Left are getting into electoral politics. So, there are waves, too, of things. And internationalism, I feel like comes in waves. Now I say that, because I’ve got, maybe, twenty-five years of organizing under my belt. I wouldn’t have said that earlier on in my life. With the PGA, I thought this was it. We’re going somewhere, you know? We’re going for the gold.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. We’re going for the gold. This it’s happening. We are coordinated. That’s all it takes.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Well, I mean, we did disrupt some shit, like, locally, but also, I think, internationally. The WTO, for example. But they did it other ways, right? They got around it.

Sarita Ahooja: Sure, they got around it.

Lesley Wood: I was talking to a guy, [name redacted], who’s…

Sarita Ahooja: I know that name for some reason.

Lesley Wood: He’s an Israeli Anti-Zionist, sort of Palestine solidarity guy.

Sarita Ahooja: I remember him, yes.

Lesley Wood: And he does stuff, he’s like, “Would the frame be pacification? Is that a way to build alliances and think collectively around these processes that are playing out.” Pacification of Indigenous people, pacification in gentrification, and in policing. Then we could think about, because we’re using the same tools in many of these contexts, right? The same weapons. Police forces are strategizing, as well… and private security, and maybe that’s a way to go…and he was thinking about something. He was talking about a portal. “Gonna create a portal on the internet with all this information so that we can share it so that we don’t have to reproduce it. It’s like, “Good idea.” But it’s interesting that it doesn’t resonate so quickly in the same ways that moment. You know?

Sarita Ahooja: Right.

Lesley Wood: Like, of course. Of course. When I talk about it, and I feel myself, I’m skeptical even though I think it’s a really good idea. And I’m a total believer in networks. I’ve always been. I’m always at the OCAP meeting being like, “Maybe we should go to this.”

Sarita Ahooja: Well, it’s because you lived that. You lived that moment too. So, there was lots of magic in that moment. It was possibility. It really felt like there was lots of possibility, that’s why. When you’re networking, you know, it’s so […] there’s so much that could happen.

Lesley Wood: You’re like, “Yes. Us too. Yes. Fuck, let’s do it!”

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: But […] it’s hard to be…

Lesley Wood: And it shouldn’t be a tension. I mean, the Zapatista model of solidarity was about working where you are at, and that is the solidarity. You know, so you don’t get caught up in the institution building, but there’s a tension there. You know? OCAP signed on to the hallmarks. We’re part of PGA, but it never really trickled down….

Sarita Ahooja: Because the O…

Lesley Wood: And partly because we were in the same battle with the people who were doing the global things. We’re like, and Toronto was like Mobilization for Global Justice or whatever.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. Yeah, and drawing the line and…

Lesley Wood: Sometimes lines are useful, sometimes not so much [laughter].

Sarita Ahooja: There’s a waste of time. Yesss.

Lesley Wood: You spend so much energy.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, too much energy sometimes. But OCAP definitely had an agenda though. That would always, probably, take priority, because it was a city, that’s where you’re living and that’s what’s happening.

Lesley Wood: Our people.

Sarita Ahooja: Your people. How you have to do that, yeah. Focus on that. And see, yeah…

Lesley Wood: But we still have those relationships. MST, ten years ago whatever, sent us a, you know, flag and they visited our office.

Sarita Ahooja: Oh cute.

Lesley Wood: You know, and then they believed.

Sarita Ahooja: They were a reference still.

Lesley Wood: Yeah!

Sarita Ahooja: They know that, in Canada…see that’s useful to know. For me to know that too, that in another country, MST is a reference point for me. So, I know in Brazil, there are people that are, you know, disrupting the business as usual. If I ever wanna go to Brazil, I would be able to go. I mean, I think that’s great. That is a result of that.

Lesley Wood: I think so.

Sarita Ahooja: Knowing what’s happening in other countries.

Sarita Ahooja: Right.

Lesley Wood: Okay, any last thoughts before I turn this off?

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, I mean, I think that there’s just a lot of good things that can be used in the PGA model. I think it’s a really hard predicament that we still have, to get out of, the privileges that we have in the activist world . This is really a concrete, tangible thing that we are still burdened with. The structural inequities within our organizing, communities in each city and each locality. So, this is the main thing the PGA had a problem with. I mean, it would’ve become more and more exclusive too. I mean, it did kind of. You know?

Lesley Wood: There was this, yes. There was, we haven’t talked about…

Sarita Ahooja: Slowly as time went on.

Lesley Wood: Well, not even slowly. I think from the beginning, there was this group of Europeans that were supposedly the support committee that were facilitating relationships in the global and – including this guy, [name redacted] – and they…

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, so they had…

Lesley Wood: Yeah, and they had a certain amount of influence. A huge amount of influence, because they were playing some useful roles, right? Like, getting internet set up and communicating and organizing events, but they had a lot of power.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, they did.

Lesley Wood: Yeah, and it’s some of those people that want this project.

Sarita Ahooja: K. To document that history?

Lesley Wood: Yeah, but they…

Sarita Ahooja: Okay. That’s legit, but it’s also because it’s part of what they created.

Lesley Wood: That’s right. So, the interviews in other places, actually I think, I hope a useful corrective to what they think the story is.

Sarita Ahooja: I see, yeah.

Lesley Wood: [laughter]

Sarita Ahooja: Sure, because they have their story. For us, it was an interesting way to continue creating the excitement out of Quebec. To say that things are possible. We used it as an educational tool, as a tool to bring in people from the Global South. Again, educational, but to make those links real for us. Bringing them out to the Native communities too. We did the whole thing. When they came here, we gave them the whole tour, you know?

Lesley Wood: These are folks that came from Argentina?

Sarita Ahooja: Argentina, and Columbia, and other countries in Latin America.

Lesley Wood: Mmm. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: The People’s…

Lesley Wood: The Black… El Proceso de Comunidades Negras en Colombia PCN?

Sarita Ahooja: Yes. We were involved with all of those campaigns. Bringing them up here to meet face-to-face. This real thing that we wanted to create. Right? So, you know, we got in touch with those people, we brought them here, and we did those genuine exchanges, and we really put a lot of energy into that. But we did that, I mean, to create possibility here for the local struggles and for, you know, the organizations that we were interested in building movement like, anti-poverty, immigrant rights, and Native self-determination, basically. That was our interest. Now, if you would have had some other organization, you know, you would’ve had maybe something different outcomes.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. For sure. Cool.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah. That’s how I see it. Then we’d hear a story from [name redacted]. I tell you, she would know a lot more, ‘cause she was at one of the European meetings with this [name redacted] fellow personally. She had met this fellow.

Lesley Wood: He came to New York actually. He came to our Direct Action Network meeting.

Sarita Ahooja: Ah! Okay.

Lesley Wood: And that was how we got hooked in. Well, before Seattle, there was a roadshow, sort of, that was PGA connected. I don’t know how that happened actually. I guess I gotta find out [laughter]. They bought folks from, I mean, what’s his name? [Name redacted]’s group. They were in the PGA.

Sarita Ahooja: Yes, they were. [Name redacted] was the President.

Lesley Wood: Some people are in government now.

Sarita Ahooja: I know!

Sarita Ahooja: And the reason why Evo Morales was part of the PGA is because at that time people were fighting for their water!

Lesley Wood: That’s right!

Sarita Ahooja: Because of Bechtel and all these sanitary companies. You know, it’s still all going on. At the time, people were also into making the links, and these multinationals, were more at the forefront. Now, every once in a while, a multinational is at the forefront of the mobilisation.

Lesley Wood: Yeah. Not the way it was.

Sarita Ahooja: The way we were doing it before.

Sarita Ahooja: Bechtel was in California, and people were resisting it in Bolivia too. Look at what they did. Look at those organizations like Evo Morales and the cocaleros, one of the organizations where the ladies were throwing stones at the police and military. So, he comes out of a real people’s movement. But he is government now. Isn’t that wild?

Lesley Wood: [laughter] I know.

Sarita Ahooja: Yeah, so PGA, yeah. It was a real mix-match of all kinds of organizations. The South definitely represented real people. Real people, I don’t wanna say it like that. I meant…

Lesley Wood: Mass movements.

Sarita Ahooja: Mass movements.

Lesley Wood: Yeah.

Sarita Ahooja: Organised families, communities, villagers, homes.