From April 19-21 anti-fascists from Anti-Racist Action (ARA) were once again on the front lines
against fascism, capitalism and the state as part of the Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Offensive
in the battle of Quebec City against the FTAA. What follows is a communiqué on our take on those
days.

*Forwarding and reprinting encouraged*

Against Fascism, Capitalism and the State!
A communiqué from Anti-Racist Action on the battle of Quebec City.

From April 19-21 anti-fascists from Anti-Racist Action (ARA) were once again on the front lines
against fascism, capitalism and the state as part of the Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Offensive
in the battle of Quebec City against the FTAA. What follows is a communiqué of our take on those
days.

We make no attempt to speak for everyone or every action that happened on those days, nor do we
speak for everyone in the ARA network, we speak as participants of the battle of Quebec City from
a number of ARA chapters from Canada and the U.S. that took part. Also, aside from those ARAers
who elected to be on the front lines we also had ARAers with Indymedia, Street Medics, Scouts, and
other essential support roles. No one role is more important than another. Whether it's being
actively involved in street fighting, cooking food or taking care of injured protesters, all roles
need to be filled for a successful mass mobilization.

ARA organizing against the FTAA started in earnest in Dec. 2000 when ARA Toronto organized a very
successful public forum titled "From protest to resistance, a radical look at the FTAA". Speakers
included representatives from Anti-Racist Action (Toronto), Food For Chiapas (Toronto), The
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Colours of Resistance, The Summit of the Americas Welcoming
Committee, CASA (Quebec City), The Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC) as well as Lorenzo Komboa
Ervin, former Black Panther and Political Prisoner, Founder of the Black Autonomy Network Of
Community Organizers and author of "Anarchism and Black Revolution" (Kalamazoo, Michigan). The
meeting was packed and speeches from it were transcribed and widely reprinted.

For an MP3 recording of the event please see: http://radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=2816

For transcripts of two of the speeches please see:
http://www.tao.ca/~colours/donovan.html http://www.tao.ca/~colours/hwang2.html

After that ARA Toronto focused on forming a federation of direct-action oriented affinity groups
that would operate together in Quebec City. Unfortunately, despite widespread interest the
federation never successfully got off the ground and was scrapped several weeks after its
inception. However, we don't look at it as a total loss as we gained experience at small group
organizing that will be useful in the future and strengthened communication between radical groups
in Toronto.

ARA Toronto also produced 5000 three colour, multi-language, anti-imperialist posters for the CLAC
/ CASA Carnival Against Capitalism that were distributed throughout North America. To view the
poster please see: http://www.web.net/~ara/carnival.htm

Also of note is ARA McGill's outing of Joseph Quesnel, a McGill University student with ties to
the far- right that attempted to infiltrate FTAA-Alert, a campus-based anti-FTAA group in
Montreal. For more information please see: http://www.antiracistaction.ca/mcgill02212001.html

Of course, this organizing didn't come out of nowhere. ARA has been participating in
anti-capitalist demonstrations for awhile and has quietly played key roles in mobilizations such
as the IMF/ World Bank demonstrations in April 2000 and, notably, the tremendous organizing ARA
Columbus did against the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue meetings in Cincinnati. All of which
came out of our community-based anti-fascist work that we've been doing for the past 15 years.

April 19th,

ARA chapters from Toronto and other areas joined the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP),
traditional Mohawks and other allies at Cornwall / Akwasasne to open the border for American
activists in a show of Mohawk sovereignty.

While the border crossing may have been less than perfect on a tactical level it was a success
politically. For the first time radical anti-globalization activists stood with indigenous people,
on unceded territory, in an attempt to assert first nations sovereignty in conjunction with an
attempted mass crossing of the US / Canada border. In our opinion this development was just as, if
not more, important than the actions in Quebec City and we would like to see links continue to
form between indigenous people, poor people and the anti-globalization movement. We are proud to
have stood by the Mohawks and OCAP on the day and look forward to future work together in OCAP's
fall campaign of economic disruption across the province. For more information please see
http://www.ocap.ca

April 20th,

Upon arrival at the University of Laval we were welcomed by the very hospitable and highly
organized student volunteers who, despite language and cultural differences, did a beautiful job
of welcoming and housing the thousands of demonstrators. A free breakfast was served to everyone
who could not afford their own after which everyone began to prepare themselves for the looming
confrontation.

After assembling as part of the Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Offensive within the CLAC / CASA march we stepped off towards the
perimeter with several thousand others. The atmosphere was tense yet festive in the beginning
stages of the march. The march route was long, but the day was beautiful and there was plenty of
time to relax and take in the scenery of the city and watch all the beautiful people – resistance
is sexy.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the march on Friday was clearly militant and
anti-capitalist oriented, the local people were very supportive and cheered us on. There was even
a sense that the Black Bloc was being glorified with the odd cheer coming from spectators “Vive le
Black Bloc!