Current events in Quebec, Canada where a law has recently been introduced in an attempt to limit long-running student protests, offer a reminder that the challenges of state pushback against protest, as documented extensively by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation in its recent report, the State of Civil Society 2011, are not limited to developing countries and those without elected governments.
The new special law – Bill 78 – that has been introduced to limit strictly assembly of more than 50 people, flies in the face of accepted good practice about laws to regulate and enable citizen action. The new law was also introduced in a hasty manner with minimal consultation.
CIVICUS believes that as a minimum, governments must guarantee the rights of freedom of association, freedom of expression, and the right for civil society to operate free from unwarranted state interference and to communicate, cooperate and seek and secure funding. Without these conditions, fundamental rights of people to express their concerns and combine to seek change, rooted in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, cannot be properly realised.
Quebec activists are therefore not alone in facing attempts to restrict their freedom to express, associate and organise. Nor should the Quebec student strike, which has now been running for more than three months, be seen as only a local skirmish. CIVICUS’ research reveals that countries accounting for more than half of the world’s population, at least 88 countries in total, experienced mass citizen action in 2011.
While protests around the world have had many different aims, many of them have, like Quebec, seen a particular involvement of young people, students and recent graduates. The Quebec protests come in the wake of large scale student mobilisations in 2011 in Chile and the UK, amongst others.
In many countries, education funding is under pressure as governments seek to cut public spending in response to the global economic crisis. Coming at the same time as rising demand for education, this has made the question of who pays for education, and who can afford to be educated, a controversial one. More broadly, CIVICUS argues that the fundamental social contract – the relations and agreements between state, citizens and other parts of society, such as business – is being challenged by rising inequality and the connected crises the world faces – including economic, environmental and political crises. Governments and business cannot solve these profound problems on their own. It is precisely in these times, CIVICUS maintains, that governments need to find ways of involving people, hearing their views and building processes for constructive dialogue on the problems of the day. Passing laws that obstruct protest and the expression of alternative viewpoints makes this less likely, not more.
CIVICUS therefore supports the call by our Montreal-based partner, Institut du Nouveau Monde, to create an independent commission to undertake a broad consultative process to help reconcile the demands of different camps in Quebec.
It is also during such times that the value of international solidarity and support can be seen, and the benefits of building broad-based coalitions on common concerns between activists, protest movements and social movements and other groups, such as charities, trade unions and non-governmental organisations, and also businesses and governments.
All these make it fitting that the 2012 CIVICUS World Assembly, the premier global gathering where civil society organisations, donors and representatives of governments, international institutions and businesses come together to seek collaborative ways to strengthen the rights of citizens everywhere to exist, express and engage collectively, will be held in Montreal very soon, from 3 to 7 September.
The CIVICUS World Assembly will enable a sharing of interests and a pooling of knowledge, for example, by connecting Quebecois activists and concerned citizens with change-makers from the Arab Spring and the new mass movements of Europe. The 1,000 or so representatives from all around the world coming to Montreal will in turn benefit from understanding, connecting with and showing their support for the rights of citizens in Quebec to express, associate and organise. New collaborations between international and Quebecois civil society will surely flow from the CIVICUS World Assembly.
