2001-04-27 - 11:41 p.m.

Ah. Finished my paper on women anarchists in Spain in the 1930s, or to be specific my topic is: SPANISH ANARCHA-FEMINISTS:THE CONTINUATION

OF THEIR SYSTEM OF BELIEFS IN SECOND- WAVE FEMINISM AND CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL ACTIVISM.

It was fun.

More important though, it acts as this really nice political segway between Quebec last week and a bit of emotional soul searching this week. To think and analyse all the workings of Quebec was more important than I anticipated and this paper motivated it.

I know this because during the time since coming back I've talked to some people who have said, "it really affected me". This got me thinking as to why it wasn't affecting me. For a moment I began to think that I had temporarily misplaced my little sack of analytical faculties nestled somewhere in my head.

But reading about a group of women who knew gender politics before gender politics existed, who denounced the deleterious effects of the nation state on human spirit, who understood patriarchy and reached out to all women (not just elite academics) really inspired me. It also put the Quebec struggle into perspective.

You cannot minimise the use of something like tear gas. You can't flippantly say that police used "moderate" amounts of force against people. There is no moderation, just as there is no peaceful police officer.

What do they represent? A state, an artificial collection of arbitrary power.

Who do they represent? A despotic leader, who has somehow appropriated the legitimacy of twenty-something million people to negotiate a trade deal? Well, no one asked me about it. I didn't get a package in the mail asking me for input to send to Mr. Chretien.

What do we represent? A diversity of people joined together not as an organisation, not as a collective, not even working with the same tactics.

Somehow, though, we still managed to have meetings. They were many hours long, many people were angry, many content, many ecstatically happy but it still involved everyone. Everyone was allowed to speak, to direct motions, to address the thousand-odd people in attendance. In and of itself, this type of organising is impressive.

How do they have their meetings? Thirty-four heads of state claiming to represent a few hundred-million people?

(It makes me angry enough to spit grape jello in your face if you think this is okay, so watch out)