No One is Illegal

For two hours this morning, small groups like this walked around Parc Lafontaine, probably as part of this week's MayWorks events and demonstrations for international workers rights, fair trade, immigrant justice, and against poverty, racism and racial profiling, the latter sponsored by the group Solidarité sans frontières/Solidarity Across Borders. Note the baby carriage and small kids: that's the case in nearly every demonstration we've seen on the streets of Montreal - and demonstrations are a common occurrence. The annual May Day workers' march got broken up by police this year - the police were touchy after the destructive riot that broke out after the Canadiens won a playoff game earlier in the week, and apparently some neo-Nazis came to the MayDay march ready for violence; in any case, the march was practically over before it started. All of which didn't go over well in this city which prides itself on being peaceful but political. It looked like today's march may have been an attempt by certain groups to pick up the pieces and walk in solidarity in a different location on a rainy Saturday instead, just on principle.

In any case, the issues highlighted were underscored by the film we saw last night, "The Visitor." Shot in New York City, near Washington Square, and in Queens, the film focuses on a bored, unhappy white college professor who arrives at his little-used apartment in New York to find a foreign couple living there: they turn out to be a Syrian musician and his Senegalese girlfriend: both illegal aliens. Things get much more complicated, as we watch the professor grow through his relationship with the couple and an unexpectedly personal political awakening. The film also has a lot to say about music as language, solace, quest, and expression; its ultimate point is not so much about deportation and rules as it is about what constitutes our responsibility to one another as human beings - and how far the United States has come from that in its policy about detention, and toward those who aid illegal aliens or anyone who runs afoul of the Patriot Act.

The helplessness of American citizens and accused immigrants alike, against "the system", contrasts so starkly with the grassroots sentiment and activism I'm observing here in Quebec. Perhaps one clue to the difference is in that baby carriage you see in the picture above. Children here grow up being exposed to the idea that participation in the political process is a right and a privilege - and one that has an effect. Demonstrations, public meetings, and membership in civic organizations are not grim affairs, but seem to include an element of humor that prevents officials from taking themselves too seriously, and therefore the separation between employees of "the state" - whether police, bureaucrats, or elected officials - and ordinary citizens is much thinner and much less hostile and aggressive.

Is it too late to change this in the U.S. and other industrialized countries?  I wonder. But I can guarantee you one thing: it won't happen from the top down.

"Je ne comprends pas grand chose aux États et aux frontières.
Je sais seulement que la Terre est ronde, et contrairement aux arbres
qui ont des racines, les humains ont des pieds pour marcher."

("I don't understand the big thing about states or borders. I only know that the earth is round, and unlike trees which have roots, humans have feet for walking.")

--Quotation for tomorrow's "No One is Illegal" march

I also liked this one:

"Any Wall Turned on Its Side Becomes a Bridge"

Comments

[leslee]

Lovely review, Beth. I saw the movie this afternoon/evening and came away so sad. But you're right, about the responsibility to each other and especially about the music! It's what starts and ends the movie, its most joyful expression.

[marie-lucie]

just a little correction: "Je ne comprends pas grand chose ..." means "I don't understand much (about) ..."

Otherwise, lovely writing, Merci!