In the documentary, a Miami high school student condemns the hypocrisy of supposedly meritocratic American democracy: “what [our teachers are] saying to us, all the time, is go to college, so you can do what you love. But they don’t even love what they do.” The audience broke out in applause. It took a moment to realize that the applause wasn’t just coming from the audience; the other students on screen were applauding her as well. It was a powerful moment of communion, a reminder of the importance of public screenings, and a hint at the shared values between the kids in Miami and the audience of students, activists, and intellectuals in Montreal. Democracy, Taylor suggests, is one of those shared values.

What is Democracy? is composed of people responding to the titular question. Many of these people are academics, notably including Cornel West and Wendy Brown. Others are refugees, activists, barbers, seamstresses, and politicians. The scholars mostly interpret history and philosophy; West presents Plato, while Federici analyzes an enormous 14th century mural in Siena called The Allegory of Good Government. The others  appearing in the film offer their opinions. It is these people — or demos (people in Greek), as Taylor referred to them — that provide the film’s most striking material.

When asked how she chose which voices to include, Taylor responded that she felt a duty to try to represent the demos in its entirety, including its less admirable parts. Thus, there is a diversity of people and opinions in the film, including racist and xenophobic ones. In general, however, the people present powerful critiques of democracy as it is experienced today in capitalist nation-states. These critiques reflect the contradiction between the supposed goal of modern democracy, and the social inequality and white supremacy that characterize the United States, the self-appointed flag bearer of democracy.

The reality of fundamentally flawed democracies like the United States compels us to ask: is democracy worth valuing at all? Many have very good reasons to reject it. At a rally after the 2016 US election, Reverend William Barber II spoke of “an entire web of money and influence and white hegemony that has been working to tie up American democracy from the very inception of [the] country.” After being asked what democracy is, poet and activist Aja Monet responded, “we know what [democracy] is — we know what they claim for it to be. Democracy [has been at the expense of Black people.] […] There’s never been a democracy to me. So if that’s the case, fuck it — why are we having this conversation?”

Taylor attempts to answer this question by returning to the supposed roots of Western democracy in the ruins of Athens. There, Taylor goes to the root of the word: demos kratia, the power of the people. Her intent is to disassociate democracy, as a word and a value, from what Federici referred to as “bourgeois democracy,” the bureaucratic practices that govern a bourgeois state. When asked if they learn about democracy in school, a high school student responded that they are taught “about the government, different branches, and stuff like that.” Somewhere, these things — the voting booth, Robert’s Rules of Order (the procedures of government), the state itself — replaced “power of the people” as the meaning of democracy. And from there, it’s a logical step to implicate “democracy” in all the crimes of the bourgeois state. But we shouldn’t take that step — as Taylor said after the screening, “we can’t let the elites define democracy and ruin it.”

So, if not bourgeois democracy, then what? The film, largely concerned with critiquing the current definition of democracy, does little to suggest what an alternative would actually look like. There are a few hints; for example, a North Carolinian sewing cooperative has a system in which the workers, mainly Latin American immigrants, own the profits of their labour. The cooperative seems to demonstrate a democratic alternative to capitalist business ownership, but the implications of this are not explored. In the Q&A, Federici also mentioned the Zapatistas, a militant anarcho-socialist group that controls territory in Chiapas, Mexico in opposition to the government. However, the possibility of democratic insurgencies, similar to those of the Zapatistas, in Western nation-states is not addressed in the film (I imagine such an inclusion would have made it difficult to get funding from the National Film Board).

After the screening, Taylor was asked why she didn’t present a clearer political agenda in What is Democracy? She answered that she sees her filmmaking as distinct from her political organizing, as a space to explore ideas without the need to arrive at a political statement. It’s a fair artistic statement, but an unsatisfying one. The film seems to demand an active response, but I left the screening unsure what that response ought to be. Perhaps that is the point; Federici described the film as a “platform for people to explore the idea of democracy.” It seems to me that Taylor’s intent was to facilitate a dialogue regarding the idea of “democracy” as a radical value, rather than a justification of the political status quo. In that sense, the film’s platform is not for those on screen, but for the viewers, as a starting point for a conversation that Taylor believes needs to be had. While questioning democracy is important, the conversation must go beyond figuring out what democracy isn’t (ie: the capitalist nation-state). Instead, we need to imagine what democracy will look like, perhaps at the smallest, most local levels, and what must be done to bring that democracy to life.

What is Democracy? can be streamed at https://www.nfb.ca/film/what-is-democracy-2018/.

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Most of the changes increase the rights of workers in matters of vacation time and work scheduling. The Bill also stresses the need for psychological and sexual harassment policies in the workplace. Some of the most relevant points of Bill 176 are detailed below:

• All employers must adopt psychological harassment policies with provisions for both prevention and the processing of complaints. Harassment is defined as “vexatious behavior in the form of repeated conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures that are hostile or unwarranted, affect the employee’s dignity or psychological or physical integrity, or make the work environment harmful.” Furthermore, these policies must specifically address “verbal comments, actions, or gestures of a sexual nature.” Employees have two years to file formal complaints of harassment with the CNESSET, lengthened from the previous 90-day limit.
• An employee who is a survivor of domestic or sexual violence may be absent from work up to 26 weeks over a 12-month period. The law does not require employers to compensate employees during this absence.
• Employees have the right to refuse to work if they have not been informed at least five days in advance that they must work. However, this rule does not apply if the nature of their work requires them to be available. Employees may also refuse to work more than two hours beyond their usual working time, a reduction from the four hours previously allowed.
• Employers are mandated to provide paid vacation time to employees. The amount of vacation time allotted per worker is determined by how long they have continuously been employed by their employer. Employees who have been continuously employed for less than one year are entitled to one day of vacation for each month of work. Employees who have been continuously employed for one to three years are entitled to three weeks of vacation per year, two of which must be consecutive. Employees who have been continuously employed for over three years are entitled to four weeks of vacation, three of which must be consecutive.
• Employers may not pay employees with differing employment status (such as part-time or full-time) lower wages compared to other employees performing the same work. Furthermore, employers may not treat employees differently in terms of employee benefits or pension plans based on the date that the employee was hired.

If these or any other labour regulations are violated by an employer, non-unionized private-sector employees can file a complaint with CNESSET online or by mail. Unionized employees may file a complaint with either their union or CNESSET.

More information on Bill 176 and the Quebec Labour Code is available on the CNESSET website. However, as of January 11, the website has not been fully updated.

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This should not have been all that surprising. Leftist groups, often called ‘rad’ groups at McGill, are used to demonstrating. For those outside the mainstream political discourse, demonstration and direct action (such as shutting down inauguration entrances) are strategic decisions. It was these groups that had the fervor and know-how to get people into the streets marching against a semi-fascist demagogue who had taken the presidency on a platform of racism, sexism, and violent rhetoric. Yet these protests, both during and after the election, were reactionary and limited in scope, targeting the isolated phenomenon of Trump rather than promoting a distinct alternative vision. If leftist groups had involved themselves more directly in the political processes through which candidates and political platforms are chosen and created, we might be facing a very different situation-– pushing for the advancement of truly progressive policies instead of lamenting the victory of a right-wing demagogue over a defender of the neoliberal status quo. Moving forward, leftist groups need to use their principles and tactics to take an active role in creating the political conversation, rather constantly reacting to it.

The reason why leftist groups tend to avoid direct partisan involvement is because their political ideologies often characterize the capitalist state and all its elements as inherently oppressive, thereby defining any positive advocacy (by which I mean any advocacy in support of a political outcome) as complicity in state oppression. I am sympathetic to this view in theory, but an uncompromising adherence to these principles hamstrings the ability of leftist groups to affect change. The ‘rad’ left can oppose government policy effectively, as in the 2012 student demonstrations in response to Quebec university tuition hikes, but it lacks the ability to advance concrete policies along the same lines (like free tuition, for instance), because doing so would involve endorsing government action and the politicians who drive that action. Leftist groups, especially those on university campuses, cannot afford to limit themselves like this. You may think “smashing the state” would be ideal, but there is a greater responsibility to aid and empower those who, right now, live under conditions of violence and oppression– racist, patriarchal, colonial, economic, or environmental– expressed through the state or the private sector or anything else. We cannot distance ourselves from a political system that affects the lives of millions. We must engage.

It is often argued that structural change has not been and cannot be made through political engagement. The truth in this is that change cannot be made through political centrism and appeasement. However, not only is it possible to affect change through radical engagement in politics, it is through this engagement that the left has made its greatest accomplishments. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, or “snick”), for instance, can claim significant credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, legislation that, while in no way ending structural racism in America (as is often claimed on the right), reshaped the landscape of racial policy for the betterment of Black Americans. SNCC, founded at Shaw University and eventually expanding to chapters across the country, was a ‘rad’ group by any measure. Its tactics included direct actions often carried out in the face of lynch mobs organized by local police and the Ku Klux Klan, and its radical student activism inspired other campus groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Many of the touchstones of contemporary activist culture, like consensus based decision-making, have their roots in SNCC. However, SNCC was directly engaged with political reality. It demanded specific political action from specific political actors and condemned half-assed attempts to placate it. At times, it was deeply antagonistic towards the Democratic Party, as when it formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in parallel to the nationally recognized, and entirely white, Mississippi Democratic Party. However, SNCC did not disavow political change, just as it did not rely on the benevolence of elected politicians to enact it. Instead, those in SNCC understood that radical action is necessary to force political action, and through their methods can claim to have reshaped the political and social landscape of America.

Radical action is needed for democracy to function correctly because, as any ‘rad’ activist will tell you, democracy is rigged in favour of those in power. Voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, media capture, campaign financing– these criticisms of the democratic process are fully valid. These are not, however, reasons to abandon democratic engagement because, firstly, structural barriers exist to any form of anti-oppressive action, and secondly, ‘rad’ groups specifically are needed to fight these barriers. The media cannot stop people from seeing marchers in the streets, and the political effect of occupying buildings or conducting mass strikes cannot be bought. For those who are educationally or economically disenfranchised, radical organization outside conventional channels lets them bring their political weight to bear.

The final false conception about democratic engagement is that it requires abandoning other radical or revolutionary activism. In his 1965 speech “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm X criticizes the Democratic Party for inaction and betrayal. He lauds Black Nationalism, suggests that Black Americans ought to arm themselves, and threatens guerilla warfare against the white supremacist state. Yet, his message was not to abandon the ballot—it was to use the ballot “like a bullet,” as a weapon to force change. Political involvement does not contradict radical ideology or methods, as long as the ultimate goal is to better people’s lives. You can be revolutionary, organize in a revolutionary fashion, and still engage with the political reality. We do not have to choose – we cannot afford to choose. We should pursue change down all avenues.

What that means, practically, is that leftists and leftist groups should meet with, speak to, and demand change from politicians and political parties, publically and privately, at every level. It means that when those politicians and parties ignore those demands, or make only a pretense of effort, we should call them out by name in our actions and demonstrations, in our literature and in our discourse. It means that, if a politician demonstrates they are truly committed to taking concrete political action against violence and oppression, we should give them whatever support we can. Individual leftist groups have power, especially at the local level, to meaningfully influence political outcomes. When they band together nationally and internationally, that power is multiplied. We should not abandon this power out of ideological purity or paralyzing cynicism.

Perhaps it is easier, in principle and practice, to react, to oppose, to fight back. Fighting for things is complicated, and whatever is achieved will always be a compromise, not measuring up to what is principally deserved. But we do not have to be satisfied with those compromises to acknowledge that they may improve the lived experiences of millions of people. The political process shapes those experiences. We need to be involved.

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