Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:07 on 2021-01-21 Permalink Reply  

• Blork 11:42 on 2021-01-21 Permalink

  That’s something that seems to get lost in many of the discussions of the October crisis; it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Those were crazy times, with revolutions and liberations happening all over the place, all on the heels of the civil rights movement in the US and the various assassinations that resulted. That doesn’t make it right, but it’s an important context that shouldn’t be overlooked if you’re trying to understand the times and the people involved.

• Kate 13:45 on 2021-01-21 Permalink

  Not just civil rights in the U.S., either. I’ve recently done design and editing work on several books about Africa around those years. Before the civil rights movement, people in Africa were already working hard at pulling their countries away from colonial control – not just British, but French and Portuguese colonies as well. It was in the air and everyone had a copy of The Wretched of the Earth in their back pocket.

• Blork 14:59 on 2021-01-21 Permalink

  Things going on in Africa were absolutely part of the current of revolution and liberation at the time. Also Cuba (the revolution was a decade old by then, but the wheels of the October crisis had been turning for almost that long) and of course all the other things going on in Latin America, much of it fueled by the apparent success of the Cuban revolution.

• Michael Black 15:27 on 2021-01-21 Permalink

  I always figured (once I was old enough to know) that the FLQ bombings were probably based on the bombings in Algeria. But the kidnappings almost seemed like the FLQ leading. It became a big thing in Europe in the seventies, but was it a thing before? I have no sense of that for political reasons.

  People “say” that Abbie Hoffman’s Steal this Book was “banned” here, though I’ve never seen anything official, and in 45 years, all the copies I’ve seen have been in Montreal. But I can see why it wouldn’t have been liked here, coming months after the kidnappings, and some of tge contents was violence chic.

  The Oct 29th 1970 episode of “Ironside” (the second part the next week), had him coming to Quebec, and a story that was obviously the FLQ. I gather from reading shortly after that they didn’t air it here at the time.I

  But if it hadn’t been happening elsewhere, it likely wouldn’t have happened here. It’s easier to do something if you can point elsewhere and say “but they did it too”. And the language was the same, and still remains to this day.