On November 22, around 800 activists across Montreal gathered to organize a “Block NATO” demonstration in opposition to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hosting their Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal from November 22 to 25. The assembly gathered 300 representatives from 57 NATO member states to discuss transatlantic relationships and defence policies.
The Anti-Coloniale Student Convergence (CEAC) and Association générale des étudiantes et étudiants du Collège Lionel-Groulx (AGEECLG) planned a counter-summit protest at Place Emilie-Gamelin that Friday at 4:30 p.m., which would later merge with the larger demonstration at 5:30 p.m. on Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Urbain. These students took to the streets to oppose what they call NATO’s “destructive logic” and to reject its role in spreading “imperialism, militarism, and colonialism.”
“I want people to know that it’s not a war, it’s really genocide, and NATO are supporting this genocide,” a student from Collège Lionel-Groulx said.
NATO has long been referred to as “the West’s great military alliance.” Originally assembled in 1949, NATO formed to create a collective opposition to the USSR during the Cold War, leading to their assertion of military power in the pursuit of Soviet containment across the world. After the disassembly of the Soviet Union, NATO expanded its legions, inducting multiple post-Soviet states and European countries into the confederation. Today, NATO presents itself as a “defensive alliance,” as US President Biden stated in an address, that protects the interests of US hegemonic imperialism.
Despite its long-standing collective defence mission, NATO has faced increased scrutiny from public opinion in recent years. In the days approaching the conference, activists have demanded that Canada withdraw from the organization.
The Daily spoke with students from Collège Lionel-Groulx about their perspectives on NATO. Many believe that the organization is a military alliance funded by Western capitalists willing to do anything to expand the Western imperial agenda. Their perspectives echo some of the prominent public criticisms of NATO’s past operations, which have sparked significant debate over the alliance’s true motivations and its commitment to international law.
NATO’s previous foreign interventions have been referenced as examples to back the public’s opinions that the organization serves a Western imperialist agenda.
For example, NATO’s Operation Allied Force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 raised concerns over international humanitarian law: NATO conducted a bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, prompted by Yugoslavia’s bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians in the Kosovo regions. To this day, there exists complex political tensions between Serbia and Kosovo.
In 2011, NATO established a No-Fly Zone over Libya, heeding the United Nations’ international call to protect the Libyan people from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Over the span of eight months, deploying 7,000 bombing sorties against Gaddafi’s forces, NATO’s military intervention in Libya concluded after the assassination of Gaddafi. However, the country spiralled into chaos and came under threat from violent extremists in the aftermath of the Muammar Gaddafi
regime’s ostracization.
Barack Obama has said that his “worst mistake” during his presidency was “failing to plan for the day after […] intervening in Libya.” Obama further conceded that NATO’s intervention “didn’t work.” White House spokesman at the time, Josh Earnest, said that Obama’s regrets extended to what “the United States and the rest of the members of our coalition didn’t do.”
The Libya intervention exemplifies NATO’s poorly conceived global security agenda. Framed as a mission to dismantle Gaddafi’s repressive regime, NATO failed to consider the critical need for a stable central government in a nation already grappling with chaos. The aftermath left Libya in deeper turmoil, prompting widespread skepticism about NATO’s true motivations, questioning the organization’s imperialist tendencies and Western-centric political agenda.
Most recently, under Joe Biden’s leadership this past July, NATO promised an additional 40 billion euros of military and financial support for Ukraine in its defence against the Russian army, two years after Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, the year-long war in Gaza has been largely ignored by most NATO members.
Friday’s anti-NATO protest was conjoined with a pro-Palestine protest led by the Divest for Palestine Collective. The organization announced their message to “NATO and to governments complicit in the oppression of people around the world” in a press release on November 24 stating that “peace cannot be built through arms and repression. It is built through solidarity between peoples and resistance to oppression in all its forms.”
Student activists from Le Collège Lionel-Groulx, who wished to remain anonymous, voiced their opinions, calling out NATO’s failure to act in not supporting the people of Gaza. “It’s hypocrisy. Why would you say that you support human rights, but then when it’s also about other cultures, like from Arabic countries, why are you not showing up?” one of the students said.
“Right now, they’re meeting in Montreal because of global security and all, but they don’t care about the 43,000 people that are dead in Gaza.* I think it’s not logical that Israel is part of it and does things against the principles that they support,” another student told the Daily.
This past July, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez emphasized the need for NATO to adopt a consistent political stance, urging the alliance to avoid double standards in addressing global conflicts like those in Gaza and Ukraine. Speaking at the NATO Public Forum in Washington, D.C., Sanchez argued, “If we are telling our people that we are supporting Ukraine because we are defending international law, this is the same [as] what we have to do towards Gaza.”
The Daily also spoke with several students from the University of Montreal who echoed this sentiment, expressing their concerns over NATO’s inaction. “They’re walking on eggshells. They don’t want to go deep into the problem, and they only stay on the surface. Unfortunately, it’s not enough,” they said.
The Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) closely monitored the protest, deploying bicycles, mounted officers on horses, patrol cars, and vans to encircle the crowd completely.
“This is a significant step toward building a collective force for change and advancing decolonial education,” a speaker announced during the protest. “It’s thanks to all of you who voted ‘yes’ to the strike and to those who are here in the streets with us today. Together, as a community, we can work toward freeing Palestine. Remember, this is both a continuation of the struggles that came before us and the beginning of those yet to come.” With these words, the protesters began to move to the location of the general demonstration.
Later that evening, the protest escalated as the SPVM used chemical irritants and physical force, leading to at least four people being injured and sent to the hospital. One protester was clubbed over the head by an officer, and the SPVM assaulted first-aiders on the scene. Three protesters were arrested by the SPVM for “impeding police work.” Since these events, politicians across the country, including Defence Minister Bill Blair and Quebec Premier François Legault, have claimed that the protest was explicitly antisemitic, unlawful, and violent. The Divest for Palestine Collective refuted their statements, saying that “these are false accusations aimed at delegitimizing the solidarity movement for the liberation of Palestine and undermining the fight against anti-Semitism.”
* The death toll in Gaza is over 44,000 today.