Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Protest: “RIOT 2010!” – Um, Can You Take It Easy With That?
All protest is about anger – someone said that in a documentary I watched recently. The rage you feel when you see something you know is wrong moves you to act against it. Admirable. Especially in the sea of apathy and numb complaisance that seems to be the hallmark of modern life. As you know, the 2010 Winter Olympics are fast approaching in Vancouver, and ever since they were announced, they’ve been a source of great anger for anti-poverty groups in the Lower Mainland.
The facts are undeniable:
Homelessness in Vancouver has doubled since we won the bid in 2003, at the same time that Vancouver introduced new by-laws making it illegal to ask for money or sleep outdoors – thereby making the very existence of homelessness illegal. Far from being green or sustainable, the race to erect new Olympic venues has been the cause of a great deal of ecological damage. However, it is this one glaring fact that truly angers Olympic protesters – 6 billion dollars have been spent bringing the Olympics to Vancouver, where poverty and homelessness are a real and deathly problem.
These things are true. So tell the world. And there are many morally conscious Canadians who can do nothing else but stand up and be counted in their opposition to such unsustainable waste in their province and their country and the world. The problem is, a great number of anti-Olympic groups in Vancouver are willing, it seems even eager, to go to dangerous lengths to make their point. Vancouver is plastered with stickers that say “RIOT 2010!” When the Olympic clock was unveiled, protesters converged on the square and threw eggs and rocks at organizers in the middle of a crowd, pushing and shoving and shouting obscenities. The same behaviour occurred when protesters succeeded in diverting the Olympic torch run in Victoria; allegedly going so far as to throw marbles at police horses to make them stumble. And judging from the triumphant literature out there, this kind of behaviour can only be expected to escalate when the Games begin.
Okay. Every man must do as his conscience dictates – none of us can do any less than that. However, I’d like the protester willing to take a more violent approach to remember a few things. The purpose of protest, I’m told, is to bring attention to issues. It accomplishes that, peaceful or otherwise. However, with the capitalistic world order, protest doesn’t change the course of the establishment. Ever. Only policymakers do that, and even then it’s hard. The money that runs the world is so far removed from the streets where protesters rage, so far removed from the consequences down here, that it couldn’t care less what a few wild dissenters say or do. Greed has never cared about the human price for gain. Never. And throwing rocks down here at other human beings isn’t going to change that. Nor is setting fires or blocking traffic; none of it matters to the object of your rage. The only people it affects are those of us down here with you.
I work 2 jobs; I work 60 hours a week to make ends meet and I fall right on the poverty line. So whether you like it or not, you owe some responsibility to me, your fellow working class Canadian. Because your actions are speaking for me, without my consent, and the consequences for your actions will fall on me. Shit rolls downhill my friends, you know that, and I’m right down here with you. Because as far as I can tell, all violent protest does is endanger civil liberties. As many civil liberties groups are reporting, in response to the threats of Olympic violence, authorities are already resorting to questionable measures in their efforts to ensure order and physical safety at the Games, not only to Canadians, but to international guests. I’m not foolish enough to suppose that civil liberties are a right I’m assured of – civil freedom is a compact between the people and the state. Order must be upheld; violence in the streets cannot be tolerated. I get it. And it worries me, because, with an angry mob, you never know how things can escalate. Couldn’t unrestrained violence result in that which all free men fear – martial law? What happens after the Olympics are done and gone, and the riots are over? What will be changed, except perhaps tolerance for protest?
Protest is about anger, but peaceful protest is an act fueled by anger, while rioting is simply an act of anger. I’ve seen this type of protest, and it bothers me. Yelling and pushing and swearing, getting right in people’s faces. What bothers me is that, more than anything, I can see that they’re enjoying themselves. It gets them off, opposing the cops and the squares and the man. That’s what really gets me. Worries me. It would be one thing if these actions had the power to bring about change, but they don’t – they are simply meant to disrupt the proceedings that symbolize the iron fist of The Man. Truly angry protest doesn’t accomplish anything but catharsis. “An end to poverty by any means necessary” they say. Mm hmm. But do the ends justify the means? Um, what are the ends? Other than making the people involved in the Olympics feel uncomfortable? It’s not the government who feels your anger, nor the ruling elite, not those who deserve it, but your fellow man, who, by and large, has as little to do with the state of the world order as you.
The bottom line is, if we want the world to change, we have to get in the system, whether we like it or not, whether we want to or not, and work through the channels to change it from the inside first. No one likes to hear that, because no one wants to do it, but it’s true. Change takes social and political leaders willing to kill themselves, metaphorically speaking, to change the way the system works, heck, to change the value system of the whole human world, a value system thousands of years old. (Progress and profit over physical and spiritual health.)
Protest is about anger, and historically it is the downtrodden and disenfranchised who riot – those who ain’t got rising up, tired and frustrated, against those who have – have and keep taking. So maybe it’s inevitable, deserved, karma. But you do have some responsibility to us, your working class brothers, I’m telling you that. I’m against violent protest – so how do we come together from here? It occurs to me that you don’t care. If that’s so, then your purpose is to punish, not to change. And that sucks for everyone, even the people you’re trying to help. Whether you want to accept it or not, your actions come with consequences, and thus, responsibility.
Ah hell, I don’t know. There aren’t any easy answers, that’s for sure. But since all sides of this issue are out of my control, all I can do is hope, no, pray, that we all get through the Olympics safely and with respect. That every protester with violence in his heart finds that he has as much compassion for the flawed state of all men as he does righteous anger. That all protesters act with integrity, not only towards the issue that burns them up, but towards the humans, innocent or guilty, that they face in the name of that issue. That the truth of this brutal inequality that has so many sick with rage is spread throughout the world news media in a manner that will incite the common people of other nations to question the cruel and unfair state of the world order. Because if that’s not the ultimate point, then what are we doing?
Related posts:
- Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Controversy Grows With the 2010 Winter Olympics just about a year away,...
- How to Love, Hate, Protest, and Otherwise Not Care About the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games I am a pragmatist. I am not a Gordon...
- Vancouver First Nations Resisting 2010 Winter Olympic Games While many aboriginals in Canada are joining in the celebrations...
- Exclusion of Women’s Ski Jumping from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics is a Supreme Court of Canada Cop-Out On December 22nd, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to...
- New Vancouver Heroin Dispensing Clinic Set to Open Before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics The dispensing of heroin by SALOME in Vancouver, although controversial...
Tags: 2010 winter olympics, homelessness, poverty, protest, vancouver
Loading ...
November 10th, 2009 at 1:52 am
“All violent protest does is endanger civil liberties. As many civil liberties groups are reporting, in response to the threats of Olympic violence, authorities are already resorting to questionable measures in their efforts to ensure order and physical safety at the Games, not only to Canadians, but to international guests.” This here is the pivot and thesis of your argument. It is here that I have to question your reasoning. Are you really saying that unless we avoid violence our civil liberties will be threatened by a more powerful government. I can think of no greater-slave minded mentality than this. Do you forget that the Emancipation movement was heavily tainted with blood, and that if negotiations had not been made with Dr King that a much more violent Malcolm X and others would have stepped up to the plate. Do you not remember that those civil liberties that you suggest we protect through pacifism were earned by nothing less than violent upheaval. NOw this does not mean that protestors should not be charged or dispersed but to think that a protest is entirely to “raise and issue” is to misunderstand a protest entirely. The purpose of a protest is to oppose government action in such a manner as to make it difficult or impossible for them to continue with their objectives. This, at times, requires collision with police and military. This requires, at times, the suspension of public services, and inconvenience imposed on the masses. Anyone over the age of 35 and in a union should understand this. There was a time in Canada when an outfit like Wal-Mart would never have been able to operate – unions would have set up picket lines outside the front entrance and barred its members from even entering on pain of unemployment on behalf of the underpaid and frightened workers inside. At the least there would have been a union officer outside that store everyday intentionally to cohort with workers. Now many union members, to their shame, shop at such outfits. It is not for the government at any time to demand our complicity they have no right. Should they continue they should be opposed. There has not been, since the initial bid for the Olympics in Vancouver, a single reliable and statistically accurate poll conducted on residents of the lower mainland, let alone the province, on whether the Olympics even has popular support. In a recession, one that many people knew was coming the expenses poured into it, and the inflation on housing, in Canada’s most expensive market, has been criminal in and of itself. I for one resent the use of my tax dollars (former resident of BC) for this absurd public scam to bump up corporate real estate. There are a lot of things that Vancouver does wrong and that are coming in the near future to bite it in the ass and this will be a major one. Given 2.5 million taxpaying entities in BC at a cost of 6 billion the government has raped around 2400 dollars per unit without determining whether it has consent. Eggs and riot gear are certainly an appropriate response especially when a 2400 reduction in taxes is not in my foreseeable future.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am
This article covers some of the issues that I’m guessing the protesters were trying to draw attention too: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/11/10/pyrrhic-olympic-victory-chasing-the-poor-out-of-vancouvers-downtown-eastside
November 15th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
[...] Birk presents Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Protest: “RIOT 2010!” – Um, Can You Take It Easy Wi… posted at Informed Vote | Keeping Canadian Voters [...]
December 6th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I think you may be confusing protest with riot or violent protest. There are other more effective forms of protest using the same methods Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. used. You have to shame them and show them that you are not afraid of them. If they act violently towards you then you simply turn the other cheek. It makes them feel uncomfortable and it will get your cause a lot more attention. People will feel the injustice, but if you go out and start to throw shit at cops, swearing, spitting then people will simply dismiss you. When people go and do that kind of stuff it makes no sense, because they are losing support for their own cause. Why not go out there and have a more peaceful protest which will result in more community support because more people will be willing to participate.
December 19th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Sure, don’t riot, but my income in 2008 was $40,100, in 2009 it is $10,000.I was denied EI, forced to drop out of vocational school, I’ve applied for welfare 3X and been denied.I’ve thrown out or given away 3/4 of my possessions, lost my Vancouver apartment of 5 yrs, now live in a basement suite in Surrey that’s half the size.I gave up looking for work 13 mos ago and am now on call with 3 temp agencies.If I don’t rage and get violent then I just get depressed and want to commit suicide.I have nothing left to lose, I have lost 80% of my income and now the govt wants to take another 7%-they can just take my life too.If I don’t get an Olympic job, which may happen since I have a 20 yr old unpardoned criminal record., then I have no alternative but to protest and disrupt the Olympics.With the grave disparity we currently face there can be no social cohesion.Wall Street started this class war and we must finish it.Take up Kalashnikovs-slaves of the world you have nothing you never will!!!!!
December 24th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Um, to the guy above – you can have love and peace. You can. It tastes good. No matter how much you make or what you’re doing. Gods bless us everyone. No Kalashnikovs… I had to concentrate all hard and look above to spell that. No sub-machine guns folks, none! Not one! I’ll confront you will my fists, if at all. Which I won’t, because I don’t like that. I’ll argue with you sanely, and then agree to disagree, and then climb under a blanket together for warmth. It’s best that way.
January 20th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
olympics are wast of money we should just us the reasorsis we have for them we could be helping out other poor contys with all the money we put in to this thing cald olympics
January 21st, 2010 at 8:21 pm
What a colossol waste of money!! The way the economy and the global climate is going, we are going to need all our financial resources to get thru the times ahead. The Olympics amount to nothing more than a way to show off…look at us Canadian big-shots, see how we’re the new kids on the block now that the USA is finished. And I like the way none of us taxpayers got to vote on if we even wanted the stupid thing. Some Democracy, huh?
January 25th, 2010 at 3:21 am
Great
It is true
I invite you to take a look at our site for a speech of a sport writer in Vancouver:
http://iranpathwayrahyafttodemocracy.blogspot.com/
We have also put your link on our site
Cheers
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
It is sad indeed when the worlds finest athletes become nothing more than the platform for corporate greed. None of the talk you hear leading up to the Games focuses on the people who have worked for much of their lives honing skills and bodies for the sake of sport. Instead we talk about traffic, security (the Vancouver Police State), advertising, and the money that each and every one of us is shelling out to pay for trucking snow from Manning Park to Cypress to build a ski run. They’ve lifted a smoking ban to appease our guests and pleaded with our residents to stay out of their city. They’ve taken bikes of the Skytrain and wreaked havoc on small business. They’ve demanded that businesses using the word “Olympic” in their names re-name them. They want to re-write Canadian Copyright Law so we can’t even post a picture with their symbols or words on it, even though you can’t point a camera anywhere downtown without seeing them (from PUBLIC PROPERTY, I might add).
Retail products proudly celebrating Vancouver 2010 are made in China – a visit to your local HBC or Zellers store and an inspection of the tags on the merchandise is in order. HBC is a proud sponsor – an American company flogging it’s previously Canadian history and reselling Chinese retail products to help fuel an ailing U.S. economy.
The Olympics are no longer about sport, they are about profit. Those who buy into the theory that this games, like others, will turn a profit need to understand that the profits are not theirs, nor are they likely to see the benefits. Rather than insult the very premise that the Games were founded upon (SPORT), they should just change the name. Perhaps Corporate Games? Greed Games? or Afterthought Games?
February 13th, 2010 at 1:11 am
What a bunch of idiots I saw protesting tonight. “Open the borders there are no illegal aliens” WHO WILL PAY FOR THESE so called immigrants? Not the rich as there was a sign and chants to Kill the rich! Who will employ or fund social housing or medical or education if you kill the rich as it is thier taxes that pay for it all? The crowd I saw there if any pay taxes it is very little. They are the losers of society that expect everything to be given to them. They don’t want to work hard for anything > the one chap calls it a police state lol. Well thank God for police when we have anarchists that want to break the rule,pick fights and tresspass and piss on everyone elses parade. Like tonight with out the police these losers would have walked right in to BC place and ruined it for all.
February 13th, 2010 at 2:22 am
in reference to your comment on the victoria torch relay disruption I was there. what the corporate media had failed to mention is that the marble thrower was unknowen to them and that there were undercover agents among the group. Could have been an “agent provacatour”, but that is just hercey as there is no evidence saying that it wasnt a police officer or saying it was a protestor. You should be careful on sending a report that is just repeated from a corrupted source like the mainstream media. Do the investigations yourself and you will soon learn the real unsanitized truth behind what has occurred. Protest is meraly a source to have issues heard and to express speach without paying a price. there will always be someone trying to discredit this form of expression because it is bad for them and is keeping them in line.
February 13th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
we are quickly turning into America…..
February 13th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Criminal activities and under the table jobs are becoming more common in BC, because it is getting harder to get ahead. A portion of the money used for the Olympics should have supported health care, education, ect…..
February 15th, 2010 at 11:32 am
I am and have been against these Olympic Games. They are all about corporate greed and ignoring the plight of homeless and lesser Canadians, especially during this world wide depression. All games seem to employe two seperate sets of bookkeepers. One has a happy face that tells us that the games will cost x amount of dollars and the real one has a grim reality mask like a hangover after a drunken binge. To close parliment so the Harpers and Jeans of the world can have a front row seat is bad enough but the final straw for me was sending a message to the world that our most prized and hounoured Canadian is Wayne (The Godly One) Gretsky. Why did we not just ask Stompin Tom Conners to sing “The good Oloympic games, is the best games you can name” Gretsky is a spoiled cry baby, room temperature IQ athlite who couldn’t wait to abandon Canada for the U.S.A. where he could make more money. In spite of our world posturing we are and always will be what we are, poor country cousins from the north. Finally in our headlong rush to show the world how politically correct and tolerant we are all we manage to do is show ourselves up as exploitable potential victims.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Nice photo. Too bad it is not of Vancouver. Not woo misleading is it? Don’t let the truth get in the way of telling your story.
February 16th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Julie McIsaac – Well written, a little common sense goes a long way.
John Defalque – Sounds like a sad story, but how does the olympics fit into you loosing your job or giving up on the job search 13 (Now almost 15) months ago. Almost ALL long term olympic (direct) employment was senior management type positions, the short term event positions like security and dispatch, etc. make up less than 5% of the employment. the biggest employer of the games was contstruction and supply and they NEEDED people and did not do record checks etc as they were not required. So, what is your issue with the games now that we have shown your work situation has no bearing on it.
“….Wall Street started this class war and we must finish it.Take up Kalashnikovs-slaves of the world you have nothing you never will!!!!!” Please re read your staement, if you do not realise that you were way off base and making no sense, then dropping vocational school should not have been you main worry, go back to grammar school. get a life and put in some REAL effort!
other posters – Violence or not – John and others have put me off further responses, but I can offer this past experience. We faced (and still do in some areas) a huge issue with clearcutting forests here in BC during the 80’s. Peaceful demonstrations against clearcutting AND the public discrediting of Eco terrorists putting spikes into trees brought the province and the worlds attention and we now have parks and natural places to enjoy for the future.
Get your heads out of your asses, do for yourself, publically and peacfully bring attention and pressure and you will eventually get your point across. If you damage property and hurt people than you are no better than the Wall Street villians of Johns email.
I could not enjoy that waterhsed I helped save if I knew we had to hurt one single person to save it.
I too was arrested and hauled out of my tree canopy protest and have a record, BUT BUT BUT it has NEVER been an issue in fact it may have helped because when I have had to disclose it and explained what it was from and that it was peacful, I think it made employers and the like respect me more.
Hello to Joey S and the WCWC!
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:14 pm
i’m sorry, all of you who dislike the olymipc games and think that the money should be spent else where, you got to put a sock in it, i agree that the olympics have become a corperation, but you just have to put up with it, and these athleats train very hard, and here most of you here go critisizing them, give them a break, i understand there is much corruption in the olympics, and the gonverment, but we just have to deal with it, and suxk it up