Anti-Olympic Videos A Window to the Future?

By Jeff Lee 04-02-2009, Inside the 2010 Olympics, Vancouver Sun

Are 2010 security types rousting potential protesters, trying to intimidate or suss out what their plans are come Games time next February? Harsha Walia, the voluble spokeswoman for a laundry list of social causes, including the provacatively-named Olympic Resistance Network, seems to think so.

She's quoted in a Georgia Straight piece today by Carlito Pablo saying she
"can easily cite over 10 to 15 individuals at least who have been visited
in some form—some at home, some at work, some at their family members'
home, phone calls". She brands such visits or calls as “tool of intimidation and surveillance” by the police and Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit.

But should we be surprised at such activists generating the interest of security given some of the provocative statements they've made of late? I found on the website of No One Is Illegal, a social activism site to which Walia belongs a series of videos that in their own right help the police argue for increased surveillance of anti-Olympic protesters.

Most of the videos appear to have been recorded in February, perhaps to
coincide with the one-year countdown of the 2010 Games. They contain, as
one might expect, a one-directional view of the Olympics, cut and shaped to fit the political and social views of the speakers. (Just as, I would argue, the videos and statements of Olympic supporters are similarly shaped to gloss over the negative aspects of the business.)

There's the piece by anarchist and anti-capitalist Garth Mullins, who most
people will recall has been front-and-centre in many of the recent anti-globalization protests. (He came to the public fore during the APEC
riots of 1997). He's talking about "the capitalist, corporate control of the Olympics" and of course links it to his grievance against the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

There's also Walia herself, "on the detrimental effects on the poor and
labour exploitation."

Indigenous activist Gord Hill, one of those arrested for assaulting a
Vanoc staffer during that botched countdown clock unveiling several years
ago, gives his "10 reasons why you should oppose the Olympics." They're
certainly interesting reasons.

Chris Shaw, of 2010 Watch and one of the more lucid anti-Olympic voices
(who also wrote a book called "Five Ring Circus"), talks about "the myths
and realities of the Olympics Games."

Another anti-Olympics academic is Helen Lenskyj, author of three books on
the Olympics, who in the video "explains the Olympics Industry."

It's heartening to see that there are people who are willing to put their
considerable convictions out there for the rest of us to see, even if some
of them are grating to some or nonsensical to others. Better, I suppose,
than being a sheep.

But I don't suppose we should be surprised, either, when the police then
collect up those statements and videos and in reaction wonder whether they
hint of more dangerous things to come. View the videos for yourself.