Olympic Protesters Send Mixed Messages

Olympic protesters send mixed, memorized messages
Activists point fingers at Afghanistan, India, aboriginal land
claims

Mark Hasiuk
Vancouver Courier

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

On an unseasonably warm afternoon last Thursday, while snow melted
on Cypress Mountain and road closures scattered downtown traffic, a
crowd of reporters and television cameramen gathered in Pigeon Park
at Carrall and Hastings for an anti-Olympic press conference.

In front of the old grey Buy and Sell Pawnshop and a tattered "No
2010" banner, Harsha Walia, a petite South Asian woman with glasses
and a nose ring, approached the gaggle of outstretched hands and
tape recorders and microphones. "First of all, I want to recognize
that we are gathering here on unceded Coast Salish territory."

As the Olympics loom, Walia and other protest leaders hope to
galvanize their disparate constituency for two weeks of dissent and
demonstration.

In addition to last Thursday's public plea, the Olympic Resistance
Network website, crafted by Walia and others, features a protest
schedule for the next three weeks. The website implores all
"anti-capitalist, indigenous, housing rights, labour, migrant
justice, environmental, anti-war, community-loving, anti-poverty and
anti-colonial activists" to rise up against the Games.

No one knows how many people will rise up. But the RCMP-led
Integrated Security Unit (ISU) won't take any chances.

More than $900 million of mainly taxpayer cash has been spent to
secure the city, the athletes and visiting dignitaries. While the
chief concern is terrorism--bombs, bullets, jihad--homegrown
protests such as the Feb. 12 march on B.C. Place during the opening
ceremonies will be closely monitored.

There was no uniformed police presence at Pigeon Park last Thursday.
Nor were there any red mittens or stuffed mascots. Just the dingy
multilayered garb of street people who watched passively from their
park benches. The event drew a mere handful of anti-Olympians. Media
members outnumbered activists by at least 4 to 1.

Like rappers taking turns on the mike, activists of varying age and
race recited memorized lines about "colonialism," "indigenous
territories," "contaminated watersheds," "trouble in India," "VANOC
criminals" and the "tyranny of regimes."

Each performance garnered a smattering of applause from onlookers,
including Carol, a longtime Downtown Eastside resident. Carol is 46
but looks much older. Her greying red hair and deep wrinkles tell a
wearying tale of life on the street.

The Olympics, she says, cost too much public money--a familiar
narrative of her more polished fellow protesters. "All the millions
and billions that went into putting on the Olympics, and people down
here can barely feed themselves."

During an earlier interview with Walia, I heard similar complaints,
though she mainly railed against the federal government and Canada's
war in Afghanistan.

"There's an internal militarization associated with the Games," says
Walia, noting the 16,000-member security force and extensive
surveillance regime.

But what does that have to do with Afghanistan?

"A lot of people are opposed to the war because of militarization,"
she explained, "so there's not necessarily a distinction between
domestic and external militarization."

I wondered if other protesters equated Olympic security with the
battle for Kandahar. Two men, distinguished by their disguises,
watched the press conference from outside the media scrum. I
approached the shorter, stockier man in a black hoodie, his face
concealed by a cowboy-style red handkerchief and dark sunglasses.

"Would you be interested in answering a couple of questions?"

Shaking his head in silence, he pointed to the thick black font
stenciled across his red handkerchief: "F-ck you and the f-cking
Olympics."

Nodding, I turned towards the taller man who purposefully paced the
park's perimeter in an orange ski mask and big black snowmobile
boots. A lookout, perhaps, on guard for Olympic security agents
rumoured to creep among neighbourhood backstreets and alleys.

"Excuse me, why are you wearing that ski mask?"

"I owe money to a lot of drug dealers."

"Are you involved with this Olympic protest?"

"The Olympics?" he mumbled through thick orange wool. "That's a big
waste of money."

Back at the media scrum, the final speaker--a retired librarian with
a long grey beard--ended his tirade against "the facilitating
invading IOC." The cameramen and reporters packed up their equipment
and scurried away. The activists remained, smiling and talking among
themselves about anticipated televised snippets on the local nightly
news.

The tall man in the orange ski mask elbowed his way into their inner
circle, stooped low for a discarded cigarette butt, and jaywalked
across Carrall Street towards Main and Hastings.

mhasiuk@vancourier.com