STORY about Ideas posted on February 14, 2010 by beneaththesnow
Day 1 - The Torch Arrives Beneath the Rain
Also posted by beneaththesnow:
Also in Ideas:
Day 1 – The Torch Arrives Beneath the Rain
(For story with photos and video, click here)
"I'm Glad I Have My Voice"
Sometimes the odds against anarchists and like-minded radicals winning seem particularly daunting.
Earlier tonight, we went to document what was supposed to be a "guaranteed" disruption by student activists of the Olympic torch as it made its way through the University of British Columbia campus toward downtown Vancouver. About 100 people chanting slogans like "Home Not Games" and "Get the Torch Off Our Campus" marched around in the chilly rain, finally stopping to block an intersection on the torch's route. A handful of way-too-friendly Canadian police asked people to step back to the intersection's edges, and the students--a coalition of Christian, social justice, and environmental activists, and as one student said, "perhaps some sectarian folks"--complied way-too-readily. A police van with a ticker-tape-like moving message came toward the intersection, announcing the flame's approach and then reminding all the protesters to "have a really great day." We leaned forward with our camera, absently pushing past one of the relatively few police who were barely holding people in check, as the flame came toward the chanting crowd and then turned the corner. So few cops, and all trying to be so low key to keep a "family face" on the Olympic festivities here, and relatively so many more students and onlookers. It would have been so easy to disrupt the runner. Yet the Olympic torch passed without incident--a sadly deflating moment, given that the flame has been challenged, detoured, and/or stopped across Canada these past few months.
One student at this protest mentioned that activism on campus was difficult; people were ignorant, and the frats and sports-minded students were glad for the Olympics. The many thousands of students down the road from us, wrapped in Canadian flags and listening to the national anthem, some mocking the protesters, testified to how hard it must be. At the same time, the university had agreed to build a facility for the Olympics that, in turn, has resulted in a fee increase for students, particularly international students and students of color. The student who explained this to me also mentioned that the university's governing body was made up of the same type of people who benefited by the property development that comes in the wake of the Olympics. In earnest, this student insisted that as the economic crisis grows, people will start to respond.
But not tonight. Not in Vancouver.
Sometimes, though, the odds are wrong.
The numbers here in Vancouver contesting the winter games may not be huge so far--or even all that big over the next few days of street protests, marches, and actions. Nevertheless, the last two years of solid, smart work to demand "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" has created a "tapestry of resistance," to quote a Cree organizer speaking at last night's convergence space, which itself spoke volumes in the multicultural, multigenerational, and wide-ranging political mix of people in the charming, yet dimly lit hall. "New relations are being forged, lines broken down between social movements," he added. That's one clear victory here: anarchists (and of many ages, types, and dress) and indigenous peoples (from many tribes, and also of many ages) are working hand in hand here, expressing solidarity for each other's work and "diversity of tactics," sharing meals, songs, and organizing toward a common purpose.
That's the second victory: a day before the Olympics open, as indigenous radical Gord Hill proclaimed, they have already won what they set out to do--build resistance and alliances that will still be here after the Olympics, and after the seventeen thousand police are gone. The Olympic Committee had to stop organizing public events, for instance; the government had to back down on the notion of protest pens. As Gord said, they are on the defensive, as the world watches.
But they've achieved another victory, before the Olympic torch even lights the opening ceremonies tomorrow. As another longtime indigenous organizer, Arthur Manuel observed, what goes on during the big stage of the Olympics games has opened a door for indigenous peoples and others to speak at the local level about what's really going on. The Canadian government decided to buy off four tribes, to "showcase" native peoples during the Olympics, but as Arthur said, that meant that now the international media are talking to all the many other indigenous people who aren't bought off, so they can bring their story to the global level.
And speak out they are, in articulate press conferences where, again, direct action folks and anarchists alongside masked-up indigenous activists and First Nations people all point to the fact, first, that they are speaking from stolen and occupied lands. But lands, as one indigenous woman said--first in her native tongue and then in English--that belong to one race, the human race, which is charged with protecting not destroying the land. Another indigenous activist who works with a women's center in Vancouver's poor East Vancouver, talked about how the Olympic organizing efforts had helped to give her back her voice. "I'm glad I have my voice, and I'm not going to lose it again. It's time to bring power back to the people." Those voices are talking about all the Olympics are doing to exacerbate homelessness, gentrification, and displacement; further deepen racism and poverty; contribute to environmental destruction; hurt women and native peoples in particular; and on and on. Without having to use the word "capitalism," from anarchist to indigenist organizer, it's clear that they've spotlighted the damage caused by the developmental logic of the Olympics--whether here, in China, or soon in Brazil.
They've also spoken out in street art and posters, panels and workshops, musical events and educational efforts, media interviews, zines and videos, and so many direct actions. Even as the city of Vancouver seems increasingly decked out in a show of Canadian nationalism, even as hipster artists try to use this moment to transform a poor section of the city into their next playground (one new space had three floors of projected flames leaping out windows even as real homeless people slept right outside on the doorstep), even as the rich stream into town for the tickets ranging from $150 to $2,500 for events, the bonds between activists who are all struggling in their own ways to alleviate the social misery caused by colonialism and now capitalism are palpable, and seem posed to well outlive this moment. They've managed to create the greatest amount of unease abut these games in Canada ever, especially in the face of declining social safety nets, where expenditures on such an event seem particularly heartless. They've forced the police, government, and others to be on the defensive.
The torch wasn't stopped this evening. But it's been beautiful, despite how relatively calm it's been in the streets so far, to listen to the voices speaking out, from their own experiences of suffering, their own experiences of organizing collectively, and equally from their shared sense of humanity. As one of the student activists yelled through his megaphone today, "Does anyone want else want to speak? This is democracy, after all."
Resistance here, it seems to me this evening, has forged new relations, by the simple act of diverse radicals, activists, and agitators having spent the past couple years listening to each other's voices, and organizing from the substance of what they've heard each other saying, demanding, desiring.
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