From June 22 to June 27, No One is Illegal dared to dream of a world without fences. As we marched with thousands, we dared to confront the walls erected daily to separate the rich from the poor, the powerful from the powerless. We reclaimed power, we shook the fence, and we broke through the police lines. We challenged the G20’s system of global apartheid as it manifested on the streets of Toronto. We now stand alongside all of those currently caught in the walls of the (in)justice system for daring to envision a world without fences, borders and cages. The people harassed, detained, arrested and charged over this past weekend were migrants, indigenous peoples, people of colour, queer and trans people, feminists, disabled people, anarchists, anti-poverty activists, rank and file labour activists, anti-capitalists, ecological justice activists, and community organizers. They are our allies and our friends; they are the fabric of our communities.

In particular, we stand in solidarity with those who have faced and are currently facing the worst excesses of the repressive police state, including several members of No One is Illegal Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Many of these organizers were targeted not only for their involvement in opposing the G20, but for their ongoing work struggling for communities that are rooted in love, justice and self-determination. They are dedicated, courageous and passionate organizers who continue to be an inspiration within our communities. The state’s attempt to criminalize these individuals is a targeted attempt to silence our movements.

But we will not be silenced. We raged on the streets this week in Toronto. We will rage in the courts and in the prisons. We will continue to rage as we work daily in our local communities. And we will tear the fences down.

The G8 and G20 leaders and their corporate villains erect borders, manufacture weaponry, pillage the earth with industrial projects and profit from war. They push people from their homes and force people to migrate across borders and into situations of precarity. Daily, we stand in solidarity with those who are deemed “illegal” by the colonial state and are forced to live under the threat of detention and deportation. And daily, we organize against the racism and xenophobia that defines the history of colonization and displacement in Canada.

The type of repression seen during the G20 weekend is not only a testament of Canada being a police state, but a glimpse

into the daily reality of indigenous and racialized communities. When the police state indiscriminately turns its batons against ‘innocent’ bystanders, members of the media, and a diverse range of protesters, we see responses of widespread public shock and anger. Yet we refuse to exceptionalize this moment, the largest mass-arrest in Canadian history, at the expense of normalizing the daily violence of police and prisons and the criminal (in)justice system for Indigenous communities, people of colour, low income neighborhoods, street-involved youth, and trans people.

We further reject all differentiation between so-called ‘peaceful’ and ‘violent’ protesters, while the violence that compels us to resist, assert our dignity and struggle for justice – enabled by policies and deals such as those brokered by the G8 and G20 – is callously ignored. Instead, our outrage is directed at the policing apparatuses that are a central part of the militarization of Canada, the criminalization of our communities, and the brutality that defines the prison-industrial complex and the global realities of detention and imprisonment.

Those brutalized, harassed, and violated in the fallout of the Toronto G20 protests now join the three community organizers arrested last week in Ottawa in facing the consequences of a system more interested in protecting property than people. We must be steadfast in our support for those who are being targeted, by mobilizing around the upcoming trials and court battles. We will not allow the courts, the police, or the media to divide our solidarity. We demand the immediate release of ALL our friends and allies who are still being held in detention. We call on everyone to join us in taking back our city from the hands of the security state that has turned it into an armed fortress.

No One is Illegal stands with all of those who were on the streets resisting the G20 and the Toronto police state. They cannot jail our hearts. No borders, no fences! No one is illegal, Canada is illegal!

[Joint Statement of No One Is Illegal Toronto, No One Is Illegal Vancouver, No One Is Illegal Halifax, No One Is Illegal Montreal and No One Is Illegal Ottawa, July 3, 2010]

Strengthening our Resolve: An interview with Alex Hundert
by Dawn Paley
vancouver.mediacoop.ca/story/strengthening-our-resolve

In the wee hours of June 26th, Alex Hundert awoke to the sound of police breaking down his door with a battering ram. Members of the gang unit entered his home in Toronto with guns drawn, arrested him and his partner, and took them to the now infamous temporary jail set up in an old film studio.

By the time the mass arrests started on Saturday evening, Hundert had already been transferred to the Maplehurst jail in Milton, Ontario. Over the next days, over a thousand G20 arrestees were put behind bars, including 16 more organizers and activists from Southern Ontario and Quebec who continue to face a variety of serious and trumped-up charges.

All of this might seem like a far cry from the life of a self described former “ski bum” who grew up the oldest of two boys in a middle class Toronto home. But Hundert, who was released on bail July 19 and today faces various charges of conspiracy related to G-20 organizing, can trace a line from his early activism right through to today.

While studying at Wilfred Laurier University, Hundert’s early forays into organizing were typical of many university students. “I was thrust into situations where these big, very effective organizing efforts, like doing campus fundraisers for popular causes such as AIDS, were happening and we’d get hundreds of people involved. But then everyone one would go home and feel that they’d done their part and everything was okay,” he said. “I felt that no matter how much money we raised on a university campus, we were not really contributing anything to the solution.”

Doing support at the blockade in Grassy Narrows opened Hundert’s eyes to a far more holistic form of activism, and deepened his analysis of capitalism and colonialism. “In Grassy Narrows, I got to see first hand the extent to which many of the things we’re told about this country are flagrant lies, and the extent to which the exploitation of resources and labour is synonymous with the destruction of communities,” he said.

Judy Da Silva, Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabe (Grassy Narrows First Nations), who has worked closely with Alex since 2006, attributes the growing movement of non-natives in support of Indigenous land rights to the work of Alex and others in Southern Ontario. “Alex Hundert is a patient generous person who works tirelessly on environmental & social issues on behalf of mother earth and her inhabitants,” said Da Silva. “He has continued to supports us in our struggle to protect our boreal forest from logging and pollution and to raise awareness about our issues to non-natives.”

But instead of being out on the land in Grassy Narrows or elsewhere, Hundert remains under house arrest at his father’s home in Toronto. He jokes that he’s been reading too much Chomsky, but says being jailed confirmed events he’d been witness to through activism in support of Indigenous struggles.

On the inside, it was other prisoners who helped him do the simple things, like fill out forms and navigate the prison system, which Hundert says is designed to dehumanize prisoners and their communities. But he thinks the attempt of the state to quash dissent through repression will have the opposite effect.

“I think in the long run, its going to have the same effect that cracking down on legitimate dissent and the public voices of communities always has,” said Hundert. “The effect is strengthening the resolve of that very voice.”

Already, people with no interest in political radicalism have been radicalized, said Hundert. “For every person that they are pulling out of the movement, to the extent that they’re able to do that through criminalizing and incarcerating us, there are several people to take our place,” he said.

Hundert doesn’t want a focus on the criminalization of activism to obscure the reasons people are in the streets.

“Whether its remote-controlled airplanes dropping bombs in Pakistan, or whether its the OPP attacking Six Nations land defenders, or whether its the Integrated Security Unit criminalizing so-called anarchists, its all about the attempt to break people’s resistance to an imposed order,” he said. “It is important to question just how democratic or legitimate that order is, and lots of people know that, and hanging on to that conviction is just as important as being honest about the experience of criminalization.”

Though this has been a difficult time for Alex’s friends and allies, they remain firm supporters of his work. “Alex’s family and friends are proud that he is putting his future on the line in service of social justice,” said Amy Rossiter, a Professor at York University.

Asked how people can support those still in jail and facing charges, Hundert says beyond giving to the legal defense fund, making space for people to create new alternatives and imagine their own forms of resistance is vital. And although the Crown will appeal Alex’s bail conditions next week in a move that could put him back in jail, he’s clear about what steps organizers can take.

“I think the most important thing we can do is to make space for those communities that have been most silenced in shaping the current system to facilitate a process of transformation with their voices, visions, and practices,” he said.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Community Center for Social justice, which Hundert helped found, is one example of creating that space. “Once we make space it is a lot harder for them to take it away, and no matter what they do to us, other people can join that community and culture of resistance and fill it with what they want.”

By E.K. Ibsen

Being an anarchist acting in solidarity with the Palestinians and against the Israeli occupation, the issue of states inevitably comes into question; however, the complexities of the issue are not easily addressed from a traditional anarchist perspective. Beginning with the first Intifada and everyday since, anarchist-like actions have been used to react to the situation. The first Intifada between 1987-9 upheld many anarchist tendencies; the uprising was organized through the people, detached from the PLO, and involved many non-violent actions like mass demonstrations, political graffiti, tax refusals, strikes and boycotts. Today, the International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led organization that uses international presence to moderate the reactions of IDF soldiers and to influence international public opinion. The organization upholds many anarchist trends such as its decentralized operative model, grassroots emphasis and short-term, reactionary focus. Other organizations like Ma’avak Ehad, Food not Bombs and New Profile are all organizations that facilitate anarchist action inside of Israel (that is, a force dedicated to the eradication of an expanding Israeli state). These groups uphold a multi-issue platform, and connect the occupation with the broader problems of today like militarism, patriarchy, poverty, sexism, racism, homophobia, pollution, consumerism and even animal liberation. In 2003, the initiative Anarchists Against the Wall (AAW) was founded and has a coherent focus: The Wall - or the ‘separation barrier’, as the Israeli government and Defense Forces like to call it - stands not only to remind the Palestinians living within the West Bank of the forty two year illegal occupation of their people and land, but it also serves as a reminder to the international community of the consequences that come of borders, nationalism, and nation-states.

Eighty seven years ago, the League of Nations, an organization which was far from being democratically representative of the people they claimed to embody, upheld the Balfour Declaration and wrote the decision to have the British Mandate of Palestine responsible for the “establishment of a Jewish national home…and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.” By 1947, the United Nations, another international organization that shows little respect to true democracy and representation, made a life-altering de¬cision for millions when they decided to partition the land into Jewish and Arab states with a UN controlled Jerusalem. The outcome of this was numerous civil and state wars, massacres, millions of refugees both internally displaced and emigrated, and the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—the remaining Palestinian territories. Today, Palestine is not only crippled from this ongoing illegal occupation and blockade, which is sustained by the material and diplomatic aid of Western nations, but now also from the fragmentation that divides Palestinians over how to respond to this inhumanity.

As anarchists, we wish not to see a one, two or three state so¬lution. We believe that a no-state solution would hold the best possible chance of peace and prosperity for both Arabs and Jews, and that these necessary, fundamental human rights, which arise out of anarchism, must extend past Palestine and Israel and unto all nation-states today. We believe that the establishment of a Palestinian state, compatible with today’s reality, would only mean another form of submission involving a comprador bourgeois (capitalist) leader who would ultimately serve Israel and the West through the free market economy and neoliberal exploitation. We contest the idea that the rulers and ruled within a nation have any common interests; we reject Palestinian nationalism just as we reject Zionism. Nationalism is simply an ideological device intended to create a false sense of unity between antagonistic classes, and an aversion towards different states thereby diverting our attention away from our true oppressors. All humans should have the right to live wherever they freely choose regardless of race or religion.

To bring attention to such false choices that nationalism pres¬ents to us, anarchists fully support both the inhabitants of Pal¬estine and Israel in having a fulfilling life without states or state warfare. This support means total hostility towards all those who oppress and exploit the situation: the Israeli state and the IDF, and the Western (i.e. North American, Western European) governments and international corporations that supply its fuel. The only real solution will arise from a collective, bottom-up revolution based on the fact that globally, we have nothing but our ability to learn and our desire to live. What this comes down to, along with all of the malevolencies of today, is that our entire patriarchal capitalist system, which thrives off of war, oppression and nationalism, needs to end.

Until that time comes, however, we anarchists recognize the contraction we embody, and insist that solidarity with the Palestinian people is imperative even if it comes at the cost of inconsistency and contradiction. In the words of Uri Gordon, an Israeli anarchist, “a Palestinian state, capitalist, corrupt or pseudo-democratic, would in any event be less brutal than an occupying Israeli state… [and] the everyday acts of resistance that anarchists join and defend in Palestine… are immediate steps to help preserve people’s livelihoods and dignity. ”

E.K. Ibsen is a student at the University of Western Ontario, as well as a member of Common Cause, an anarchist organization with chapters in London, Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa. This past December, she participated in the Gaza Freedom March - an international effort to break the seige of the Gaza Strip. Along with thousands of other international actvists, she was denied entry to the Strip by the Egyptian security forces

With the close of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, much of the media was quick to declare them a total success. This goes against the mounds of journalism produced before and during the games by the Vancouver Media Co-op, the city’s newly launched independent media center. Believing that there might be more than one answer regarding the success of the games, and one of those should come from the host communities, The Real News spoke to Franklin López, Video Producer with the Co-op, to find out more about the legacy of the 2010 Olympics for the people of Vancouver.

Hundreds of anarchists block the Olympic torch route and forced torch bearer Carrie Serwetnyk out of Commercial Drive.

Click on image to view online PDF.

For printer-friendly PDF, please click here. Feel free to print and distribute to your heart’s content.

Nationalism involves the identification of an ethnic identity with a state. When nationalism is pushed to an extreme, it not only justifies wars against other nations, but it is also used to justify attacks against ones fellow citizens. National flags, national anthems, and other symbols of national identity are often considered sacred, as if they were religious rather than political symbols. Deep emotions are aroused. Fascism is a form of authoritarian ultra-nationalism.

“Nationalism is an infantile disease… It is the measles of mankind.” -Albert Einstein

Anarchism has developed a critique of nationalism that focuses on its role in justifying and consolidating state power and domination. Through its unifying goal it strives for centralization both in specific territories and in a ruling elite of individuals while it prepares a population for capitalist exploitation.

Colonialism is the building and maintaining of the colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Anarchists see colonialism as a form of capitalism, enforcing exploitation and social change. Working within the global capitalist system, colonialism is closely associated with uneven development.

Corporatization refers to the transformation of state assets or agencies into state owned corporations in order to introduce corporate management techniques to their administration. Also refers to non-corporate entities like universities or hospitals becoming corporations, or taking up management structures or other features and behaviors employed by corporations.

Jingoism is defined as “extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.” In practice, it refers to advocating of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what somone perceives as their country’s national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one’s own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.

Editor’s Note:

The following is a copy of a communique released by the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) prior to the start of the RBC and Coca-Cola sponsored Olympic Torch Relay, which called on activists across Canada to mobilize and organize protests as the torch passed through their towns, cities and communities. As the following pages will show, the call was answered by people all across this country - with many of the grievances outlined in this document echoed in cities from Victoria to Montreal. Iconoclast congratulates all those who took the time to organize and participate in these protests, which were often maligned or ignored by the country’s corporate media outlets, led by CTVglobemedia (owners of the Globe and Mail and a large number of Canadian television stations) - themselves an important Olympic sponsor.

CALL FOR CROSS-CANADA MOBILIZING:

EXTINGUISH THE OLYMPIC TORCH!

From October 31 2009 - February 12 2010, the Olympic Torch Relay “A Path of Northern Lights” will be traveling across Canada. The Olympic Resistance Network, based in Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories, is calling on and encouraging our allies to coordinate efforts in over 2000 communities to oppose and resist the Torch Relay.

The origins of the Torch Relay lie in the dark history of the 1936 Games in Berlin, where it was devised as a means to spread Nazi fascism and to promote the Third Reich. The Royal Bank of Canada and Coca Cola are the main sponsors of the 2010 Torch relay. RBC is the top financier of the environmentally devastating Alberta Tar Sands, while Coca Cola has been responsible for health degradation as part of the junk food industry, massive depletion of groundwater and toxic waste pollution in India, and involved in hiring paramilitary groups to violently repress union organizers in Colombia.

It is becoming increasingly evident that far from being simply about sport, the 2010 Olympics is rooted in displacement, corporate greed, militarization, and repression. While Olympic corporate sponsors are getting bailed out, Indigenous lands are being stolen, more people are becoming homeless, thousands are losing their jobs and access to public services, the environment is being destroyed, and civil liberties are being eroded as over a billion dollars are being sunk into security and surveillance measures.

This Torch Relay will be the longest in-country relay in Olympic history, giving us the chance to make some anti-Olympic history! No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!

VICTORIA, BC

Over 400 people gathered to oppose the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay in Victoria on Friday, October 30th at an “Anti-Olympics Festival” and “Zombie March” organized by No2010 Victoria. The march succeeded in disrupting the relay, and security per­sonnel were forced to extinguish the torch, load it in a van, and reroute it in order to reach the Legislature.

“Our events were a victory for rights and justice,” said No2010 spokesperson Zoe Blunt. “We took a strong stand on respect­ing indigenous rights to land, defending civil rights, and ending poverty, and people across the country are thanking us for our dedication.”

The day of action against Torch Relay celebrations began with a “Five Ring Circus” featuring speakers, performance art, pup­pets and satirical competitions such as the “Binners’ Olympics,” the “Tour de Misplaced Finance” and “Queer Wrestling.”

“It was a lot of fun!” said Bitey the Bed Bug, one of the anti-Olympics mascots.

Later in the afternoon, a “Zombie March” replete with stilt walkers, a marching band and a giant “Ghost Salmon” puppet wove through city streets and blocked a major intersection outside an RBC bank for over 30 minutes. RBC is one of the Vancouver Winter Olympics’ most important sponsors and a major investor in the tar sands, the most environmentally destructive project in Canada.

“We wanted to expose the empty rhetoric of a Green Games,” said No2010 organizer Kim Croswell. “Parading a giant Ghost Salmon was our way of pointing out how wrong-headed government priorities are in the midst of global warming and the collapse of salmon runs on the West Coast.”

Continuing along the relay route, hundreds of marchers braving rain and cold weather cheered loudly when it was announced that the Torch had been diverted in order [to] avoid the procession. Marchers ended at the site of the corporate-sponsored Torch Relay Celebration, where they infiltrated the crowd chanting “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” and “Homes Before Games.”

“Disrupting the Torch sends a strong message that blowing $6 billion on a sports extravaganza is far from popular,” said No2010 Victoria spokesperson Tamara Herman. “The people profiting from the Olympics are not the people most affected by cuts to sectors such as welfare, affordable housing, harm reduction, health care, education, the arts and- ironically - amateur sports.”

“The day of action was a day of solidarity uniting a broach spectrum of people,” added No2010 spokesperson Danielle Hagel. “It sent a strong message that the Olympic Torch Relay will face opposition right across the country.”

“This action demonstrates how effective we can be when we act together, even in the face of police aggression and unwarrant­ed surveillance”, said Blunt. “The group was strong, and showed remarkable self-control and commitment to the cause. We want to congratulate everyone who joined in.”

Montreal, QC

In response to a call sent out by the Olympics Resistance Network in Vancouver, more than two hundred anti-Olympics protestors noisily disrupted the celebration of the passage of the Olympic Torch Relay in Montreal. The group, made up of indigenous solidarity activists and other groups and individuals affiliated with the Montreal chapter of Peoples Global Action (PGA), an international anti-capitalist movement, heckled and disrupted for several hours the planned activities of the cele­bration, despite a massive police presence and a tense atmo­sphere at Place Jacques-Cartier, in Old Montreal.

The protestors held many banners and placards, and chanted the slogans “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!,” “Shame the Flame!”, and “Homes not Games.” They also threw thousands of pieces of confetti into the crowd – the confetti had the words: “Why celebrate colonization of native land, gentrification, and corporate subsidies? Shame the flame!” They had a sound sys­tem and a marching band played. Before the flame arrived (an hour late), the police brutally attacked the protestors, forcibly cordoning them off in order continue the official spectacle.

Several protesters were thrown to the ground and insulted, while others were pushed and hit with batons. The Nazi-era Leni Riefenstahl film was shown on the big screen, and the cordoned-off demonstrators were forced to watch while they had shields and batons pointed at them by the police. Despite the police brutality, the disruption was a success.

“There is no shortage of reasons to oppose the Torch relay”, said Pat Cadorette, one of the organizers. “The Olympics are first and foremost a nationalist and capitalist power play. It is an opportunity for the political and financial elites to capital­ize on people’s patriotic fiber and competitive drive. They are always organized by and for rich people, and it is always the more oppressed segments of the population who are nega­tively impacted by it: indigenous people, the poor, the migrant workers, etc. It is a colonial tradition of forced displacement, social cleansing, environmental devastation and repression. In fact, with regards to the Torch relay itself, it is often forgotten that it was first introduced by the Nazis to promote the Third Reich! The IOC and Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola and the Royal Bank won’t brag about this, but it is nonetheless a historic fact!”

“At the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, the only ones who will profit are the already rich developers and sponsors”, explains a sympathizer of the Olympics Resistance Network. “At the same time, it is $6 billion of public funds that are shoveled into this. They chase the poor from the downtown area to make room for the tourists, they pass new laws to crimi­nalize poverty, they install cameras everywhere, they spend at least a billion on security. At this point, it is illegal to post anti-olympics signs in Vancouver! This is insanity!”

Toronto, ON

Over 250 people took to the streets on December 17th to welcome the Olympic Torch with a resounding: “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!”

Enthusiastic folks met up at 5:15 at College & University, gath­ering around a 15 foot homemade torch of their own, banners reading “Resist 2010 for the land”, “No 2010 Torch” and shar­ing in some homemade food. Organizers from Six Nations read the Declaration of the Onkwehonwe of Grand River Territory on the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay, Doreen Silversmith (also from Six Nations) spoke about how attacks on women are attacks on the land, and Mark C. from ARA spoke of Indigenous Youth rising up and taking power. Messages of Solidarity were delivered by No One Is Illegal-Toronto, No Games Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo’s own Torch Welcoming Committee.

Grounding the crowd in the reasons they were there: to decry Canada’s colonial violence and expose the lies of Olympics Circus, chants began that would ring through Toronto all night. While the cold seeped, the MC got the crowd jumping and amped to go meet the torch.

Anticipating the torch taking a lil’ streetcar ride, people took to College Street. The first line of bike cops at College and Eliza­beth set up as the protesters began a fluid game of cat and mouse. The protesters took some surprise routes towards Yonge and Gerrard where they regrouped and faced a row of riot cops, holding the intersection. The protesters gathered at the line of cops and turned back suddenly, going north, walking up Yonge St. to meet the torch. At Yonge and College they ran into the crowds there to cheer on the torch - some of whom started booing and hissing. Undeterred, activists handed out thousands of pieces of ORN and No2010 literature and some onlookers even joined the action. One spectator pushed over the protest­ers’ speaker. The horses arrived and tried to split the group in two but failed. Then a small group stayed back at Yonge and College, while the rest of the street party walked north, slowing to regroup and coming closer to the torch. At Yonge and Mait­land, they decided to stop and hold the intersection, as people from the back rushed to join in. With messages streaming in that the media were reporting they had blocked the torch and having chased the torch around the city for nearly two hours (it was now 7:30), the protesters euphorically declared vic­tory! They had forced VANOC to split the torch in to two, and brought their message right to the centre of the Olympic Circus.

While all of this was going on, the March in Honour of Harriet Nahanee, led by indigenous women, had split off to follow the torch into Nathan Phillips Square, where an activist free-climbed an arch directly opposite the stage and hung a banner reading “Gego Olympics Da-Te-Snoon Nishnaabe-Giing Ga-Gmooding” (“No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” in Anishinaabemowin). Anti-Olympic protesters had infiltrated the crowd, holding up banners and handing out flyers, and booing the flame as it left Nathan Phillips Square at around 9:30pm. The banner stayed up till the end of the festivities and the climber only got a $100 ticket.

Six Nations/Oneida First Nation

Six Nations community activists succeeded in diverting the Olym­pic Torch from the heart of the Grand River territory. Instead, torchbearers took turns running it around a parking lot. “It’s the first time where any person who has stood up against these torch and Olympics has actually had a success in being able to move the celebration,’’ protest spokeswoman Missy Elliott said. A Declaration stated “This land is not conquered. We are not Canadian… We hereby affirm our peaceful opposition to the entry and progression of the 2010 Olympic Torch into and through our territory.”

A day later, a blockade in Oneida First Nation, near London, forced the torch to re-route off the reserve entirely. Citing so-called safety concerns, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games said they would not be visiting Oneida, as there were members pledging to disrupt the relay and prohibit the flame from entering their community.

London, ON

This Christmas Eve more than 40 people gathered at the main gate to Victoria Park in London to protest the Olympic torch relay. Large banners were held up, free food was provided by ‘Food Not Games’, and speakers from several community groups chanted and delivered their message to the crowds as the torch was about to arrive for a celebration.

During this protest hundreds of flyers from the Olympic Resistance Network and NO2010 were handed out to people as they arrived to see the torch. Several people stopped to learn more and some joined us, including a few ‘Torch Relay’ volunteers who put NO2010 stickers over their name tags and started handing out our flyers instead of Coke-branded Canadian flags.

After speaking out at the gate, folks marched into the park chanting ‘No Olympics on Stolen Native Land’. After ‘welcom­ing’ the torch with boos and chants, people regrouped at the main gate.

‘Food not Games’ was a central message, and during the over-financed ‘celebration’ not a single free meal was given out in the entire city - except ours. ‘Food not Games’ served a healthy holiday meal to anyone who thought free food was a better deal than an overpriced flame. Chants of ‘Food Not Games, Homes Not Games’ were heard clearly by the hundreds who left the ‘celebration’ midway through.

A roll of stickers was also distributed to hundreds of spectators, and the stickers made their way onto numerous relay vehicles, infrastructure, and corporate propaganda and advertising while children spoke of the need for ‘education not games’ and

mothers spoke of fighting for a future for the next generation.

Minus the ignorant patriots, classless classists, and preposterous police presence, it was a formidable family friendly protest.

Stratford, ON

At noon, December 27th, a group of people assembled on the front steps of Stratford’s city hall to voice their opposition to the Olympic Torch’s passage through the town.

Carrying banners and signs painted with messages of Indigenous sovereignty, en­vironmental preservation and anti-poverty advocacy, they were successful in informing many crowd-goers of the detrimental effects of the 2010 games. A large percentage of people that came out to see the torch were receptive to the group’s mes­sages, stopping to listen to their speeches or giving a passing thumbs up.

Consisting of a handful of Stratford residents and a few allies from Guelph, the group demonstrated outside City Hall for about an hour before moving into the pro-Olympic crowd with their banners and signs, shouting anti-Olympic slogans and statistics. When the city’s PA system started blasting the national anthem, the small group drowned it out with their chant of “No Olympics On Stolen Native Land.” They continued to disrupt the national anthem despite being physically and verbally assault­ed by crowd-goers. It was clear that the protesters were more vulnerable to pro-Olympics animosity because they were so few in number. The crowd was much more violent and confrontational towards them than they would have been towards a larger group of demonstrators.

They then marched down Ontario Street, along the route that had been cleared and blocked off to allow the torch runners passage. Flanked by police officers, they proceeded down Stratford’s main drag, chanting and calling out for the crowd to question Canada’s 6-billion dollar Olympic expenditure when their own community is lacking in affordable housing, adequate social programming and suffers from epidemic rates of poverty, crime and drug abuse.

Kitchener, ON

On Saturday December 27th, in Kitchener Ontario over 200 people headed the call out for a public mobilization against the 2010 Olympic Torch and acted in solidarity with those on the west coast of this country who are being negatively impacted because of the upcoming winter games.

“The Olympic games are not about sport, culture, and interna­tional co-operation and understanding, as our government, the IOC and VANOC, and the corporate sponsors portray with their well-funded propaganda” said AW@L media representative for the event, Dan Kellar. He continued, “They are about priva­tizing indigenous land, transferring public wealth to develop­ers and corporations, destroying ecosystems for unsustainable and irresponsible developments, implementing the integrated police state, and a program of social warfare on those deemed undesirable to the Olympic whitewashing and greenwashing campaigns.”

The demonstration consisted of 3 parts, starting with a rally with speakers including David Eby of the British Columbia Civil Liber­ties Association (BCCLA), Mark Corbiere from KW Anti-Racist Action, and Six Nations youth Melissa Elliot and Jon Henhawk - who fired up the crowd with messages of resistance to coloniza­tion and on-the-ground impacts of the Olympics and the system it represents.

The early evening gathering in Victoria Park was under heavy police surveillance as allies from across Ontario and the north­eastern states assembled themselves to start the second portion of the event - the march.

AW@L’s Climate Change Containment Unit (CCCU) led the march, carrying a 5m “torch” ahead of the crowd which had 12 large and colourfully messaged banners and placards reading, among other things “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”, “Fas­cist Colonial Past, Corporate Colonial Present”, and “From Tibet to Turtle Island, Resist Colonial Occupation.”

As the march snaked through the streets chanting confidently along the way, two banners were dropped across from the Royal Bank of Canada calling for a boycott of this premiere Olympic sponsor. The government of Canada and the RBC were then publicly shamed for their role in the ongoing genocide of indigenous people and their support for the criminal develop­ments of Alberta’s tar sands - a project that has fast become the single largest point source for future-destroying pollution on the planet. Canada was further shamed for their refusal to sign the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Eventually, the march reached City Hall, where the publicly-funded advertisement for the RBC and Coca-Cola was under­way. After a declaration of resistance was issued over the loud speakers, the marchers peacefully erected their banners around the crowd - wherever you turned your head, you could see the messages they held. Thousands of sheets of information were welcomingly received by the general public as the Olympic veil was lifted from their eyes, and the true meaning of the Olym­pics were revealed.

Guelph, ON

In Guelph, a torch bearer fell to the ground, dropping the torch after the protest and torch had a collision. As protesters neared the intersection of Macdonnell and Wyndham, some Torch Relay vans passed them going the other way, and then to their surprise the group of runners turned as well. The torch route was sup­posed to be along Carden Street, but instead they basically ran right into the protest one street to the north. In the confusion, one of the torch bearers fell and protester Brittney Simpson was arrested. Although she was charged with Assault, people who witnessed what happened said the only physical contact they saw was a protester being hit by one of the RCMP security runners.

According to Leslie Wilson, a community organizer who attend­ed the protest: “There seemed to be miscommunication about which route the torch should take. The whole thing escalated because the torch security was ill-prepared and the police over-reacted.”

Winnipeg, MB

In Winnipeg, the torch parade was blockaded for fifteen minutes, forcing the relay team to extinguish the torch and trans­port it forward in a truck. While passing through Treaty One territory, Roseau River Anishnabe First Nation Chief Terry Nelson made clear “we cannot allow those athletes to go home believ­ing that Canada is a bastion of human rights. We, as indigenous people, are not terrorists. There is no list of over 500 murdered and missing white women killed by indigenous men, there is however a list of over 500 murdered and missing indigenous women, most of those women were killed by white men.”

Edmonton, AB

In Edmonton, dozens of people protested the official Olympics ceremony, while drawing a link between the Games and the Tar Sands in Alberta. Three people were handcuffed and detained on the torch route for allegedly swearing at the torch. They were later released without charge.

[Reports collected and modified from a variety of sources, includ­ing (but not limited to) NO2010 Victoria, AW@L, ORN-O and the Vancouver Media Co-Op. Our apologies to those protests we did not include reports on, such as those in Sept-Iles, Kanahwake First Nations, Quebec City, Barrie, Saskatoon, Prince George and any others we may have missed.]

By Michael Truscello

The Olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, to demonstrate an ancient Aryan lineage with the Third Reich, proof of a warrior culture and foreshadow of the domination of Europe. The contemporary “Olympic Movement” trots out a similar set of symbols, but now backed by corporate logos and the promise of a portable “state of exception,” to use the term articulated by Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt.

Anarchists in Canada, especially those whose primary concern is class struggle, may not see much value in protesting the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Why so much fanfare for the Olympics, a one-off event, while barely a whimper from radical groups over the installation of the HST in Ontario and BC — a tax grab that punishes the poor forever?

The Olympics are a corporate affair that invades host cities such as Vancouver causing gentrification, environmental devastation, and the repeal of civil liberties. The mechanism by which the Olympics accomplish these deeds is akin to what Schmitt, and later Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, called the “state of exception.”

Agamben writes,

Quote:

“The entire Third Reich can be considered a state of exception that lasted twelve years. In this sense, modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system.”

The Olympics do not require a specific regime for the imposition of their particular state of exception. The Olympics make this state (in both senses of the word, as a form of being and as an entity of governance) a portable affair, mobile authoritarianism and branded nationalism in the guise of goodwill and amateur competition.

The Olympics produce in host cities, especially after 9-11, the impetus for exceptionalism: developers are handed blank cheques by politicians, to ensure dormant projects are completed in time for the Games; homeless people are ushered into buses or fined for panhandling or simply lying on the street, to improve the city’s image before the Games; natural settings previously protected by municipal or provincial laws are gutted, to provide services and infrastructure such as rails and roads for the Games; civil liberties are repealed and surveillance apparatuses installed, to provide security and an image of unanimous support for the Games.

The Olympics become the excuse for imposing authoritarian excesses that would not be tolerated, or at least would be subjected to greater scrutiny, under normal circumstances. Of course, one might argue these impositions are fairly localized. However, even localized changes of this kind can become precedents for other cities, provinces, or countries.

Consider the impact the Olympics have on the “hearts and minds” of people around the world, the propaganda value of trumpeting corporate-sponsored “amateur” competition that represents international goodwill by inspiring breathless nationalism.

Consider the fortress mentality that arises in the host city and spreads throughout the country, as Canadians hold their breath in anticipation of the ghost of terrorism. One border guard in BC tried to protect the fortress by interrogating Amy Goodman, a journalist with Democracy Now!, as she tried to enter Canada to give a talk that, much to the guard’s chagrin, was not about the Olympics. The lunacy spread to Burnaby-Lougheed Liberal MLA Harry Bloy, who referred to Olympic protesters as “terrorists” with “limited intelligence.”

Will the dozens of closed-circuit video cameras being installed in Vancouver be removed when the Games are over? How about the intelligence gathered on activists by CSIS? Will it be destroyed with one final application of the torch? How about the cost overruns, already estimated in the billions? Will Canadians, especially British Columbians, receive a rebate from corporations? What about the abuses of Aboriginal Peoples’ rights?

Sadly, the state of exception rarely relinquishes that which was obtained during its exceptional moment. Those excluded by the Olympic Games are the same “categories of citizens” on whose behalf anarchists must continue to struggle — even after the five ring circus leaves town.

Michael Truscello is an assistant professor in the department of communication studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. His fields of expertise include: Software Studies, Rhetoric of Science and Technology, Alternative Media, and Postanarchism. His publications have appeared in journals such as Postmodern Culture, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Text Technology. His forthcoming publications include a contribution to The Postanarchism Reader from Pluto Press, to be published in 2010. He is currently developing a book-length study of science and technology in the anarchist tradition.