By Heatscore
Both the corporate and alternative media have been abuzz over the actions of the several hundred participants of a black bloc contingent that smashed the windows of a Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) retail store and TD bank, as part of the “Heart Attack” mobilization on February 13th, during the Anti-Olympic Convergence in Vancouver.
As could be expected, the corporate media seized upon the sensationalism, inherent in the action, to portray the protestors as violent, anti-social hooligans. The CBC was quick to condemn the incident; a “breaking news” report entitled “Anti-Olympic rioters smash Vancouver store windows” included a quote from Vancouver police chief Jim Chu in which he described the black bloc protestors as a “loose collection of thugs from Central Canada, known to attach themselves to any cause, travel to any event that attracts media coverage and promote anarchy wherever they go.” This type of blanket generalization, combined with a deliberate suppression of contextual factors and an accompanying narrative of “restraint” on the part of the police, are the hallmarks of a corporate media whose interests are directly opposed to those of the protestors. So… no surprise there.
What was more shocking, however, was the rabid nationalism, and vitriol of the public backlash that followed. The online CBC article quoted above was rapidly inundated with thousands of responses from readers across the country, which overwhelmingly condemned the protesters as “terrorists”, “cowards” and “scum.” A similar article on the website of CanWest’s Vancouver Sun elicited an even harsher chorus, with a litany of (largely anonymous) posters suggesting that the protestors should be sent to Afghanistan or Guantanamo, locked up for the remainder of the games, waterboarded or even “boiled in oil.” Beyond these helpful suggestions, dozens of different posts suggested that the Canadian security forces should be taking lessons on crowd control from their Chinese and Iranian counterparts.
And it wasn’t just fair-weather fascists, jacked up on righteous nationalistic anger, who took aim at the black bloc. Many moderate progressive commentators were also furious.
Writing for rabble.ca, Judy Rebick ripped into the members of the black bloc, accusing them of dividing “the movement”, endangering peaceful protesters and risking the derailment of “the important Indigenous rights, anti-poverty and anti-corporate messages of the thousands of protesters on the streets of Vancouver.”
Blogging on linchpin.ca, Mick Sweetman vented his frustrations against the insurrectionalist tactics of the bloc, accusing them of sabotaging the years of hard work put into organizing against the Olympic Games, and further contributing to the public’s perception of anarchism as “mindless criminality.”
These two authors were not alone in their criticisms – the majority of which tended to frame the black bloc protesters as a fringe element whose actions destabilized and hijacked an otherwise morally justified anti-Olympic campaign. What these arguments largely failed to recognize was that many members of the black bloc were actually quite engaged in other, more “respectable,” aspects of the Convergence – such as the more family-friendly “Take Back Our City” march the day before, and the tent city established in Vancouver’s downtown east-side on February 15th – and in fact comprised some of the most committed organizers of the Olympic Resis¬tance Network (ORN). Indeed, the actions were planned into the framework of the Convergence, and purposefully timed so as not to conflict with any of the more traditional marches and protests. That being said, the concerns that they raised are valid, and should not be entirely dismissed (nor should the reaction within the public at large). It is this type of insular thinking that contributes to anarchism’s continued political marginalization.
Two of the primary arguments made by black bloc supporters to justify the actions were that they did not in fact constitute violence, and that they were necessary in order to attract media attention.
The question of whether or not property destruction constitutes violence has been a source of contentious debate within the anarchist movement for years. Advocates of property destruction rightly point to the fact that the targets of their attacks are not human, and are in fact merely physical representations of corporations whose actions constitute vastly disproportionate levels of violence. The Hudson’s Bay Company, for instance, has a grotesque amount of blood on its proverbial hands, owing to its history of cooperation in, and facilitation of, the genocide of this country’s First Nations. Clearly a broken pane of glass pales in comparison to this corporation’s track record of crimes against humanity… so why the fuss?
While I am inclined to agree, the point is largely irrelevant. When dealing with public protests, whether or not something morally constitutes violence is not as important as whether or not it is perceived as violent by the public at large. The important thing is that the majority of the public viewed the actions as violent, and many viewed the accompanying police violence as entirely justified. It is ridiculous to think that a $1 billion dollar security budget could be justified as a response to the “threats” posed by several hundred anarchists…but unfortunately that will be the message taken away by the majority of those who viewed the news reports – many of whom will not take the time to contemplate the moral justification posed by the bloc (which won’t be available to them anyway, owing to the corporate nature of mass media).
This brings me to the second argument – that the action was necessary to attract media attention. This argument was posed by The Stimulator of submedia.tv, himself a resident of Vancouver, in his online podcast summarizing the events of the Convergence. He noted that major media outlets such as CNN and Fox ignored the much better attended peaceful protests, such as those that took place the day before the “Heart Attack” actions, but broadcasted live footage of the black bloc tactics and ensuring confrontation with police to the entire world. While I respect the Stimulator, and am a big fan of his work, I am a bit confused as to why he feels that the “attention” of those he refers to as the “corporate bootlickers of the ass-crunching corporate media” is tactically beneficial. The corporate media would not broadcast these actions if they perceived them as a threat. On the contrary, actions like these actually serve their interests - and the class interests of their billionaire shareholders - by portraying a one-dimensional caricature of anarchists as violent delinquents that provokes a populist nationalistic response. To seek the validation of predatory corporate media outlets as an end as opposed to a means is to do a disservice to the massive gains made in the past decade by alternative media. The Vancouver Media Co-Op (VMC), which broadcast excellent coverage of the events on its website (http://2010.mediacoop.ca), was probably the greatest thing to come out of the Convergence, and the Stimulator played a large role in contributing to its success. Projects like this (and Stimulator’s own site) are Indeed “the megaphone of the resistance.” The corporate media is the enemy of the resistance - not a tool to be used to ferment revolutionary sentiment.
While I understand the motivations behind those who smashed the windows, and also appreciate the tactical benefits of masking up and dressing all in black to thwart detection from integrated state surveillance and to avoid arrest, I think that it is time to seriously question the tactical benefits of largely symbolic property damage that has become synonymous with black bloc actions. If it was not plainly evident during the debacle that ensued following the “Financial Fools” action against the IMF in London, UK last year (in which the police passively watched as several black bloc protesters smashed a window at the Royal Bank of Scotland [RBS], and then immediately used the actions as a pretense for mass arrests), it should be by now. Property destruction can certainly be used effectively as a tool of direct action – as shown by both its long history in labour struggles (generally classified as “sabotage”) and its more recent manifestations in the radical environmental movement – but it must not devolve into the stale, ritualistic practice of smashing of a few windows at a protest.
The organizers of the “Heart Attack” set out to “clog the arteries of capitalism.” While this was and remains a laudable goal, the “arteries of capitalism” are not the shop fronts of its corporate criminals, but the transportation and delivery systems of capital and resources. These are the vulnerabilities of a system that is predicated on the constant flow of resources and cheap consumer products, and these are the most logical targets of anyone who feels the need to channel their rage towards insurrectionalist tactics.
Leading up to the protests in Vancouver, it was said that the true benefits of the Convergence would be the enduring relationships and networks forged through years of shared organizing and mutual struggle. Hopefully any divisions sewn by the black bloc’s actions (and the corresponding failure of some of their more moderate allies to respect the ORN’s call for a diversity of tactics) can be overcome – and the disagreements which have ensued do not overshadow the gains made by a truly formidable national coalition of indigenous rights activists, anarchists, environmentalists and anti-poverty organizers in the lead up to the games.
