[Indigsol] Article: Olympics Resistance in Kanada

[mattm-b at resist.ca]

Olympics Resistance in Kanada

By Harsha Walia; April 07, 2009 - Left Turn
http://leftturn.mayfirst.org/?q=node/1305

The Olympic Games are an industry that is less about sports than, as
stated by historian George Monbiot, “a legacy of a transfer of wealth from
the poor to the rich
. Everywhere they go, the games become an excuse for
eviction and displacement; they have become a license for land grabs.”

In 2003, the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Whistler won the bid to host
the 2010 Winter Olympics. Since then, the devastating impacts of the Games
have become clear: expanding sport tourism and resource extraction on
Indigenous lands; increasing homelessness and gentrification of poor
neighborhoods; increasing privatization of public services; exploitative
working conditions, especially for migrant labor; fortification of the
national security apparatus with the largest military deployment in
Canadian history; ballooning public debt as corporate Olympic sponsors get
bailed out; and environmental destruction despite promises of “green”
Games.

Given the range of social injustices perpetrated by the Games, the
anti-Olympics movement has created an opportunity for anticapitalist,
Indigenous, antipoverty, labor, migrant justice, antiprivatization,
housing rights, environmental justice, civil libertarian,
antiglobalization, and anticolonial activists to join forces. While
building open and broad-based structures to facilitate this opportunity,
the movement has also focused on critical and formative questions
regarding leadership and solidarity, particularly with Indigenous
defenders of the land, against the onslaught of the Olympics.

Indigenous self-determination

Rather than being a single issue within a laundry list of demands, the
recognition of Indigenous self-determination has become the rallying call
and the foundation for anti-Olympics organizing. This has been possible
largely due to the fact that Indigenous communities have been resisting
the Games long before they were brought to the province of British
Columbia. In 2002, members of the St'at'imc and Secwepemc Nations filed a
submission with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to oppose the
bid. Since then, there has been a groundswell of Indigenous resistance
through Native 2010 Resistance, Native Youth Movement, Warrior
Publications, Sutikalh camp, Downtown Eastside Indigenous Elders Council,
Skwekwek’welt Protection Centre, and the Native Warrior Society. The
resistance is growing both despite and due to Indigenous peoples being
impacted by the pillage of their lands, disproportionately experiencing
poverty and homelessness in urban areas, and being the primary targets of
repressive policing and surveillance.

Many non-natives have supported the voice and leadership of Indigenous
peoples within this movement. Lessons from earlier antiglobalization
movements from Seattle in 1999 to Quebec City in 2001 have been critically
engaged. These lessons include a stronger anti-oppression analysis, even
within internal structures; representing those most directly impacted by
the effects of capitalism and colonialism on Turtle Island; and being more
strongly rooted in local community organizing rather than
'summit-hopping'. While movement forces understand that Indigenous people
are not solely impacted by the Games, organizing under the banner of “No
Olympics on Stolen Native Land” has fostered an array of meaningful,
community-rooted, transformative, and potentially revolutionary alliances.

The anti-Olympics movement forces a contestation of the idea that the
antiglobalization movement died after 9/11 by giving voice especially to
Indigenous, poor, and people of color communities whose bodies have lived
and fought the ravages of globalization prior to Seattle and after 9/11.
The movement has brought into sharp focus the reality that, indeed,
corporate globalization is simply a new name for the 500-year reality of
colonization.

Diversity of tactics

The anti-Olympics movement has engaged in a diversity of tactics,
including effective disruptions such as the shutdown of the Olympic Spirit
Train across the country and the Native Warrior Society taking the Olympic
flag from Vancouver City Hall, insurrectionary attacks on corporate
sponsors such as McDonalds, Coca Cola, Royal Bank of Canada, and popular
education, creative resistance, and media messaging efforts.

Rather than building a coalition based on the united front strategy of
lowest-common denominator politics, this loose but well-coordinated
network is based on the strengths of each of its member groups and
individuals that allows it to flourish and bring an increasingly powerful
and politicized message to the people.

With growing state attempts to infiltrate, surveil, and divide the
movement, a Solidarity and Unity statement drawn up with the support of
mainstream groups states, “We realize that we may have many differences in
analysis and tactics and such disagreements are healthy. However such
debates should remain internal and we should refrain from publicly
denouncing or marginalizing one another – especially as 'violent'- to
mainstream media and law enforcement.”

There has also been much debate over whether certain actions endanger
vulnerable communities. The anti-Olympics movement, with Indigenous
people, poor people, Elders, women, and people of color at the forefront,
is a stark reminder that the politics of confrontation has always
“Othered” these communities as primarily white, middle-class activists
make declarations (or more often, feel paralyzed) about whether certain
tactics are in the best interest of marginalized people or not.

We have forgotten that oppressed communities—including women, Elders, and
youth—have risen up to fight state power. In fact they invented direct
action tactics through centuries of struggle against imperialism, racism,
and colonialism. Ensuring leadership from such communities has meant
easing the “white man’s burden” approach about how best to take
responsibility for these “Others” and instead to transcend oneself into
the realm of an active and grounded practice of solidarity.

While resisting the Olympics Industry poses a formidable challenge to our
movements, the possibilities to strengthen this anti colonial, anti
racist, and anti capitalist resistance are endless. Based on the call by
the Indigenous Peoples Gathering in Sonora, Mexico to boycott the Games,
there is a call for a global anticolonial and anticapitalist convergence,
February 10 - 15, 2010. While working towards this convergence, we have
been encouraged to think of human interconnectedness rather than social
isolation in building our alliances. This effort has not translated into a
simple unity across our differences, particularly those that are rooted in
systems of power and privilege. Rather it has created a radical terrain of
struggle where our common, anti capitalist vision does not erase our
different racialized and colonized social locations. Similarly, it has
meant that our differing identities do not prevent us from creating a
relevant, inclusive, and disruptive movement well beyond 2010.

Harsha Walia is a South Asian organizer, writer, and facilitator based in
Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories. She is a member of the Olympics
Resistance Network, No One Is Illegal, and Boycott Israeli Apartheid
Campaign.


-- 
"All oppression is relative.
All oppression is specific."

- Albert Memmi