By Jane Kirby

16/02/2010

 

As the Olympic torch entered BC Place last weekend, thousands of protesters gathered in downtown Vancouver to oppose the Olympic Games and the negative social effects its presence has had on the region. While the visible protest against the Games may appear short-lived, like the impacts of the Games themselves, the legacy of these protests will extend far beyond the three week period of the Olympics.

 

Organizing around the Games has been ongoing since at least 2007, when the call for a protest convergence was initiated by native activists at the Intercontinental Indigenous Peoples’ Gathering in Sonora, Mexico. Since then, social justice activists around Vancouver have been working tirelessly to demonstrate the negative impacts of the Games and to connect the destruction wrought by the Games to ongoing struggles in their communities.

 

The “anti-Olympic” activists are in fact organizers from a broad range of social justice causes—including activists from the anti-poverty, anti-war, anti-globalization, migrant justice, indigenous and environmental movements-- who have been able to concretely connect their seemingly distinct struggles through their connection to the Olympics. With corporations and government officials appearing to profit most from the Games, these activists have linked the Olympics and their related developments to the undermining of native land rights, ecological destruction and soaring poverty rates in the Vancouver area.

 

Organizing efforts for an anti-Olympic convergence were intended not only to disrupt the Games and show dissent, but to help build lasting efforts for broader social change. “Based on lessons from prior summits, organizers are aware that the success of the 2010 convergence will depend not only on the level of disruption caused during the Games, but the strength it provides to social movements afterwards” says Harsha Walia, Project Coordinator at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre and an organizer with No One is Illegal Vancouver and the Olympic Resistance Network.

 

Indeed, while mainstream media outlets have derided the perceived “hodgepodge” of issues being tackled within anti-Olympic protests, the on the ground cooperation among groups of people working on disparate issues may have been one of the strongest aspects of the organizing leading up to the Games.

 

“I think in some ways it has strengthened the movement by bringing folks together that haven't typically organized together in the past” says Anna Hunter, an organizer with the Anti Poverty Committee and the Olympics Resistance Network. “New relationships and alliances have been formed through anti-Olympic organizing and the hope is that it will benefit the various community movements post-February 2010”.

 

Organizing against the Olympics in other cities has also taken this ethic to heart. Rather than merely converging on Vancouver during the Games, activists from across the country have resisted within their own communities drawing on local experiences and struggles. This was very clearly demonstrated during the Olympic Torch run, which faced resistance in multiple cities and indigenous communities. In Halifax, banners and leaflets highlighted the relationships between the Olympics and local experiences of gentrification and the criminalization of dissent. In Toronto, organizers used a disruption of the torch run to draw attention to the G20 Summit that will visit the city in June. The torch was rerouted as it went through Six Nations territory, with native activists connecting their own struggles for sovereignty with those of indigenous peoples fighting the Olympics in B.C. In Roseau Rivers First Nations, people countered the alleged celebration of native culture via the Olympics by highlighting the hundreds of indigenous women who are currently missing or murdered in Canada.

 

Indeed, foremost among the issues tackled by protesters have been those affirming indigenous sovereignty and land rights. While previous large protests have been dominated by white activists and white issues, indigenous activists have been at the forefront of anti-Olympics organizing. Indeed, native organizers were responsible for many of the first local examples of anti-Olympic resistance, including the filing of official opposition to the Olympics bid by members of the Secwepemc and St’át’imc nations as early as 2002.

 

The unifying slogan of “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” has also put the issue of colonialism at the forefront in a way that is in many ways unprecendented, opening up new potential for solidarity between native and non-native activists. “This has educated non-natives about the practice of an active and grounded solidarity with Indigenous struggle, one that constructs the possibilities for meaningful alliances in the context of on-the-ground realities and relationships” says Walia.

 

However, while the centrality of native issues within anti-Olympics organizing has forced many non-native activists to seriously grapple with what it means to organize and live on unceded native land, it has not been an unproblematic process. “Anti-colonial organizing takes years of work, trust and relationship building” notes Hunter. “In many ways the lead up to the Olympics hasn't provided enough time or space to build that trust in a meaningful, respectful way”. Nevertheless, the organizing against the Olympics has opened up the possibility for building these relationships longer term.

 

Anti-Olympic organizers are well aware that their struggles will not be over once the Games leave town. But their efforts have opened up the potential for new on the ground relationships both in Vancouver and beyond, and the space for more meaningful solidarity between native and non-native activists. The extent to which organizers can continue these exciting currents will determine the true success of anti-Olympics resistance.

 

“Our social movements, which have been fighting the Olympics for several years now, will not disappear” affirms Gord Hill, Kwakwaka'wakw and editor of No2010.com and WarriorPublications.com. “In fact, we will have expanded and gained valuable experience & skills in organizing resistance”. Protesting the negative social and environmental legacies of the Olympics, these activists will leave their own legacy, one of renewed strength and vitality for social justice organizers.