Not your mother's brand of anarchist
“Water polo player suspended, accused of rioting in Vancouver”
I read the The Canadian Press headline, June 18, 2011.
Then I heard Mike Smyth get all class “warfare”ish on the radio the day after the riot. Channeling Bruce Allen and Don Cherry, he claimed there was a political agenda afoot…
“Did you see the cars they went after? High end.”
So they’ve got the first anarchist… the son of a Mission doctor… star of the water polo team… attends an elite private school called Meadowridge Academy.
Maybe, the kid was channeling Malcolm MacDowell in the great “IF“. Or maybe he was just a drunk jock, charged up on playoff hockey, in from the ‘burbs to wreak havoc.
Whatever… They made anarchists different in my day… Do you think it might have been Mike Smyth who had the political agenda?
We're number one
Put liquor, drugs, testosterone, jerks and sports fanaticism together in one four block space. Mix, then add Don Cherry.
Is anyone surprised a riot occurred?
Vancouver is no different than any other large, metropolitan area in the developed world. And we’ve just learned that the things that cause riots in those other cities cause riots here.
So learn from it. Maybe it’s a bad idea to put 100,000 young men downtown with bars open all day. Maybe hockey’s no different than soccer and other sports where fanaticism leads to idiocy. Maybe people from the region and province who want to party safely downtown should pay. Maybe the bar owners and hockey franchises should, too.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Figure it out before the next playoff.
But there’s another lesson Vancouver needs to learn from the riot.
We’re not exceptional. Vancouver is no different. The same problems there are the same problems here.
We are not special. But we think we are. That’s our biggest problem.
We’re like the Americans of Canada, too full of our exceptionalism to see what’s really going on all around us.
You don’t have to dig deep to see a lot of Vancouver’s problems sitting in the trash today along with the burned jerseys. Daphne Brahmin in the Sun remarked on the issues made evident by the riot, particularly the enormous and still growing economic divide that more than anything dominates our city.
But it doesn’t end there… From housing and homelessness to cultural infrastructure and architecture… from environment to playgrounds and modern transportation to our corporate culture Vancouver is just plain mediocre. We are not the best place on earth.
There is more community spirit in Brooklyn than the whole of our city. Montreal is more fun, more alive and greener. Chicago has better public spaces and Portland has better bookstores. Barcelona protects and renews its heritage and Recife houses people. And just about everywhere has better public transit.
What do we do instead?
If you think about it, since 2001 – and under the direction of the BC Liberal government – Vancouver’s spent a lot of its money and most of its energies building a city that’s dependent upon short lived spectacles and mass gatherings.
It’s a case of exceptionalism run wild: We are the “best place on earth…” so “Let’s show the world.”
And the day before yesterday we had a riot when it went wrong. We showed them.
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(4) Comments
I wish people would stop politicizing what happened in Vancouver last week. The first part of your column was bang on--it wasn't class warfare. A lot of those involved looked awfully well dressed and groomed and those $300 Canucks jerseys are not the normal attire of the opressed.
It also had nothing to do with BC Liberals or Vision, or anything any other party said.
A group of organized anarchists planned to take advantage of the large crowds to create mayhem.
In the large crowds were a larger number of young males. In fact, probably more than over the previous weeks because high school just finished. It's "Grad party time."
Young men are well known for being reasonably pre-dispossed to joining in to violent movements. In much of human history, they have been the soliders or the warriors. The people you send into battle. They can be convinced to follow anyone and do things that they have been raised not to.
Young men have energy, feel immortal, and can be swayed. That's why they make great soldiers.
But put thousands of them, full of emotion from 8 weeks of playoff build up, into a crowd. Add disappointment (or the failure of rising expectations for that cup), and then add a catalyst like cars being trashed and looting starting, and you get what happened in Vancouver. They joined in as a way to shed emotional energy.
It is a tribute to the city and its citizens and how so many of the young people were raised that only a few hundred out of thousands joined in the riot. Many more young people, including many young men, showed up instead the next day to help clean up.
This is a fine piece. Thanks especially for naming this: "We are not special. But we think we are. That's our biggest problem.
We're lik the Americans of Canada, too full of our own exceptionalism to see what's really going on all around us."
This just isn't true, though much of what you say is true. Vancouver has far better public transit than most cities in North America, though that isn't saying much.
I wish all the morons using the word 'anarchist' would realize that they have no idea what the hell they are talking about. 'Anarchism' is an actual political theory/ideology that dates back to the 1800's-it has a left and right wing within it- and much of it rejects rioting, property damage, or violence. A small subsection adheres to some kind of 'direct action', and other disturbances that can include property damage--hence the(tiny amount of) 'black bloc' anarchists at some political demos(of which some of them turnout to be cop agents anyway)
Disagree with anarchism all you want--I'm not one--but please realize 'Anarchist' is not just a synonym for 'scary people who make things go smashity-smash'