Photo courtesy of the Globe and Mail's John Lehmann
On Monday night St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church hosted a debate between Mayor Gregor Robertson and Councillor Suzanne Anton. The topic of the night was homelessness and was organized by End Homelessness Now.
Located at 1012 Nelson Street (at Burrard Street), the site of the debate was a stones throw from the Occupy Vancouver encampment. Sure enough, a gaggle of Occupiers showed up in force and before the debate even got going, it turned into a circus.
I was unable to attend the debate. However, I was able to follow the streaming twitter feed courtesy of the rapid tweeting of the Globe and Mail’s @ianabailey and @robmickleburgh, the Vancouver Sun’s @Sunciviclee, the Courier’s @Naoibh and the Straight’s @stephenhui. From what I gathered of those tweets, it was bedlam, from beginning to end. Almost every second tweet mentioned some protester screaming, heckling or interrupting the debate. Multiple times, the charismatic and kindly pastor of the church Gary Patterson had to plead for calm and ask everyone involved to take a “deep breath” and relax.
By the end of the evening, one issue seemed crystal clear to me. The protesters behaviour showed no respect for their fellow citizens and demonstrated they had little to no interest in working within a pragmatic framework that would actually get any of their more relevant and realistic goals accomplished.
In short, the protest appears to have devolved from a movement of the 99% to one of the petty, angry and childish 1%. What’s left on the Art Gallery stairs seems more enraptured with their own selfishly deemed “rights” rather than the original purpose of actually reorienting the discussion of global issues around poverty and economic malfeasance.
This was hammered home for me later that night when upset Occupyites launched themselves at Vancouver firefighters and police officers who were trying to put out a fire the group had started.The video posted of the incident shows what a mess the protest has become.
The fact that the next day Chief Jim Chu announced that several of his officers had been “bitten” and hit by Occupy protesters only underscored how far this “movement” has departed from its original tenets of non-violence and peaceful demonstration.
As conditions continue to deteriorate in the camp and it becomes increasingly clear that the current tenants on the Art Gallery lawn are there to rabble rouse rather than work for positive change. I’m glad to see that the city is now pursuing the legal requirements to force an eviction and eject the protesters’ camp. Perhaps once this de-evolving community is deconstructed, the movement can get back to some of the positive and unifying ideas (and support) that made it so powerful when it first began.
Banner image courtesy of raincoaster