Vancouver Day 2 (Evening): Take back the City!

Black bloc anarchist to a dad with his kid in a stroller: "One day he can be in a black bloc."
Dad: "Yes, but only if he eats his vegetables."

Indigenous environmentalist, over megaphone during march: "We stand in solidarity with the Olympic Resistance Network. Our social movement is going to end capitalism!"

Black and indigenous blocs, marching side by side: "1, 2, 3, 4, this is fucking class war!"

* * *

From 3 to 6 p.m., a raucous rally and then march of several thousand people--three packed full city blocks' worth--took to the downtown streets of Vancouver to counter the 2010 Olympics opening ceremony. Antiauthoritarians had put out a call for "an anarchist presence at the 'family friendly' march." The response was a 150-strong black bloc tightly surrounded by its banners reading "Sabotage the System of Social Control" (with a circle A amid an upside-down cityscape) and "Resist Police Control; Fight for Freedom." Other anarchists choose to add humor and art with some anarchist burlesque, a giant salmon puppet, the Peoples' Island Autonomous Team of hockey players ("we're challenging the Olympic Committee and we're going to win"), and another team of anarchists in their cardboard bobsled, among others, along with Food Not Bombs. They joined a wide range of other "No Olympics on Stolen Native Lands" marchers, representing a whole range of issues on their signs from climate change and anti-road expansion to ending seal hunts to antipoverty and antiwar activism.

The mood here in Vancouver is a strange one. On the one hand, there is a frightening outpouring of Canadian nationalism, from the sixteen-story or so high Canadian flag on a building right across from the start of this march's route to people on the street dressed to the hilt in the red-and-white colors and maple leaf symbol of Canada's flag. Many people are reveling in this moment as a way to assert Canadian pride of country. On the other hand, so many locals are being inconvenienced, not to mention impacted by a host of adjustments and shutdowns to public and social services, that there's plenty of disgruntlement--and thus a fair amount of sympathy for these protests.

Then there's the police. There are some 17,000 cops of various types here, and yet on the street, they are barely visible. And when they are, they are few in number, completely underdressed or underequipped (at least from what we can see) for confrontation, and attempting to keep a relatively friendly low-profile. It's clear they have been given orders to not create a public relations nightmare for this Olympic showcasing of Canada. So even when the marchers reached the building where the opening ceremonies were about to start, the police directly in front of the march were wearing, for instance, cloth caps--facing off almost nose-to-nose with black bloc anarchists and a forceful indigenous bloc; an anarchist or two even managed to grab these caps right off their heads. Of course, a couple blocks away, riot police were at the ready. But the police basically let people march almost to the doorstep of the opening ceremonies. Even when the tension mounted--and the 'family friendly' organizers gave the surprising go-ahead for it to now become a militant bloc, for those who wanted to stay (and many, many people did)--a single line of police on horses, and the underdressed cops in front of them, were the extent of it.

I hope to write more about the black bloc later--in this march and, now, after Saturday's "Heart Attack"--but for this report, a few comments:

1. It was actually a bloc, held tightly together in a square by banners to protect the bloc, with loud and clear chants featuring messages that were both anarchist(ic) and tied into the issues of this Olympics, particularly around indigenous concerns.

2. In turn, the indigenous bloc marched right next to the black bloc, and both were at the head of this march. The indigenous bloc's red sovereignty flags and anarchist black flags were held high in the air, also side by side. Some of the indigenous folks masked up, in colorful red scarves or fatique material. The chants of each group seemed to float back and forth, creating further solidarity.

3. The black bloc had literature, documenting the series of direct actions (dozens upon dozens) that had built up to this moment since 2007. It was titled "Revolt is life, resignation is death."

4. The black bloc patiently stopped to listen to speeches along the route, patiently abided by the march organizer's wishes, and didn't (at least in general) diss the liberals in this event. The organizers, for their part, explicitly mentioned that they were in solidarity with the radicals, and as mentioned above, created what seemed like unexpected space for the march to end with a green light for militancy. That militant space included many folks besides anarchists.

There is a quick report; hopefully later, a bit more thoughtful analysis can be added about the differences between the black bloc here and how it often plays out in the United States. While no one ever breached the police line, nor disrupted the opening ceremonies, the solidarity shown between black bloc and other anarchists, and the many radical and not-so-radical folks within this march, seemed to have forged tighten social and political bonds that may, with luck, outlive this Olympics--the start to potentially taking back cities.