I was motoring along the other day when I heard a news item on the radio about an "outbreak of fresh violence" in the Middle East. As opposed to, you know, "stale violence" or "day-old violence." I had never really thought about it before, but this verbal construction is never heard outside of media reports. Only a professional class that thrives on stories of conflict talks about "fresh violence."
"If it bleeds it leads," as they say in the news industry. Two weeks ago, local pundits in print and broadcast found their defining moment for Occupy Vancouver in the drug overdose death of 23-year-old Ashlie Gough on the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds. Yet the girl's father, Tom Gough, told the Vancouver Observer she was no "poster child" for the movement. His daughter was only at the Occupy site for one day, he said. "Some articles said, 'Here is a perfect example of blah, blah, blah-of how (Occupy Vancouver has) gotten out of control," he told the online publication.
There has always been another story about Occupy Vancouver, beyond any drug taking or bylaw-breaking. It's a story about interdependence and mutual aid, and resurrecting the ancient Greek idea of the agora as the place of public assembly.
The well-stocked "People's Lovely Library" and other Occupy installations may not follow LEED design principles, and some of the campers may not look like your usual dinner party companions. But dismissing the scene at the art gallery grounds as a landlocked Island of Misfit Toys doesn't help understand what's going on. In a city that can't even get its act together on social housing, informed and engaged citizens have been attempting to address pressing social/political issues, while providing some measure of security and support for the homeless people who had joined their ranks. Is that not newsworthy, even if it's the very opposite of conflict?
For most residents of Vancouver, First Nations people might as well be from Mars. Yet on one chilly night two weeks ago, I watched as aboriginal people stood in a circle, hand in hand with students, street kids, artists and activists, young and old, peacefully commencing a General Assembly. That looked new to me-possibly even transformative. But our chattering classes cannot abide such a thing, it seems.
Is it any wonder that when representative democracy has been so thoroughly trivialized and trashed by our political leaders, that citizens start experimenting with direct democracy? Not that I support everything accomplished or attempted in the name of Occupy Vancouver. The interruptions of mayoralty debates were tactically stupid for a group already losing public support in the face of an all-out media assault. Yet the "direct action" crowd is only one part of the scene, which this week has 18 separate committees meeting to address onsite and offsite issues. Serious, committed young people are involved, although their numbers have been whittled down by stress, weather and a hostile press.
Last week, on CBC Radio One's Early Edition, host Rick Cluff's voice dripped with contempt as he interviewed mental health advocate and Occupy Vancouver demonstrator Jay Peachy. It came off more as an interrogation than an interview, but it was no great surprise. In newsprint and broadcast circles, the commentators fell into two camps on OV: the far-right firebrands who hallucinate barbarians at the gates, and the nominal progressives, who made sentimental noises about OV's festive first day, but afterwards refused to see the forest for the tents.
There have been police crackdowns and scattered rebuilding of occupations across the U.S. and Canada. The candles are being snuffed out across both countries, leaving some campers left with literally no place to go. That in itself is the Occupy movement's narrative about increasing social inequality given real world substance. It is the word made flesh.
Every social justice movement has to navigate the roller coaster of group dynamics, possible police infiltration, and garden variety idiocy. Add to this the critical issue of public support, which is out the window as soon as the first brick shatters one. That brings me back to the issue of violence, which is never "fresh." Whether it issues from the truncheon of a riot cop or the hand of a masked agitator, it's always damn rotten.
geoffolson.com
