Flags & fists raised, seems to be a common theme when demonstrating ones fervour.
Nothing says BC like a dope-leaf Canadian flag mounted on a hockey stick.
The nightly light show in Robson Square. I’m a skeptic but have been reasonably impressed with the production value of some of what I’ve seen. However, for some reason this show struck me as a bit parochial.
A photograph of the protest march on BC Place during the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. The iconography here is by no means representative of the entire protest but the image is representative of the spirit of it.
Well, the games have finally begun and I think most people in Vancouver, or at least most that pay attention to these things – relatively few – are sighing with relief that a large protest march against the Olympics went over with next to no violence. It was the big unknown in the 2010 Winter Games equation – how bad was it going to get?
Credit goes to the protesters who were generally your average “nice” but concerned Canadian citizen and it also goes, in no small measure, to the VPD who turned up in ball caps rather than more intimidating riot gear. It seems our security services are learning from mistakes made in the past, when they’ve met bravado with bravado.
It seemed a good time was had by many, legitimate concerns were heard by the international media (though, good luck finding an article in the foreign press about those issues today) and people made it home safely, save for a few police officers who were hit with flying traffic pylons.
An antipodean photographer who came prepared with ballistic glasses, helmet and mask asked me incredulously about David Eby’s speech, whether it was true that Canadian security forces had indeed been paying visits to the homes and workplaces of anti-Olympic activists in the lead-up to the games. I wonder if the media wasn’t a little disappointed.
That was the big hump that many people were holding their breath over. There will be smaller protests by more and less radical groups but they will be isolated for the most part and probably won’t represent the concerns of most of the people at Friday’s march.
Oops… it’s started already.
Pics shortly.
The Canadian government is supposed to be back at work on Monday morning after ample Christmas holidays. Sadly, while the world continues to turn and there’s no end of issues that need taking care of, we’ll be without a sitting government until after the Olympics.
My friend Rita Leistner is having a photo exhibition at North Vancouver’s Presentation House Arts Centre. In conjunction with a play by Marie Clements The Edward Curtis Project…
“…is a multi-disciplinary theatre performance and photographic exhibit by Metis/Dene playwright Marie Clements and photojournalist Rita Leistner that investigates the life and controversial legacy of Edward Curtis and the Indians he captured in his famous photographs between 1900 and 1930. It runs January 21-31, 2010.”
Part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad. It opens this weekend – important work. Check it out!
Just finished helping to hang Rita’s show.
Do donate to the emergency aid and reconstruction efforts but also advocate for reconstruction grants, not loans.
When it is said that Haiti was a disaster zone even before this earthquake remember it did not get to be a hopeless place on its own, there is a history to the nation: upon winning its independence from France in 1804 this country of newly free slaves was – 20 years later – made to pay France 180 million francs as reparation for the loss of their slaves, the citizens. It is the only country to have been formed out of a slave rebellion, however this freedom came at a steep price – the debt that France imposed was only settled in 1947.
Since then successive corrupt dictators, elites, interference and self-serving foreign aid from a variety of countries have combined to suffocate Haiti under a massive debt load from which it has never been able to remove itself.
Yes, donating money is good – news of new loans? Not so much.
The Sunday Times has a good background article by Alex von Tunzelmann dating from 8 months before the earthquake here.
The WHO has astounding stats from five years ago – Canada’s child mortality rate was 6 for every 1000 children under five, and Haiti? 119.
Here’s a list of the larger international NGO’s working in Haiti. And for information about the Canadian government’s matched funding program go here.
In a quick search I can’t find the CIDA listing of organizations eligible for these matched funds so here’s a list of the bigger organizations in Canada, all of whom, I believe, are eligible:
ADRA
Canadian Red Cross
CARE
Médecins du Monde
Médecins Sans Frontières
Mennonite Central Committee
Oxfam Canada
Oxfam Québec
Plan Canada
Save the Children
World Vision
and a combination effort, The Humanitarian Coalition
(Keep in mind that following the 2004 Asian Tsunami MSF declared it had received enough donations specifically tied to its emergency work there and requested further donations be made to its general fund so they could allocate it where it was most needed.)
A few samples from the L’actualité story on Vancouver and Whistler. Outtakes still to come.
