The Great Unveiling

Reading about the Olympic clock unveiling in The Globe and Mail and on the CBC sports page has led me to wonder if I attended the same event as the journalists who penned these stories.

Rick Mickleburgh's Globe story has all the good cheer of a press release-cum-video news release.

Unlike the CBC story which claims the protesters were disrupting the celebration, I was struck by how physically segregated the protesters were from the 'revelers', let's call them. The police did a tremendous job bracketing off any dissent from the crowd of suits and tourists and curiosity seekers out enjoying their lunch breaks with a heady dose of international sporting event boosterism.

As I walked around the perimeter of the gathering, I was amazed that even a sonic barrier seemed to have been erected. Standing with the suits, I could no longer hear the raging granny singing a medley of 60s protest songs in front of the Anti-Poverty Committee's own countdown clock which bore the sign "Vancouver's Countdown to Triple Homelessness."

I missed the incident in which the master of ceremonies, VANOC spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade, was pushed aside by a man with a bandanna over his face but I saw the aftermath. Just as I was arriving on the scene, I saw him being dragged over to a waiting paddy wagon. Two police officers on horseback managed to surround him and the other officer, creating a visual shield that even the wiliest photojournalist wouldn't have been able to pierce.

Unlike the author of the CBC story, I saw no egg-throwing nor evidence of paint-filled balloons nor rocks wrapped in papier mache. Alex Burnip with the Anti-Poverty Committee told me that several of his APC colleagues were arrested while trying to release balloons that read "Homes not Games." Seems innocent enough, no?

Many protesters raised concerns about the need for low-income housing in the city. Wendy Peterson, also of the APC, criticized city council's plan to spend $500,000 on emergency shelters during the Games, suggesting this was an attempt to hide homeless people. She responded really thoughtfully and intelligently to Mayor Sam Sullivan's Civil City Project, what she called "a law and order approach to homeless."

You can read about the Civil City Project here.

What I was really struck with during the unveiling of the clock was just how upset the protesters were and how swiftly and silently the police were carting them away into waiting paddy wagons. Let's fast-forward three years to the Games; is this how we'll be treating dissent and even, gentle disagreement?

And will journalists be on board with this?

That said, I like Chris Brown's CBC TV piece on the protest. It takes a more nuanced approach to conflict and the Games. You can also see me in it if you look closely. I'm the one on the sidewalk behind a woman being subdued by a police officer.

I should also mention that I took a lot of photos yesterday with my Pentax K1000. As soon as they're developed, I'll be posting them here.