High Tensions and Temperatures at Saturday's Demo

Maybe it was the heat. Or Maybe it was the dreaded urgency of each swollen second as the world watches 'The Paris of the Middle East' burn. Regardless, Saturday's demo was the most emotionally charged I have been to.

I've never seen so many angry Muslims at a peace march. And who can blame them? Canada has let them down this time. They were even screaming "Allah Akbar". The front of the art gallery was packed and it spilled around the corner and across the street. There were a couple of incidents with people passing by, no doubt confusing anti-Israeli sentiments with anti-Semitic ones (strange that nobody accuses you of being anti-Christian when criticizing Bush). The speeches were mostly by ex-Pat Lebanese recounting the 1982 invasion and stories from their family who are still there. One 20 year old Muslim girl gave a speech wherein she chastised the Human Rights movement and asked instead for animal rights. She said, "at least we would get food and shelter". Whoa.

I noticed near the end of the speeches that a bunch of guys were in this one dude's face. I didn't understand why. He was holding up 2 signs, one that read, "Stop the Israeli war crimes" and the other that said "Stop Hamas missals (sic.) on innocent Israelis". He also had a Workers Party of Iran symbol on it (my friend Mo from Sunday later informed me that the WPI is an attempt to undermine Muslim dissent as it is actually a Kurdish group who accepts money from Israel). I thought it was brave, but as soon as the march started a bunch of guys ripped the sign out of his hands and screamed, "There are no innocent Israelis! Allah Akbar!" Holy shit. The cops intervened and separated the man from the angry mob. There was a whole crowd of people trying to figure out what was happening, at which point I started pleading desperately, "The world is watching, let's show them we can do this peacefully!" and, "we all have different points of view, but we must stay united! Just march!" The march was already half way down Robson. They agreed and we caught up with the rest.

The mood remained much the same as we interrupted the shopping hoi polloi on Robson. There were people (tourists) calling us terrorists (or was it terrorist sympathizers?). Not a good idea. The VPD were busy. In the end, all wrapped up rather anti-climatically, which is probably a good thing. There are a couple of more events this week:

Tuesday, July 25
12:30pm
Demo at US Consulate (1075 West Pender Street--Downtown Vancouver)

Wednesday, July 26
5:30pm
StopWar.ca meeting at the Maritime Labour Centre
(1880 Triumph Street--Off Victoria from Hastings)
See Map

Thursday, July 27
12:30pm
Demo at Canadian Immigration Detention Centre
(808-300 West Georgia Street--Downtown Vancouver)

PS. The Tyee has a great article about the difference between Israel's response and India's after Mumbai. And Deborah Campbell suggests some good books to read "as the cradle burns". Check out the discussion at the end of that one!