AW@L Radio: from the archives

March 20, 2009
->LISTEN<-

AW@L Radio hosts Alex Hundert and Dan Kellar discuss Israeli Apartheid Week with in studio guests from Students for Palestinian Rights at the Universtiy of Waterloo who organized several events to disscuss the issue of Apartheid in Palestine and Canada's support for Apartheid policies abroad and at home.

Props to Harsha (and No One Is Illegal) and Dave (and Streams of Justice) for throwing down at Tent City.
Its been real. -alex

Chronicles of the Olympic Tent Village

From Vancouver Media Coop Feb 28, 2010
By Harsha Walia

This started out as an attempt to update you all about the important developments that have transpired over the past 48-72 hours at the Tent Village. However it is impossible for one person or even a group of people to provide you with a complete picture of what has taken place, what will take place, or how we have arrived here together. So instead, this is a (hasty) letter of sorts; an attempt to document and share with you the birthing of the Village over the past two weeks, with those critical updates buried somewhere in there.

A Response to Judy Rebick

From Narrative Resistance, by alex hundert
Feb. 27, 2010

Judy Rebick, from her office in downtown Toronto, complained that “when a spontaneous anger against the Black Bloc emerged on social media, people berated us for ‘dividing the movement.’” She says that, in fact, “it is the Black Bloc that is dividing the movement.”

She is wrong.

I have been involved in a wide array of coalitions on various issues over the past half-decade, and never have I witnessed cross-movement solidarity like I have in the anti-Olympics campaign. In southern Ontario, as in Vancouver, radical groups from a variety of locations in the broader movement have come together to start to develop a shared anti-colonial analysis. This solidarity and unity, on the anti-colonial front, is deeper and stronger now than it has been at any point in the last ten years.

Read More

Natalie Alcoba, National Post, February 22, 2010
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/toronto/archive/2010/02/22/g8-g...
The G8 and G20 summits this summer will be the largest security event in Canadian history, officials said today.

The federal government announced last week it would host the G20 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre June 26-27, despite the city’s expressed wishes that it be at Exhibition Place. It will be preceded by the G8 in Huntsville, Ont.

For Immediate Release

PRESS RELEASE - February 25th, 2010

The Olympic Resistance Network celebrates success of convergence and promises future action

VANCOUVER - The Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) has declared the
success of the Convergence and protests against the 2010 Winter Olympics as a victory both against the Olympic industry and for local struggles for social and environmental justice. In spite of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) attempts to cover up the human rights and environmental violations of the corporate sponsors and host governments, the mobilization of communities across the country has forced the issues of homelessness, colonization, policing, public debt and environmental destruction into the public debate.

With the eyes of the world on Vancouver, residents of the Downtown Eastside and our supporters of the Olympic Tent Village want:
1. Real action to end homelessness now
2. End condo development and displacement in the Downtown Eastside
3. End discriminatory ticketing, police harassment, and all forms of criminalization of poverty.

Since Feb 15, 2010 the Olympic Tent Village has been set up at 58 West Hastings, an empty lot owned by notorious condo developer Concord Pacific, currently being leased by VANOC as a parking lot for the Olympics. The first few days at the Olympic Tent Village have gone strongly and smoothly, thanks to the community effort to support and defend it. Hundreds have gathered during the evening and through the night, especially DTES residents, homeless people, and youth.

* Read Issue 1 of Tent Village Voice:
http://olympictentvillage.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/tent-village-voice-issue-1/

As a part of the Anti-Olympic Convergence called for February 10th-15th, taking place on Coast Salish territories BC, a “Heart Attack” March was called for the 13th to “clog the arteries of capitalism”. The result was a black bloc action of 200 members of the anti-Olympic movement who had come for the convergence, winding its way through the streets of Vancouver and engaged in targeted property destruction against the Hudson’s Bay Company and Toronto Dominion Bank, as well as anti-Olympic graffiti.

Setting the Record Straight on Violent Protest and the Olympics
Nat Marshik
Posted: Feb 7th, 2010

“Will you go on record denouncing violent protest?”

You can bet that any member of the Olympic Resistance Network, and most anyone publicly opposed to the Olympics, has heard that question at least once -- whether it's from newscasters, neighbors, family, or co-workers. In the lead-up to the Anti-Olympic Convergence in Vancouver this February, it's understandable that people want some solid answers.

Unfortunately, they are asking trick questions.

since the CBC has moderated my comment regarding their poor coverage of the Heart Attack 2010 demonstration at the 2010 anti-olympics convergence, and restricted this free speech from the website that the public purse pays for, i decided i would post my comments anyway, and take the opportunity to expand on the ideas.

smashing inanimate objects, such as windows is not violent. no person or other living thing was harmed or killed. the destruction of communities, lives, and ecosystems in the name of a transnational corporate 'sporting' event is violent.

From Narrative Resistance by Alex Hundert, February 13 2010

"...Today’s “protest turned violent” was part of a larger convergence–5 days of organized protest and direct action against the Olympics. Activists across the country have already stated that the No2010 Olympics movement is, in its own right, a watershed moment for the Canadian social/environmental justice movement.

For one thing, as Harjap Grewal from the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) said, “It’s a unique moment in history, because a call for a convergence normally happens at the G8, WTO and World Bank summits that happen around the world, and this time organizers have actually called for a demonstration against the Olympics industry. We don’t see the Olympics industry as being that much different from these other institutions that are unaccountable to the people of the world. The IOC is like the WTO. The IOC is like the IMF, is like the World Bank. And it encourages the transfer of wealth from public hands to private pockets.”

In an article for The Dominion by Shailagh Keaney, I was quoted as saying that organizing across the country against the Olympics has been “a major step where various forms of anti-colonial and anti-capitalist resistance that were rooted in very different places and different issues along those common themes have come together physically in several places.”

Today in Vancouver, the anti-capitalist and anarchist militants of the movement had their moment..."

->Read Full Post<-

Today, activists from AW@L in Waterloo, Ont successfully dropped a banner in the heart of Uptown Waterloo. After the banner was deployed, we maintained a visible presence for approximately one hour. Activists were also on the ground to hand out flyers. Local television, newspaper and radio sources covered the action. No arrests were made. Other members of AW@L were involved in simultaneous direct action in Vancouver as part of the Anti-Olympics Convergence. Follow the convergence on Twitter at http://twitter.com/vanmediacoop . Our press release follows.

After the Opening Ceremony:
The Resistance is Alive and Well in Vancouver

from Narrative Resistance, by Alex Hundert, February 13

"...Yesterday was a tremendous way to end the torch relay, and an awesome way to “welcome” the Games to Vancouver.

Two separate communities in East Vancouver successfully kept the torch out of their neighbourhoods, causing two separate re-routes..."

->Read Full Post<-

AW@L's Dan Kellar and IEN's Clayton Thomas Muller speak in Vancouver, Feb.11 2010

Olympic protesters mobilize in Vancouver

By Carlito Pablo, Georgia Straight

After years of preparation, it’s all coming down to this.

B.C. Place opens its doors at 2 p.m. on Friday (February 12). Last-minute checks will be made for the extravaganza that starts four hours later. The show doesn’t come cheap; the federal government kicked in $20 million for its share. Around the world, huge numbers of people will be waiting in anticipation in front of their TV screens.

This is the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Several blocks away, people gather on the north lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery. They too have waited a long time for the Games. They also want the world’s attention, although for another purpose. They want to show that Canada has a dark underside: poverty, homelessness, missing and murdered women, poor treatment of aboriginal people, and a military presence in Afghanistan. By 4:30 p.m., the crowd will surge toward B.C. Place. At a certain point, police will have to stop them so that they don’t disturb the party inside.

->Read More<-