Vancouver Riots: The Continuing Saga

Photo - Anthony Bolante/Reuters

On July 15th, 2011, Vancouver once again demonstrated the unmanly art of rioting.  In five hellacious hours, several thousand people explained to the world — carefully and in glorious YouTube detail — that Vancouver is a punk city.  These were not the actions of a few anarchists or criminals bent on wholesale destruction – as many will try and tell you.  No, it was not those proverbial bad apples who ruined our city’s reputation.  These were regular citizens, bandwagon hockey fans who got carried away on a mixture of alcohol and excitement.  Wild eyed and intoxicated by the sound of breaking glass, and high on teargas and burning automobile upholstery they rose to the occasion.  They’re currently putting on the brag to their friends.  Of course, the majority of folks downtown didn’t actually burn cars or smash windows.  Some did do a little freeboot looting when the opportunity arose, but mostly, they wandered around, looking animated and taking Facebook tributes with their smartphones.  They can confess their innocence — and believe me they will.  What they didn’t do, however, was leave when the cars starting burning and the cops showed up in riot gear.   The interesting question is why?

Understand that the Vancouver Riot 2011 was not an isolated event.  Like it or not, rioting and wanton destruction have become an integral part of our city.  In the eyes of the world, they’re as synonymous with Vancouver as the mountains, the ocean and the Lions Gate Bridge.  Let me explain.  Those young people, tearing the city to rags Wednesday night, were no more than children in 1994 when that generation broke apart at the seams and turned a sporting event into broken glass and mayhem.  Likewise, many of the rioters of ’94 probably weren’t even born when Vancouver hosted the “Grey Cup Riot” in 1966.  That’s three seperate generations, spread over nearly fifty years!   Do you detect a pattern here, Mr. Holmes?  Regardless of what kind of inquiries and investigations the local apologists want to come up with the only common denominator in half a century is Vancouver and young people.  Any other Johnny-come-lately explanation is just so much crap.

Take a look at the video footage; those people who fought the cops in front of the Devonshire in ‘66 were not poor, disadvantaged or oppressed.  The louts of ’94 look pretty well-dressed and well-fed to me (and to anybody else who bothers to notice.)  And this latest bunch of malcontents were mostly sporting official Canucks jerseys and recording their activities on smartphones (both expensive items.)  The evidence shows that the clearly advantaged youth of Vancouver do not respect their city and never have.  Three generations is not a coincidence.

None of this will be brought forward in any of the immediate inquiries.  They’ll round up the usual suspects: “our consumer society” and “disaffected youth.”  The police will take a couple more kicks in the stomach and the world will continue.  Just as an aside (if you think the cops are to blame) some Saturday afternoon when you’ve got nothing happening go try and subdue a vicious drunk when he’s got ten drunken friends egging him on.  Give it a shot; see how you make out.  My point is we’re not going to address the problem, just like we didn’t last time or the time before that.  We’re going to theorize and chatter about those “bad apples” again, lose some more of our ability to spontaneously enjoy our city, and carry on.

This is the reality.  We — all of us in Vancouver — have built a culture that promotes an unhealthy disrespect for the institutions of our city.  Here are a couple of items: one is small but significant; the other is very large indeed.  On Wednesday night, many members of the media referred to the rioters as “protesters.”  That was their reference point.  They weren’t vandals, arsonists, looters or criminals.  They were protesters — because we equate protest with unruly and destructive behaviour.  Legitimate protesters are permitted to cause damage and break things; it’s acceptable to us.  It’s the way we think.  Those people kicking in store windows have the same attitude.  Secondly (and this is huge) despite the assurances of the Mayor and the Premier, nobody in this city believes any of the rioters will be brought to justice.  If (by some miracle) a few do get caught, Vancouver has whole office buildings full of lawyers who thrive on this kind of thing.  After three generations of riots, I’ll bet you dollars to dead penguins nobody in this town knows anybody who’s ever gone to jail for their antisocial actions — or even had to pay for the damage they caused.  Those young people who turned us all into international idiots the other night know perfectly well they aren’t going to be held accountable.  Again, it’s the way we think.

Vancouver is ashamed of itself — and we should be — no amount of feel-good stories are going to change that.  But until ordinary people change their attitude, we have nothing to be proud of.

 

Arab Spring/Chaos Summer

In a fortified bunker somewhere in Tripoli, Muammar Gaddafi is saying, “What’s the deal?  I shoot a couple of protesters, who were probably Al Qaeda anyway, and NATO goes berserk.  Meanwhile, over in Syria, Assad’s gunning down civilians like there’s a deposit on them.  What happens?  Nothing!  All Bashar gets is a couple of nasty e-mails from Ban Ki-moon, and he walks away smilin’.  Where’s the justice?  And that’s not all.  In Iran, Ahmadinejad is building a bomb the size of Baltimore.  In Bahrain, Al Khalifa called in the Saudi tanks five minutes after CNN turned its back, and nobody even knows who’s killing who in Yemen – or how many!  So why am I the goalie on the Cruise Missile team?”  Actually, Muammar has a point.  Protecting civilian populations seems to be a selective process at the UN these days.  I’ll grant you, NATO can’t bomb everyone they’d like to, but just exactly what is the UN mandate?  Something is going disastrously wrong in North Africa and the Middle East.  The Arab Spring that started out with such hope in Tunisia is rapidly deteriorating into Chaos Summer.

The rebels in Libya aren’t going to win anytime soon – not without a lot more help than they’re getting.  NATO’s been blowing up everything bigger than a Safeway cart for nearly three months now.  Some countries are actually running out of ordinance, for God’s sake.  Yet, all I see on TV are smoke plumes in the distance and some scrubby guys with automatic weapons, firing wildly into the desert.  No offence, but what are they shooting at?  One would think, Gaddafi couldn’t have enough hardware left to defend himself against my nephew’s hockey team.  Not so.  Apparently, Muammar is just as nasty as he always was and about twice as defiant.  Again I ask, what is the UN mandate?

The Canadian commander of the mission, General Charles Bouchard, has called this Libyan adventure “a knife fight in a phone booth.”  I have never been in a knife fight — either in or outside a phone booth — but common sense tells me the object would be to stick the other guy.  Unfortunately, the UN won’t let anybody do that: regime change is not on the table.  I hate to keep asking obvious questions but…  what, then, is the purpose of this Libyan debacle?  Honestly, it’s beginning to look like the only way to get a favourable result is if NATO somehow manages to kill Muammar – accidently.  Pack a lunch, folks: we could be here for a while.

Of course, the unforeseen side effect reality of sixty missions a day in Libya is every other dictator within F-18 distance of Tripoli can do as he damn well pleases.  Bashar al-Assad isn’t really too worried about shooting protesters out of season in Syria when NATO is otherwise engaged.  He knows the Western powers aren’t going to launch anything more than a stern warning in his direction, and he’s acting accordingly.  The same goes for whoever is trying to be in charge in Yemen.  The extra added attraction there is Al Qaeda already has a firm presence.  Fortunately, Ahmadinejad in Iran has his own problems.  He’s just one magic lamp away from getting charged with sorcery or cavorting with genies or some other such madness.  Otherwise, he’d be putting the boots to his dissidents, as well.

What’s happened here is the West has squandered its power to influence events by actually using it.  It has always been the threat of unleashing unlimited Hell that has kept the more petty of the dictators in line.  They knew they could only go so far, dishing out nasties to their own people, before Hillary, Cameron and Sarkozy said enough is enough.  The problem is power is not what you do, necessarily; it’s what you’re willing to do.  If dictator A knows you’re willing to blast him out of his jackboots, he tends to tiptoe.  Once he knows you’re not, he’s kinda got you over a barrel.

Everybody knows that the West can’t disentangle itself from Libya now without looking like jackasses.  If Gaddafi’s still there when NATO goes home, Bashar and the boys aren’t going to worry about the UN, NATO — or anybody else, for that matter.  Syrian dissidents might as well be put on the Endangered Species List.  The best bet is for NATO to forget about UN Resolution 1973 and get rid of Muammar as quickly as possible.  From there, the West could relax and rearm and tell guys like Assad to shape up and fly right — or there’s a good possibility they’re going to get the same treatment as the last guy who pissed us off.  Maybe then the West could start directing traffic again — instead of standing on the curb watching the world go by.

Canada Post May Strike Out

To be honest, I haven’t written a letter in over twenty years.  I haven’t mailed a cheque since the last century.  I don’t buy stamps anymore, and the only thing I get delivered regularly to my house is a magazine subscription that never seems to run out.  The post office and I don’t interact except on occasional mornings when I say hi to the letter carrier and ask her, “How’s it going?”  So why am I upset about a postal strike?

Like most Canadians I have a love/hate relationship with Canada Post.  I rarely use their services but when I do, I want them to perform perfectly.  I hate junk mail, but I want the post office to pay for itself without my tax dollars.  I think letter carriers have a cushy job, but you don’t see me hauling a heavy bag of pizza flyers around in the pouring rain.  And I’m shocked that it costs… (What does it cost?) … to mail a letter to New Brunswick, but I’m willing pay 10 times that much to follow celebrity gossip on my smart phone.  The thing is Canada Post does a really good job providing a service that very few people need anymore.  I’m worried that the union is going to destroy it before it can evolve into something useful again.

Here’s a brief history of the post office.  It doesn’t cover everything and it isn’t even totally true, but — trust me — most Canadians see it this way.  In the way back days, Canada Post was a valuable part of the Canadian landscape.  People wrote letters to each other.  They corresponded (it was like being connected but way more elaborate.)  It was the way friends and families shared their news, photographs and ideas.  Getting a letter was a big deal, and people had penpals for the specific purpose of writing to each other.  When people went on vacation, they sent postcards home.  At Christmas time, Canadians sent millions of cards to each other, just to say hi once a year.  It was the way people communicated — especially over long distances — because everybody could afford stamps.  Kids sent away for stuff that came in the mail.  Household bills were sent and paid by mail.    There were mail order catalogues and mail-in coupons.  It was an accepted way to do business.   This went on for decades.

Somewhere in the 60s going on 70s, the post office, a stalwart institution for a century, started to lose credibility.  There were tons of reasons for this, but it was mostly because escalating costs had to be passed on to the public — somehow.  Postal rates had to be increased and postal service had to be decreased — just to balance the books.  At the same time, however, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) who may or may not be called militant (depending on which side of the picket line you’re on) began flexing its muscles to get higher pay and better working conditions for its members.  The result was a series of strikes and slowdowns that stalled our country’s ability to communicate and do business.  It also soured the public’s relationship with the post office.  Ordinary people saw the union as the bad guy — a greedy loose cannon — willing and able to hold the entire country up for ransom in order to get what they wanted.  It didn’t help that most of the union bluster usually came during the last 17 shopping days before Christmas every year, either.  Over the course of the next decade, Canada Post devolved into a necessary evil, and very few people (who didn’t work there) had a good word to say about them.  The problem was, as the corporation tried desperately to stop the bleeding ($600 million deficit in 1981 alone) CUPW didn’t relent.  In reality, the exploding costs weren’t always the union’s fault — but the public saw it that way — and nobody down at CUPW saw the writing on the wall.

People started bypassing Canada Post if they wanted anything important done.  Businesses used courier services, people sent parcels by UPS or Greyhound, and lower long distance rates encouraged Aunt May to call (instead of write) when she had news.  Then along came fax machines, e-mail and the Internet.  By the mid 90s, Canada Post was irrelevant to the vast majority of Canadians.

Today, Canada Post has seriously rebounded.  By their own account, they handle 40 million pieces of mail a day, over the largest postal area in the world.  They actually make a profit every year.  Canada Post (and the people who work there) are doing a good job.  In order to guarantee that my never-ending magazine subscription would continue to show up every month Canada Post took the ingenious step of becoming one of the largest purveyors of advertising in the country.  It’s that junk mail we all know and despise; that’s what’s paying the bills.  However, this is not going to go on forever because the cash cow is drying up.  Canada is one of the most connected countries in the world — mainly because mail service had been so unreliable.  As businesses look to catch the next generation’s demographics and lower their advertising costs, they’re turning away from printing expensive paper flyers, delivered — day after day — to your door.  They’re going to the Internet faster than Canada Post can replace the lost revenue.  Our post office is slowly softening to death.

Unfortunately, the dinosaurs at the CUPW still think it’s 1965.  They believe in the antagonistic relationship between labour and management.  They don’t understand times have changed.  The downtrodden workers of the 40s and 50s have retired.  Canada Post isn’t a Third World sweatshop and everybody knows it.  After all these years, the CUPW has little or no credibility with regular Canadians.  It’s going to be very difficult for them to convince the public that workers at Canada Post are getting the shaft.  Canada Post isn’t essential anymore, and any job action will be met with indifference, at best.   A strike of any magnitude will irreparably damage Canada Post – the reason the CUPW exists in the first place.  Instead of sticking to their 19th century trade union guns, they should be trying to reinvent themselves for the 21st century.

Personally, I’m upset because I like the post office.  I don’t want to see it go under.  It’s part of what I grew up with.  If I have to read my magazine online, I’ll do it, but I’m old enough (and nostalgic enough) to hate to see a time when Canadians no longer say, “Hey, did we get any mail?”