Morning, June 15, 2011:
Vancouver police say they don’t expect a repeat of ’94
.
Evening, June 15, 2011:
[Tijana Martin Photography here.]
Bad chemistry: alcohol, testosterone, disappointment and expectation.
It’s the latter element that I think is now the problem – the expectation that any similar kind of event is going to result in a similar outcome. Enough young men were already primed for a repeat of ’94 that all it needed was a spark, in part provided by the anarchists who wanted a second chance, if not revenge, for the unsuccessful attempt to provoke a riot during the Olympics.
But caution: you need all the elements – including the loss, the disappointment, that creates the void into which the stupid, the drunk and the hooligan are able to enter. Not the situation with the fireworks or Olympics or victory celebrations, where the spark doesn’t have enough kindling.
But now, unfortunately, we’ve had a couple of times to play it out, and the ‘Stanley Cup Riot’ is probably established as a kind of tradition, an expectation, that enough of each generation will anticipate, whether they condone it or not. They’ll be there, photographing, texting, participating with whatever the technology allows.
Stanley Cup Riot II is going to make future planning for downtown assemblies much more problematic, and much more expensive in every sense.
i was wondering what your response would be.
very well said
I was so disappointed to see this happen again, having remembered the riots in 1994. (And wasn’t there mayhem after a canceled Guns n’ Roses concert, too?) It’s always a handful of knuckleheads that spoil it for all. Vancouverites are better than this, overall.
True, well-observed, and sad. I am really feeling for Gregor and the rest of our city leaders today. Human psychology is complex – overidentification and duality are the essential problems.
My only objection to your post is that the masked vandals are no more “anarchists” than they are “protestors”. There are many clear-thinking, non-violent anarchists in our city. The people you are referring to are simply angry adolescents (of all ages).
I like to think that the spontaneous gathering of folks who are going downtown this morning to help in the clean-up is much more representative of our city than the idiots who caused the problems last night. Bravo to our citizens for responding this way.
Three points:
1- This sad turn should be enough fodder to ensure that any fun event in public space will demand a heavy police presence for the next 15 years. Don’t like the police tearing up the beaches on their quads? Well, remember what happened in 2011… This has given the police an unfortunately convincing reason to continue gobbling up the city’s budget.
2- This is hindsight, of course, but it might have been fruitful to stage some concerts, street hockey, or other entertainment pre- and post-game; giving people something legitimate to do after the match, rather than simply saying, well, that’s that, we lost, now go home. This might have helped to spread the crowd out a bit and introduce a bit more celebratory and constructive energy into things. Likewise, the success of the Olympics (though I shudder to think what would’ve come had we lost that game…) was in part due to the diversity of entertainment on offer, and the broader demographics in the street.
3- Hopefully this gets full coverage in the Economist, and other arbiters of the global economy and the world’s elite decide that the housing market here isn’t all its cracked up to be…
Let’s not use this as an excuse to have an overbearing police presence at every single event from here on out. This does not make other people guilty by association just for living in Vancouver, and it is not an excuse for police to break the law themselves and make arrests without reason. It certainly has nothing to do with police on quads on the beaches.
I agree with Carmen above: To conflate “anarchist” with “buffoon” is to do a grave disservice to the former. Anarchism is a political philosophy usually arrived at after serious deliberation and study. It is not identifiable by a face mask or a black hoodie. Any attempt to blame last night’s events on “anarchists” is premature. Besides, most of the anarchists I’ve met aren’t too interested in hockey.
More importantly, most anarchists (unlike last night’s crowd) see protest as a vehicle for social transformation—usually along lines of anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-colonialism, direct democracy, and social justice.
We should heed the message printed in today’s Guardian: “There is a vast difference between gathering in such numbers to protest something deemed politically unacceptable and burning cars after the loss of a hockey game.”
I think you’re right. There was a big difference, I understand, not having been at either riot, between the two events: In 1994, the violence erupted much after the game, after police had already tried to break up a largely celebratory crowd and I understand antagonized a lot of people. Here, the fires were already lit by the time the buzzer rang. It was just expected. So much so that the 94 riots were all people wanted to talk about leading up to the game.
I find it so strange that with everyone going on in the world, hockey is the only thing here that drives people to riot. Either way, I’m happy to see people going downtown to help clean up.
Gordon – what a disappointment to read your off-the-cuff words –
“… all it needed was a spark, in part provided by the anarchists who wanted a second chance, if not revenge, for the unsuccessful attempt to provoke a riot during the Olympics.”
I agree with Carmen and Jake above.
If “anarchists” are going to protest, it’s “for” or “against” something and they use various tactics, including property vandalism, to get the message out. Do you think last night was revenge for an unsuccessful attempt during the Olympics…really? In my opinion, the Olympic protests were very successful in getting out the message. What a waste of time for “anarchists” to co-opt a hockey game!
What we saw last night was the mob mentality of a lot of mindless idiots looking for some sort of experience or reaction. And they got it.
I also would agree with this. Those blaming this on a few bad apples or thugs or anarchists have it all wrong; there were thousands of people participating and most if not all were wearing hockey jerseys, and had no political purpose whatsoever to their actions.
The main source of the problems seemed to be 1500km mobile presto logs as well as various items on the street that could be picked up and thrown to break windows including newspaper boxes, barricades and fencing. The burning cars seemed to be a real focus of the problems and gave people a “reason” to hang around. Remove these items, especially the parked cars and the damage would have been much less.
The 1994 report even recommended having a no parking zone. I was also kinda surprised that the police cars didn’t seem to have locks on the gas tanks and that the police parked them anywhere near downtown.
It would be great to get rid of the newspaper boxes anyway, they are really ugly. Granville and other streets that are closed often should have automated bollards that can be used to block off the street. They look much better than the barricades, provide more protection to pedestrians and can’t be thrown at windows.
Finally, there should be protection for windows. In many cities, most if not all shops have coverings that can be pulled down over windows. That seems like overkill for Vancouver. Perhaps painted sheets of plywood would be fine for the few times window protection is needed.
No worry folk: outside Canada, if not Vancouver, nobody buy the “out of town anarchist” story telling aired by Vancouver and Province spin’s doctor.
for French media at least, the riot is clearly associated with the Hockey fans, and there is more than enough footage to support this assertion.
They could be the spoil brat breed of the Hockey fans specie as mentioned by Carmen Mills, but clearly it is the result of ala Don Cherry Hockey culture in Canada: after a Stanley cup, Hockey fans torn down the city…then put the blame on some leftist …a total nonsense…but that has become the tradition in Canada…
and Canada starts to be known for that!
To be sure riot is not specific to Hockey, but the kind of riot witnessed in Vancouver yesterday is specific to sport event. It was an interesting article on it
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-11-01-riot_x.htm
PS: And obviously, when you check the background of the rioters like the one who has burned out the police cars yesterday night in Vancouver, allegedly Nathan Kotylak (http://publicshamingeternus.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/nathan-kotylak-water-polo-all-star-lighting-police-car/ ) , you will find clearly that the “anarchist” thesis hold little water.
Gordon, it would be really interesting to hear about Council’s deliberations after the 94 riot and how you think they’ll act on it this time. A future column perhaps?