Just say no to 2010
The 2010 Olympic games are now only a year away, but resistance to these games is spreading across the country.
In Southern Ontario there are already many groups organizing to oppose the Olympics for various different reasons. The most recent group to join the resistance is Southern Ontario Anti-Racist Action (SOARA). SOARA marked the one year countdown to the Olympics by simultaneously dropping large banners reading “No Olympics On Stolen Native Land” from the overpasses over major highways in six different cities, reaching tens of thousands of commuters.
SOARA activists from Guelph, Kitchener, London, Toronto, Hamilton, and Stratford have vowed to now start also targeting systemic racism, especially the continued colonization of indigenous land.
The Indigenous territories, on which colonial British Columbia was built, are lands that have mostly not been ceded, sold, or surrendered. Despite this, and a fraudulent treaty process now underway, the BC government continues to sell, lease and ‘develop' Native land for the benefit of corporations, including mining, logging, oil and gas, ski resorts, and other industries related to the Olympics. The Olympic games are not about sports, but instead are about profit. The official sponsors of this corporate circus are some of the most alleged earth-destroying, human rights abusing monsters that capitalist colonization has spawned. And while these sponsors reap millions from the advertising, thousands of low-income residents of Vancouver loose their homes to gentrification and end up homeless.
Since winning their bid for the Olympic games, the homelessness rate in Vancouver has shot up 150 per cent. Since the 1980s the Olympics have directly caused the displacement of over two million people from their homes. As if making people homeless wasn't bad enough, the city of Vancouver is actually criminalizing the poor by passing new by-laws that make it illegal to beg for money or sleep outside. Cops are already picking homeless people up off the streets downtown and jailing them or sending them to ‘detox ‘ centres'
So while our leaders tell us we're in the worst recession in decades, they are spending billions of our money on these ridiculous projects. The 2010 Olympics will cost $6 billion to host in Vancouver-Whistler and that debt is passed on to us...forever. Another disgusting fact about the 2010 Olympics is that they present it as the ‘greenest olympics ever'. There's already been tens of thousands of trees cut down, mountainsides blasted, and millions of salmon murdered by construction projects close to the Fraser River. The 2010 Olympics is a corporate circus that perpetuates the colonization of indigenous land and destroys the earth.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
In Southern Ontario there are already many groups organizing to oppose the Olympics for various different reasons. The most recent group to join the resistance is Southern Ontario Anti-Racist Action (SOARA). SOARA marked the one year countdown to the Olympics by simultaneously dropping large banners reading “No Olympics On Stolen Native Land” from the overpasses over major highways in six different cities, reaching tens of thousands of commuters.
SOARA activists from Guelph, Kitchener, London, Toronto, Hamilton, and Stratford have vowed to now start also targeting systemic racism, especially the continued colonization of indigenous land.
The Indigenous territories, on which colonial British Columbia was built, are lands that have mostly not been ceded, sold, or surrendered. Despite this, and a fraudulent treaty process now underway, the BC government continues to sell, lease and ‘develop' Native land for the benefit of corporations, including mining, logging, oil and gas, ski resorts, and other industries related to the Olympics. The Olympic games are not about sports, but instead are about profit. The official sponsors of this corporate circus are some of the most alleged earth-destroying, human rights abusing monsters that capitalist colonization has spawned. And while these sponsors reap millions from the advertising, thousands of low-income residents of Vancouver loose their homes to gentrification and end up homeless.
Since winning their bid for the Olympic games, the homelessness rate in Vancouver has shot up 150 per cent. Since the 1980s the Olympics have directly caused the displacement of over two million people from their homes. As if making people homeless wasn't bad enough, the city of Vancouver is actually criminalizing the poor by passing new by-laws that make it illegal to beg for money or sleep outside. Cops are already picking homeless people up off the streets downtown and jailing them or sending them to ‘detox ‘ centres'
So while our leaders tell us we're in the worst recession in decades, they are spending billions of our money on these ridiculous projects. The 2010 Olympics will cost $6 billion to host in Vancouver-Whistler and that debt is passed on to us...forever. Another disgusting fact about the 2010 Olympics is that they present it as the ‘greenest olympics ever'. There's already been tens of thousands of trees cut down, mountainsides blasted, and millions of salmon murdered by construction projects close to the Fraser River. The 2010 Olympics is a corporate circus that perpetuates the colonization of indigenous land and destroys the earth.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
