VIDEO: Harsha Walia talking about black bloc tactics and a respect for diversity of tactics--A Diversity of Tactics - A Diversity of Opinions Panel discussion

Watch the full debate: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/2916

Read the full recap from the Olympics: http://rochester.indymedia.org/newswire/display/25751/index.php

Watch Harsha's comments from the panel: watch her comments from A Diversity of Tactics - A Diversity of Opinions Panel discussion

background:

The Olympics saw no break from the resistance that continued on February 13. Early in the morning, as part of the Anti-Olympics Convergence, members of Coast Salish Katzie First Nation and supporters blocked the Golden Ears Bridge. The Bridge spans the Frazer River between Pitt Meadows and Langley, and is adjacent to Katzie 1 and Katzie 2 Reserves. It is about a half hour drive outside of Vancouver. Construction of the bridge desecrated a 3000 year old burial ground, while it’s massive pilings in the river disrupt currents, and the ability of local Katzie fishers to fish. (video: watch the action)

Later in the morning, demonstrators converged on Thornton Park just after 9:00AM for what was billed as the "2010 Heart Attack" set up to clog the arteries of capitalism with the goal of reaching the intersection of Denman and Georgia, where buses destined for the Whistler venues have to pass. A marching band accompanied marchers, who carried banners, shouted slogans and advanced through the streets of downtown. Overturned newspaper boxes and a dumpster were dragged on to the street as the march passed through, and when the crowd reached Georgia and Hornby, black bloc members busted the windows of Hudson's Bay Company among other corporate sponsors. (videos posted by Stimulator: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5; photos: insurgentphoto) The day's actions were met with harsh violence coming from police, who beat demonstrators in the streets and arrested 13. The Olympics Resistance Network didn’t call the protest, but since 2006 it has organized “on the basis of anti-oppression principles and with a respect for diversity of tactics.”

After the arrests were made, the brutality doled out by the cops, and the crowds dispersed, ORN held a press conference in Pigeon Park in order to counter the spin of the corporate media, VANOC, the police, and city government that demonstrators were the "criminal element".

"I'm glad you brought up the criminal element. The IOC and VANOC is the criminal element, pillaging public coffers, the effects of which we will see long after the Games," with cuts to health care, affordable housing, education and meaningful social services, said Gord Hill of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation.

Later that night, a group of about 25 anti-Olympic protesters were encircled and detained by a much larger group of riot police for several tense minutes while walking quietly and peacefully along the sidewalk. Their destination—the Vancouver jail—to stand vigil for protesters who were arrested. The group was released in less than 10 minutes after being surrounded, with no arrests being made.

Since the 2010 Corporate Heart Attack much has been made in both the corporate and independent press about the age-old argument between property destruction as property destruction or petty vandalism and property destruction as violence within the politically charged context of the anti-Olympic protests—not to mention how the press will eat up broken glass and obscure the rest of the story. The debate started raging when, "David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said he was 'sickened' by images of Black Bloc members smashing windows and tossing newspaper boxes into the streets," according to an article by Steve Mertl.

One of the high points about the protests against the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN was the widespread adoption of the St. Paul Principles as endorsed by a vast spectrum of dissidents with the understanding that a diversity of tactics means that you don't have to like the tactics of others but that affinity groups would try to avoid putting other people at risk who wished not to be and that dissidents wouldn't come out and attack each other for tactics they didn't like. The ORN attempted something similar with its ORN Solidarity and Unity Statement. The outcome, unlike St. Paul, seems less than desirable with a well-known celebrity type like Eby shooting his mouth off.

After Eby's comments went viral, a deluge of dialogue, debate, and condemnation struck the VMC as well as other blogs and news outlets. On February 15, Larry Hildes, an attorney for the National Lawyers Guild explained why he had broken ties with BCCLA (video: watch). The following day, an anonymous communique in defense of the black bloc appeared on the VMC site. Later, Andrew Loewen wrote a response to the communique where he questioned the tactics used by the black bloc.

On the same day and all the way from Toronto, ON, Judy Rebick made her opinion known in her essay titled, "Breaking windows is not a revolutionary act." She tells us that black bloc tactics are counter productive and that, "the 'diversity of tactics' approach does not allow us to debate these issues." I'm sorry Judy, but with all due respect I see a lot of debate going on. But who am I to criticize? Let me jump ahead to February 27 where we can read what Narrative Resistance has to say about Judy's critique. I'll give you a hint—they blow Judy out of the water. Check it, "What Judy Rebick, and many other critics who have had little to do with the anti-Olympic movement, have entirely failed to notice is the fact that the Black Bloc was supported by almost every constituency of the ORN. This show of solidarity was not divisive—it brought us together and has built deep trust between activists who, in the past, have often had very little to say to each other.

"Organizations that were publicly represented include (or had individual members present and unmasked): No One Is Illegal, the Council of Canadians, PETA, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), StopWar.ca, Gatewaysucks, the Vancouver Anti-Poverty Committee, Food Not Bombs, and many more. None of those organizations have denounced the actions of the Black Bloc that day. And they can’t, because their members know that on that day, they were there to support the Black Bloc. Anyone who says that they didn’t know what was going to happen is lying. There were 200 people in black with masks on, and 'Riot 2010' has been a rallying call for the movement for more than two years now. Everyone knew what was going to happen, and they all marched anyway.

"For Judy Rebick to claim that the Black Bloc had 'come into the middle of a demonstration with black face masks [to] break up whatever takes their fancy when the vast majority of people involved don’t want them to,' is either dishonest, or a sign that she has stopped paying attention to what actually happens on the ground. The Black Bloc is not dividing the movement—people with aspirations for mainstream acceptance who distance themselves from other activists are.

"Judy Rebick is going to have to decide whether she wants to be a celebrity, acceptable to the CBC and their mainstream audience, or work on the ground with people who are fed up with capitalism, with colonialism, and also with the paralyzing cult of non-violence. It is time to realize that there are people who are ready to fight back, and that it is time to support them."