Kananaskis, Alta., is the site of the G8 summit June 26 and 27, but Ottawa and Calgary are the most likely protest sites. There may be protesters in Ottawa who vandalize, who attack reporters and police officers, or who tear down security barricades.
Peaceful activists are the vast majority. But the group called Take the Capital uses words such as "diversity of tactics," which seem to suggest that they will not condemn violence or vandalism.
The intent is to focus all protest against a common enemy and avoid infighting by challenging each other's tactics. The effect is a permissive atmosphere that could perpetuate violence, and an ambiguity that causes confusion and frustration for Canadians.
Many protesters say that, since government is corrupt and the media biased, they can never trust either. Some have refused to meet with police to discuss avoiding violence.
Some activists think media bias justifies turning a blind eye to fellow protesters who attack television cameras or block reporters from public meetings. Yet the media do not tolerate such behaviour from politicians or police.
If protesters think the capitalist establishment is a lost cause, fine. But the protesters say they speak to, for and with ordinary Canadians. They fail to see the irony in carrying a banner when their fellow protesters have blocked out media camera lenses and blocked traffic. Who will see the banners and signs? Only the police, the politicians and the media. All ordinary Canadians will know is that they can't get to work because the roads are blocked.
The peaceful protesters did not create the violence. But there will be violence at these international trade gatherings until the peaceful protesters stop accepting it.
Canadian activists do not throw rocks in windows every day of the week; large groups of protesters provide a cover to do so. If violent protesters provoke the police, the police may confront the whole crowd, leading to the kind of resentment that resulted from protests here in November and in Quebec City last spring.
Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians, recently issued a statement saying her group does not support violent protest and calling on protesters to be peaceful. This is a step forward. In the same statement, though, she says the Council "understands" the reasons behind the violence.
Canadians are not likely to care about nice distinctions between "condoning" and "understanding" violence, any more than they are likely to understand how pacifists can march next to people with rocks in their hands.
Peaceful activists, including Ms. Barlow and Jeremy Bell of Take the Capital, often deflect criticism of protester violence by pointing out that war and poverty are worse than vandalism. Hypocrisy is not an argument.
There are several events planned in Ottawa during the G8 summit that specifically call on participants to forgo violence. This is good, but it isn't enough. The peaceful protesters must refuse to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with violent ones, in either a literal or metaphorical sense.
In Ottawa, the peaceful protesters should move away from violent protesters, and help clean graffiti and garbage the next day. And in any protest, groups such as the Council of Canadians, unions and the NDP should ostracize all violent protesters, or risk being ostracized themselves.
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