Day 4 – Missing Women’s Memorial March
Broken World, Broken Hearts, But Maybe a Little Mending Today Too
In what seemed almost an affront, the sun came out on this Valentine's Day in the Unceded Coastal Salish Territory, after several rainy days of Olympic protests. February 14 was an intentional time out from the "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" convergence, in order to stand in solidarity with the nineteenth annual Missing Women's Memorial March. Gray skies almost seemed more fitting for all the sorrow on the streets today. And as if on cue at the march's start, as some 5,000 people created an opening for, first, indigenous drummers and then the many families of those 500 or so mostly indigenous women murdered across Canada over the past few decades (many of them here in East Vancouver), a big cloud settled directly overhead. As if the skies, too, were about to spill tears.
Yet again, I was struck--as an anarchist from the United States--by how different this was from what I would likely experience at home if there were a similar event: most anarchists wouldn't have attended during the "excitement" of a mobilization. Here, though, the anarchist (and other) organizers against the Olympics had agreed not to do anything on this Sunday, pausing a day before starting up again tomorrow with a tent city action. More than that, the anarchist organizers and nearly every anarchist who had participated in either the Olympic torch relay disruption three days ago, the Take Back Our City march and its black bloc two days ago, and especially the autonomous, more militant Heart Attack direct action of yesterday joined this commemoration, and mostly not in black. All respected the boundaries and mood of this memorial. Many of the anarchists, too, were crying. It was hard not to.
This isn't to romanticize "Canadian" anarchists; indeed, a couple of my anarchist friends here chided me for being too kind to the Heart Attack action's black bloc in my blog post yesterday. Certainly, it shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary that we, as anarchists, would want to join in such a procession for a couple hours, and would want to listen to the stories of families who've lost a sister or dozens of friends to a murder (murders that in Canada, disproportionately target indigenous women), then share a meal at a local hall. Yet from a U.S. perspective, where anarchists all too frequently seem to eschew anything that isn't explicitly radical or, in particular, action-packed--especially when it falls within something like this Olympics convergence--it felt extraordinary today.
It also felt extraordinarily sad--sad that we, anarchists, don't do this more often, but sad to witness all the sorrow on the streets.
A Canadian friend remarked that this was the largest such gathering for this yearly memorial that they'd seen, precisely because so many folks were also in town to contest the Olympics and had decided to join the march. It was also the largest and perhaps most diverse gathering of people over the past few days. As I watched person after person walk by at the opening to the procession, for perhaps a half hour, to the solemn beat of drums and an indigenous chant, knowing that each person had lost a woman they loved, it struck me that this mass gathering--of anarchists, peace and justice activists, ecologists, No One Is Illegal, indigenous, and/or community organizers, homeless people, women's activists, and so forth, and just many many people from this neighborhood and city--was both so powerful and so powerless. On one side of Vancouver, mostly rich people sitting in expensive seats to watch speed skating; on this side of Vancouver, thousands of people who desire a humane and egalitarian world, a world where everyone is safe and cared for. Where we care for each other.
Yet that isn't the world we inhabit. As much as we fight and resist, as much as some days it feels like we are eeking out wins, reclaiming our lives, today it felt less possible and yet all more necessary.
On some days in the United States, when anarchists turn up their noses at joining people who aren't anarchists, but who are suffering and struggling and equally eager for freedom, it feels embarassing to be an anarchist. Today, after three days of anarchists acting in ways that, while still imperfect, reminded me of the potential of an anarchism that truly embodies solidarity, strategic thinking, and mutual aid, it felt good to be part of that tradition. It felt wonderful to be among anarchists willing to walk with others, share in their pain and attempt to overcome pain--and cry with others.
Tonight, reflecting on it all, it now feels more possible than ever that we might win, if this is the way we move forward--not as a separate bloc of people in black (even though that works well on occasion) but as people who, as the indigenous women leading today's procession noted, understand each and every one of us as sharing in one humanity. A humanity not only crying out for justice, dignity, and freedom but doing it in increasingly sensitive ways (and on this Valentine's Day, in rather loving ways too).
Tomorrow we leave this occupied territory to head back to our own, and hopefully a more thought-out analysis of anarchists during this Olympic convergence will follow in the coming week. In the meantime, feel free to share all the "Beneath the Snow" images, videos, and words with others.