Interviews and Reflections from Anit-2010 Olympic/G-20 organizers

From resistance to the 2010 olympic resistance to the actions that spilled out around this summers G-20 protests numerous reflections have surfaced. Many questions have arisen from these events. Throughout the following accounts numerous subjects are covered from explainations for diversity of tactics to the repression that has filled the lives of those that participated in these events.
These links are offered as a starting place for those new too these events and subjects covered, as well as another place of reference for those in the thick-of-it. We recognize that some  of these links hold an obvious perspective that could be perceived as appropriative or just plain contradictory to the liberation that many of us fight together hand-in-hand for.

We hope you enjoy swimmin through these links. There are many to pour over!

Interview with Anti-colonial Organizer Guillaume Beaulieu

Interview with Guillaume Beaulieu

The above link is for an audio interview anti-colonial organizer Guillaume Beaulieu. He speaks on their work around the 2010 winter olympics with the Olympic resistance network. The interview also focuses on the Canadian governments use of repression in response to resistance to the 2010 winter olympics.

Interview From the Vancouver Media Co-op

Reflections on Black Blocs and Warrior Societies

This next piece from Wilhelm Friedrich takes a jab at the parallels between the tactic of Black blocs and  the community based groups of Warrior Societies. While the very action of this comes across as colonial in nature, many good points do evolve from this piece.

On Black Blocs and Warrior Societies

No Repression Without Response!

Report from Vancouver March in Solidarity with G20 Arrestees

Continuing with articles from the Vancouver Media Co-op,  Annie Elations’ article recounts a Toronto g-20 solidarity demo that challengers her readers to recognize the sometime not-so-obvious fact that many of the hidden faces behind masks are the same ones working openly within our communities of resistance.

From No Repression Without Response!
…”many people are arguing that you cannot separate the militants from the community builders.”

G20 Policing, Political Targeting, and Anarchy

This last article AW@L Statement on Targeted Policing at the Toronto G20 Convergence and the Continued Criminalization of Community Organizations, is one of the most recent articles to recount the continuing repression that has followed the most recent G-20 protests.

One of the articles focuses titled  Shades of Fascism analyzes the daily exposure to police violence that many communities face daily.

From the text:

“…Police violence is resisted daily by poor and migrant communities and all Indigenous Nations of Turtle Island, including on the illegally occupied Grand River territory of the Haudenosaunee People, where this statement has been created. Police repression of culture or political dissent is also found in racially profiled areas of North American cities and states, it is found in Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Afghanistan, Palestine, and other targets of the neo-colonial ravages of neoliberal economies. This is the political function of the police; they maintain the power imbalances that have defined our colonial society for its settlers over its entire history. The G20 summit’s policing merely brought this reality to those whose privilege normally shields them from such targeting, and directed massive efforts against politically involved youth. Between the daily illegal actions of the police and their equally unreasonable actions at the G20, we can see what the police are actually protecting, and the violence they require to do so. We refuse to accept this violence as inevitable throughout our lives. We must challenge the assumptions and circumstances that create and sustain such a system. One of these assumptions is that the police need the latest weapons and the most expensive and high tech equipment. While we cannot take back all the new population control training the local, provincial, and federal police forces received in the lead-up to the G20 or the other militarized mega-event of the year–the olympics–we can demand a return of their new weaponry and a complete disarming of all police who took part in the brutality of the of the G20, and those who enable these illegal acts through not speaking out when their conscience pleaded to do so. To counter an increasing level of militarization of the police and our streets, we can unite to refuse their culture of fear.”

The article also dives into how the diversity of tactics debate:

The demonstrations against the G20 summit embraced a diversity of tactics. A wide spectrum of tactics and approaches were represented; what was shown and conveyed through corporate media is both limited and polarised. Corporate media portrayals have tried to equate a diversity of tactics with militancy—this is a blatant misrepresentation and misunderstanding. The word “diversity” itself should make clear that a plurality of approaches can be applied side by side and accommodated. A diversity of tactics makes space for militancy, and for pacifism, and for everything in between and beside. It allows people to respond to injustices as is necessary; affected communities can decide what an appropriate response is. All chosen tactics are political actions if performed as such, and all actions undertaken around the G20 were undertaken in such a political context. Refer to AW@L’s statement on Diversity of tactics for a deeper analysis of this topic.