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Title: Thin Ice, Deep Water Author: Ron Sakolsky Date: Fall 2011 Language: en Topics: anarchism, british columbia, anarchy, riot, riotting, protest Source: https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/385-fall-2011/thin-ice-deep-water Notes: Fifth Estate #385, Fall, 2011
The surging waters of the collective unconscious that were unleashed in
the Vancouver “Hockey” Riot of June 2011 made it abundantly clear just
how fragile the artificial ice age of industrial civilization can be
when it comes in contact with the searing heat of the moment.
Faced with the nagging miserabilism of daily life, the emotional dam of
mutual acquiescence finally burst its walls and a tidal wave of
repressed desire obliterated the illusion of social peace.
In the aftermath of the riot, the scolding voices of authority were
quick to blame it on the usual suspects--hooligans (originally a
derogatory term referring to working class Irish immigrants whose
behavior was perceived by their “social betters “ to be rowdy and
immoral) and nefarious anarchist conspirators opportunistically using
the cover of the crowd to start a riot.
Under the respectable cloak of being “upstanding citizens”, these
accusing politicians and their housetrained media pundits
self-righteously and incessantly brayed that the culprits must now be
caught and locked in the penalty box. While these local notables were
wrong in their assumption that specific anarchist troublemakers
singlehandedly fomented the riot, perhaps it is more to the point to say
that the seductive lure of anarchy wafting on the summer breeze that
night was somehow intrinsically at the heart of the matter.
When presented with a readymade downtown stage complete with the
promising possibility of unrestrained libidinal play, an unruly horde of
150,000 people gathered at the end of the Stanley Cup hockey finals to
act out their suppressed fantasies of liberation, each in his or her own
way. For some this simply involved a crude derangement of the senses in
alcoholic euphoria or the drunkards claim to a free pass for loutish
behavior. For others, it took the form of an exhilarating looting spree
which shattered the icy veneer that coats the glass house of
business-as-usual.
In the ever popular game of shopping without money, looters blithely
boosted whatever struck their fancy, and, according to one firsthand
account, even shared their illegal gains in a spontaneous potlatch of
destruction and redistribution. The glittering baubles of imperial
capitalism that had earlier been on display in the now smashed windows
of the Hudson’s Bay Company department store were hijacked like fruits
ripe for the picking. The gang of police assigned to stickhandle the
imposition of a state of emergency were quickly washed away in the
rushing flood waters, as were the 10 cop cars overturned like beached
crabs foundering helplessly in the light of the full moon.
In a country where Queen Elizabeth’s picture is still emblazoned on the
coin of the realm as if Canada were a perpetual colony, the only royalty
present amidst the shattered plate-glass that night were the bold
outlaws that constituted King Mob.
The journalists who covered the story might as well have been embedded
(in bed) with the cops as they rushed to condemn the riots, shame the
rioters and urge now repentant looters, along with cell phone
picture-snapping bystanders and social media obsessives alike, to inform
on their friends (Facebook and otherwise), neighbors and family members.
They even went so far as to label those who took the side of the cops in
their martial defense of the state and private property as “Good
Samaritans,” as if obedience to law and order was an act of brotherly
love. While the media talking heads wrung their hands in moral panic at
the specter of barbarians storming the gates of consensus reality and
incredulously scratched their collective heads, they wondered aloud just
how this could have happened in the province that the British Columbian
tourist industry arrogantly has branded “the best place on earth.”
Not once in their fervent efforts at personal vilification, blanket
criminalization and attempted recuperation did they ever explain the
festive appeal of a riot which entails an overflowing of the ramparts of
bourgeois morality that mirrors the appeal of the transgressive
physicality evident in the game of hockey itself but without the
trappings of a national religion that have allowed the sport to be
linked by broadcasters and politicians alike to the patriotic frenzy
surrounding the 2010 Vancouver Olympics or the Canadian role in the
Afghanistan war.
Nor did they show any understanding of the attraction underlying the
realization of a temporary pirate utopia by occupying streets usually
reserved for corporate commerce or of the legendary hobo dreamsong of
the “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” an unmapped nowhere that includes, among
its many pleasures, “lemonade springs,” “cigarette trees,” and “whiskey
streams,” all there for the taking in a veritable Land of Cockaigne
paradise where “the cops all have wooden legs.”
During the face off to the riot, as imagination increasingly took power,
the frozen automaton smiles of everyday alienation began to thaw and
gave way to wild and delirious roars of rebellion. As the ice was melted
by the blowtorch kiss of anarchy, the raging river beneath the surface
relentlessly churned its way upwards with a rollicking defiance that
brooked no timeout in carving its ludic passage to freedom.
The only remaining question left for anarchists to ponder is why there
isn’t a riot every day!