Thursday 16 June 2011

The Latest Hockey Riot

Excellent analysis of the riot in Vancouver.

Booze-fueled, consumerist über-nationalism.

I did receive this incisive bit of analysis from Dru Oja Day, an editor at the Media Co-op. “If you ask people to pour all of their emotions and anger into a game, then a major event (Montrealers have rioted after first round game 7 wins!) is going to occasion some outbursts. Hockey commentators like Hockey Nights’ Don Cherry are constantly associating hockey with the troops overseas (he went to Afghanistan and fired a live shell, for chrissakes) and promote fighting and big open ice hits. We shouldn’t be surprised.”
. . .

As one of those real heroes, Harsha Walla said to me, "There is a sense that people rioted over a 'stupid apolitical hockey game'. While I too wish people were motivated by social justice issues, the hockey game is NOT apolitical by any means. The riots were a fundamentalist defense of a type of nationalism, most evident in the beatings and stabbings of Bruins fans in Vancouver last night. NHL hockey is not simply a game, it is representative of obedience to consumerism and is part of the state's attempt to forge a false identity - despite vast differences and inequalities across race, class, and gender, through the spectacle of sport."

The state does reap what the state sows. We should remember that as the hand-wringing by police and government officials commences in earnest.

The piece also points out that bystanders were safer at an idiotic hockey riot than at the G8/G20 protests last summer.

Do NOT help identify the idiots. Soon -- very soon -- it will be you and me the cops will ask for help in identifying.

2 comments:

Dark Daughta said...

Oh they have already been asking and seeking. We're already in that time and definitely were last summer post g-8/g-20.

Anonymous said...

The majority of the rioters last night had invited friends to join them for "a riot" not a hockey game. Their intent was to riot and loot and burn cars {one was taken there just to burn by the rioters}. This was planned violence for the sake of violence.

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