Palestine Solidarity Protests Go on Against Wind and Rain in Victoria

Even the stormy weather warnings did not deter hundreds from rallying at the Legislature for the ninth consecutive week. The political storm that sustains this drive will not be easy to dispel.

Over three hundred Palestine supporters braved the elements to rally at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in Victoria for a ninth consecutive weekend, vowing to continue until their demands for a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for its people are met, as elusive as they seem after 75 years of apartheid and two months into a genocide campaign.

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Indeed, when the organisers decided to change the date from Sunday to Saturday, they couldn’t have predicted it would coincide with an Environment Canada wind alert, while the rain turned out to be even worse. Even then, turnout was slightly higher than last Sunday, and the word is that the weekday change is somehow convenient for many. If only the weather had been more clement.

Hundreds came in spite of the weather. Their mood was just as spiteful.

Rain? What rain? It never rains in Victoria.

While the organisers wished for a peaceful rally, especially in the aftermath of the attempted rundown by a hostile last weekend, the mood among the crowd and speakers alike was quite different. Naturally yesterday’s isolated veto by the US of the Article 99 motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UN’s Security Council was found to be particularly objectionable, further eroding the public’s trust in domestic and international institutions alike. One speech after another would drive the point that the West had become the actual battleground deciding the outcome of a crisis unfolding thousands of kilometres abroad.

Most of the pictures I took today were blurry because of the rain and poor light. I need a better camera.

One defining moment was then a Fightback—indeed the communist group—member took the mic to openly sell its agenda to the crowd, and while I don’t endorse it I find myself obligated to discuss it. Of all speeches this one had the most overt revolutionary tone, in contrast with the first event’s addresses by fellow leftists which instead stayed on message. And whereas this blunt a message would have initially gotten frowns, this time there was a genuine appetite among the attendance for indefinite escalation going all the way to a populist revolution, the insurrectionist imperative having grown beyond mere connotation.

The organisers were reduced to borrowing Fightback’s tent to protect the electrical apparatus from the rain. They could hardly have been denied the mic this time…

Let’s thank the organisers and increasingly many volunteers who answer the call every weekend, especially in such inclement settings. Each of these rallies is hard work.

Just try holding that banner for an hour. It’s more strenuous than it looks, especially when it’s this cold.

What other cause would keep people’s attention one hour into speeches under pouring rain and cold gusts of wind? By the way, please thank me profusely for holding my camera (tentatively) still all that time recording those speeches while soaked and frozen to the bone, I deserve them even more so than usual. You’re very welcome.

Indeed in the midst of so many social crises worldwide the brazen genocide in Gaza has become a detonator for organising forces hungry for institutional changes, as if the Operation Solidarity of the eighties here in BC met with the US’ antiwar movement of the sixties and seventies in a tectonic collide. I dare not predict whether this is for better or worse. While revolution can bring down failed institutions beyond any remedy, it also always brings about calamity, especially when it fails to learn from the derives of the past. I looked at fellow protesters today, wondering more than usual how many of these I might rally against in the distant future. We ride together in support of the Palestinian people, for now, although fractures may appear down the road just like for Operation Solidarity which historically left many bitter in its aftermath, while the fight may drag on as long as the protests against the Vietnam War did—and the aftertaste linger even longer.