Activists Take to the Streets of Victoria in Desperate Bid to Save Rafah

Where were you when bombs rained on Rafah? I was with hundreds of fellow protesters occupying the streets.

About 275 protesters occupied intersections across the city of Victoria to ratchet up the pressure on our government, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as the Israel Defence Forces assail the city of Rafah, last refuge of 1.5 million Palestinian refugees.

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Turning on Wharf Street. Tonight we were furious. We will never forgive colonial powers for this.

On our way back to the Legislature. VicPD was trailing us closely.

My camera is useless at night. Most pictures were too fuzzy or blurry for publication, and the rest are terrible, sorry about that. At least I could salvage some still frames from videos…

Palestinians in Gaza are being rounded up for execution.

Because 40 cm lettering wasn’t enough. The banners are now taller than I am.

Emergency rallies across the world had been called in response on this very day, including two in Vancouver. The matter was so grave that it could not wait until the next weekend rally; action had to be taken immediately, and it had to be more radical than protests which so far have been either ignored or repressed.

Here’s one of many emergency rallies for Rafah all across the world, this one in Vancouver.

The biggest lie adults tell their children is that parents know best and children will all understand as they grow up. Many of these children won’t even live to realise the full extent of humanity’s folly.

The action was only called at about ten in the morning, merely eight hours ahead of time. I expected a mere hundred to show up on such short notice; instead most of the usual weekend protesters did, and quite a few brought a friend with them.

The original poster. Nothing on it about an unsanctioned march throughout the city, occupying intersections, or shouting hostile slogans at VicPD.

The announcement only called for a rally at the Legislature, and no one outside the organisers’ closest circle knew about an unsanctioned march. I am in touch with the organisers, and I knew nothing until the last moment. Obviously the cops were caught completely by surprise, and although they mobilised quickly they simply couldn’t muster the numbers to round us up.

Taking our message to the streets. The glare looks just like Joe Biden’s evil red eyes.

See? I’m not making this up. Reality is a dystopian black humour comedy show beyond the reach of the worst cynic.

The procession started on Government Street, heading for the intersection with Wharf and Humboldt, where it formed a perimeter and stood its ground. An organiser spoke of his pain, despair, and outrage that our calls had remained unheard over the course of eighteen weeks. He screamed, rather than spoke, of his angst knowing his people were making their last stand, cornered at the border with Egypt, which obviously will not allow over a million refugees onto its soil.

“How can we sit back and do nothing? How can we sit back at home and pretend we’re living normal lives? What is a normal life as some people are being bombed to death? Bombed to bits every single day?”

We then turned onto Wharf, and halted again at the entrance to the Johnson Street Bridge. VicPD set up a cordon and warned the organisers not to cross it lest they faced arrest. They were content to occupy the intersection for a few minutes, however, with more speeches condemning the government’s complicity. The emcee even denounced VicPD’s reaction, calling it an attempt at muzzling the crowd in response to the people exercising its sacrosanct right to protest.

Cops holding the line at the entrance to the Johnson Street Bridge, watching us impotently. If they couldn’t round us up last May at the corner of Government and Belleville when we were merely 75, holding long enough to paint a circle on the pavement, in broad daylight, what could they have done tonight, when we were 275, and constantly on the move?

We didn’t have much of an audience, but for the cops. The message was for them.

“Nobody invited the police tonight.” Well, that’s why you shouldn’t be friendly with them to begin with, in anticipation of this…

While the organisers had announced they would lead the march back to the Legislature via Government Street, it was only a feint, instead keeping to Johnson Street until Douglas Street which is far more crowded. We would stop at that intersection, then at Fort, then again at Humboldt. Speakers kept hammering the message others had been rehearsing at the weekend rallies. One spoke of the role of dehumanisation in genocide, which starts subtly until, decades later, entire peoples are rounded up and reduced to target practice. Another relayed her family’s plight back in Gaza, describing the ordeal one faced under the decades-long Israeli occupation, such as her uncle having once been reduced to playing dead in order to cross checkpoints to a hospital in Rafah in an ambulance.

“Without the support of weapons exported from Canada and other settler states, Israel would not have been able to carry out this genocide, and Canada has blood on its hands!”

We were holding the line too. Let drivers whine for a few minutes behind the wheel, that’s nothing compared to what their indifference is enabling half a world away.

“In order for a group of people to dehumanise another group of people, to the limit that they can dispossess them, kill them, ethnically cleanse them, in the way the Nazi did in Germany, and in the way Israel and the Zionists are doing now in Gaza, in order to do that, they must dehumanise themselves first.”

Her speech sounded just like the book “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families.” We’re watching another Rwanda unfolding in slow motion, this time broadcast as spectacle competing with the Super Bowl.

Our itinerary led us back to the Legislature without incident. No arrests were made, and VicPD did not care at any point to call for the crowd to disperse. Nevertheless, there’s no question that after chanting slogans comparing the cops to the IDF and KKK, the organisers’ relationship with the local police has soured. It remains to be seen how VicPD will adapt its strategy for future weekend protests and sanctioned marches, but tension is certain to rise between the factions.