...who travel to a multitudes of protests and are reluctant and secretive about the sources of their funding. You have to wonder how the backgrounds of Henrik, Brad, Paul, Sandra, et al match those of suicide bombers in the middle east? And the OCRAP lackeys contend they have a right to march, confront police, disrupt traffic and trample on the rights of the other 99.07% of the Toronto citizenry.
G20 protesters — The good, the mad and the cuddly
Last Updated: June 25, 2010 6:48pm
Such is the G20 arsenal of Sandra Smith, a 57-year-old protest veteran who spent four days in jail the last time demonstrators and Toronto Police clashed at the infamous Queen’s Park riot 10 years ago.
“No, I’m not scared,” she shrugs on this hot sunny day in Allan Gardens. “I’ve already got myself beat up so I know what it’s about. I was beaten from head to toe and 2 1/2 years later, they dropped the charges against me.”
Anti-poverty activists, gay and women’s rights crusaders, social action warriors, anarchist rabble-rousers — a volatile cocktail of demonstrators gathers in the leafy park to begin their weekend-long demonstrations against the G20.
At the helm is John Clarke, the ever-incendiary leader of OCAP, who is obviously itching for a violent showdown.
But what about these other people?
Estranged from her family, Smith is a sweet, middle-aged woman who has been at the forefront of many a demonstration. She’s especially proud of taking over a Don Jail guardhouse in an unsuccessful bid to get it turned over to the homeless.
“We have to stand up,” she explains. “Why are children going to bed hungry? Why are people homeless? I want things to really change and I want the people to win.”
Well-meaning, she’s your mother earth kind of protester. “I don’t believe in government. I believe in people taking care of each other.”
One of the people she’s trying to take care of is Paul Smith — no relation — who is of the more frightening activist variety.
The 31-year-old part-time landscaper is feeling light-headed in the summer sun and gratefully takes her water bottle.
He’s wearing a white T-shirt that he’s emblazoned with the eye-catching slogan: F--- the G20. Stop New World Order 666.”
He also has a video camera so he can capture the mayhem he’s sure will ensue.
“I’m scared,” he concedes, as his eyes dart nervously at the hundreds of police officers who have encircled the crowd.
“I don’t want the police to treat us like they did (at the G20 summit) in Pittsburgh where riot police were throwing people on the ground. It was all over YouTube.”
Yet he’s determined to challenge the downtown security wall. And why? Because, he explains, G20 leaders are planning a single world government to control us and implant us with computer chips.
“It’s scary stuff and it’s true,” Smith insists.
On a more rational plain nearby, Brad Drake is handing out postcards about a youth group he runs to engage teens in labour issues.
The 43-year-old is a protest veteran, and a labour agitator who helped organize newspaper carriers years ago.
By day, he’s a produce clerk who must depend on the generosity of his parents because he can’t make enough to raise his daughter. “For a working person, that’s wrong,” Drake argues. “I should be able to make a living.”
So he harbours a simmering anger at being shut out of this city’s prosperity — a mestastasizing bitterness that he believes is shared by many demonstrators.
“More and more people are feeling desperate,” he warns. “Pushing it to the next level seems to be their only option. I don’t know how we’re going to avoid confrontation.”
Henrik Vierula knows how — by offering his free hugs.
On a rainbow blanket, the 22-year-old aspiring massage therapist is strumming his guitar and offering cherries and healing love to passersby.
“Rather than throwing themselves at a line of cops, they can just come and hug each other,” explains the Ottawa man, his head wrapped in a blue scarf.
“To protest aggression with aggression is futile in my opinion. I know some people coming here won’t be satisfied until they get their bruises; they’ve bought their gas masks and they won’t be happy unless they get to use them.
“But,” he says with a beatific smile, “I’m not looking for a fight.”
Read Mandel Wednesday through Saturday. michele.mandel@sunmedia.ca or 416-947-2231.
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