All Quiet on Protest Front for Paralympics
 
Dharm Makwana
 
24 Hours Vancouver 5:225 (4 March 2010) 4
 
 
Picketing the Paralympics isn't on the agenda of one prominent Olympic
protester.
 
Chris Shaw, a member of the Olympic Resistance Network, said he doesn't plan to
protest the Paralympics, nor has he heard of anyone else aiming to do so.
 
"The reason I wouldn't go out there because it's just not the same
organization," Shaw said of structural differences between the Olympic and
Paralympic Games.
 
"This is really about more of the community and competition for its own sake
rather than the same kind of stuff we saw last week, when we saw frenzied
jumping-up-and-down fits as Canada wins gold."
 
Paralympics don't bring with them the same commercialization as the heavily
sponsored Olympics, Shaw added.
 
"It's apples and oranges, they're all in the same basket of fruit, but they're
different things entirely, at least from my perspective," the UBC professor
explained.
 
Shaw plans to remain busy in the anti-Olympic movement and would share lessons
learned from the Vancouver spectacle with other activists in future host cities
such as London, England, and Sochi, Russia.
 
"The Sochi opposition, if there is one, is going to need a lot of help because
they're up against a very much more oppressive state apparatus," he said.
 
"You don't take protests lightly in Russia."

Dharm Makwana