Archives for September 2002

has been the demo at Concordia University. Several hundred students managed to succeed at preventing Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking in the downtown Hall Building, just down the street from my old office on Bishop St. I’ve had a dozen thoughts flowing through my brain on this but nothing that stuck and formed a coherent post. As usual, MJ Milloy has the story, so go over there and find out more, including some interesting opinion.

My thoughts run along these lines:

• Concordia leadership was insane to invite a former Israeli PM at this time of year. It shouldn’t matter but it does.
• The demonstrators seem to have a failing grasp of their mission, and of basic justice and freedom in a democratic society. Whatever you think of Netanyahu, two things are true – he was only going to speak, and other speakers on other sides of this issue have been welcomed to Concordia in the past, including Noam Chomsky and many others.
• It’s almost certainly true that the cops caused things to move from a simple demo to a riot. I have been in many demos, and some riots, and it is clear to me that the cops are always responsible for escalating things.