Vancouver: Report Back from Anti-Alt-Right Demo

From Vancouver Antifa

On Saturday December 17th 2016, roughly 30-40 demonstrators converged in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at Pigeon Park, the site of the recently erected Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women Survivor’s Totem Pole. The UBC Free Speech Club, a group of avowed alt-right, had gathered at ‘The Blarney Stone’ pub down the street. This Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Action was held to counter the UBC’s Free Speech Club’s “celebration of a successful first semester.” There was not a single uniformed police officer throughout the event.

In the days leading up to Saturday, some folks approached the General Manager, Brian Gobeil, to maintain dialogue. Initially we were told by Brian that he doesn’t want any trouble here (at the pub) and that he will be getting security to bar the club (members) at the door. What changed in 3 days, we do not know. Mid-day of the demo, Gobeil bluntly informed us that they will be allowed in unless they are wearing swastika’s, and that undercover police will be stationed outside “to keep the protesters out.”

About a dozen UBCFS Club and Canadian Defence Alliance members made their way over to Pigeon Park from the Pub at 6:30pm, as they had planned online beforehand, to beleaguer demonstrators with racist jeers.

Chris Pollard, a disgusting creature who formed the Canadian Defence Alliance and is a self proclaimed white supremacist, has declared the CDA’s support for the Free Speech Club. He also pleaded publicly on the Facebook wall of the Soldiers of Odin for their assistance. He informed the Free Speech Club that the Soldiers of Odin would be present at the demo, but soon-thereafter deleted his post.

Jackson Kyle Williams, a Vancouver House DJ and a White Nationalist from the CDA, was also present. His disc-jockey name is Jackson Vangroover.

According to Daniel Gallant, a former White Supremacist – now lawyer, says that The Blarney Stone is a historic meeting point for boneheads/white supremacist groups since the early 90’s, with meet-ups commonly referred to as “skinbins”. While it is not surprising that the pub allowed the UBCFS Club and the CDA to hold their space, it is however disappointing as they let the DTES community down by facilitating racists (with patches declaring “Proud Islamophobe”) amongst our midsts. Ultimately, the Soldiers of Odin were not present in their cut although one sketchbag that resembled one crew member was hanging on a corner throughout the demo.

It wasn’t long before we were confronted by the racists. Noticeably one of the lead organisers, Cooper Asp of the UBCFS Club, threw a sieg heil before crossing the street to antagonise us along with someone that looked they’re with the CDA. Of course, we told the Nazi Scum to fuck off. It is also telling that he had to resort to homophobic epithets to galvanise his fellows to cross the street, yelling “Come on Fa***ts!”

When confronted by our comrades and later by a Tsimshian/Gitxsan Elder about Cooper’s blatant and conspicuous nazi gesture, Cooper retorted to spewing anti-indigenous rhetoric such as “I love colonialism”, “this is Occupied land”, “Save me from White Man” and “this is Canadian land.” Cooper also pointedly told the Elder “[Residential] Schools would be good for you.”

The UBC Free Speech Club are practised racists and misogynists. They suggested that real bullets should be used against the Standing Rock #noDAPL protestors, and the president wanted them to be killed. Apart from their strange personality cult and adamant support around Donald Trump, they gleefully erected a giant male symbol atop the engineering cairn steps away and a day before the anniversary memorial of the 1989 Montreal Massacre. At the Ecole Polytechnic, 14 female engineering students were segregated from the male students and shot by a blatant misogynist.

Transcript from a video report put on by UBC journalism student Brandon Rosario of what the Free Speech Club President, Louis Jung, had to say about this stunt:

-Camera: A couple of weeks ago you did something at the Engineering cairn where you guys put a male symbol on top of it…
-Jung: Ok, we put a sign up there for, like, it was there for like an hour. And then it got taken down, so. We put it there, we put it up there thinking, oh shit, it’s gonna be cool putting a big male symbol on top of the cairn. I thought it was gonna be, you know, like ummmmmm… I dunno, I dunno what was the reasoning behind that. Out of the spur of the moment I thought it was cool.
-Camera: A lot of people found it insensitive because it happened in the same week that those women [at Ecole Polytechnique] got murdered–those women got murdered.
-Jung: Who the f–no, nobody would know that kind of niche shit, you know what I mean? Like, who knows that?

Gatherings like these demonstrate the alt-right’s attempts to normalise hate speech. They revel in controversy, white-washing their hatred as being offensive or controversial for controversy’s sake. People online in the UBCFS Club Discussions facebook group were disappointed that there wasn’t a brawl and claimed that antifa are easy to deal with. Their colonial, genocidal apologia, reverence to nazi symbology, and dangerous brand of islamophobia betrays this rehashed, modern manifestation of fascism toted by clean shaven college kids, versus yesteryear’s boneheads. Their naked attempts to escape rebuke and condemnation for hate speech are part and parcel of their endeavour to escape the law of causality. It’s very simple. For the Alt-Right; For Racist Skinheads; For Islamophobes; For Colonial Apologists; For White Supremacists; For Misogynists: Talk Shit, Get Hit.