Anti-Olympic Activists Mark the Arrival Of the Torch in Victoria

Last Updated (Monday, 02 November 2009 10:06) Written by NO2010 Saturday, 31 October 2009 00:14

Anti-Olympic Activists Mark the Arrival Of the Torch in Victoria

The Olympic torch relay began today in Victoria. The torch lighting ceremony that took place at the BC Legislature was attended by a few hundred people, many of them classes of primary school children brought down fill in the crowd that took up only a small portion of the lawn. During the 105 days leading up to the Vancouver 2010 games the torch will be carried throughout Canada rallying up support for the Olympic games, and fostering nationalist pride. On day three of the torch's journey it will be paraded through the streets of Port Alberni  on the back of a logging truck to celebrate Canada's long history of profit driven environmental devastation.

Upon the torches' arrival Premier Gordon Campbell was quick to mention the involvement of first nations in the olympic process, a process that has already been boycotted by the groups such as the Native Youth Movement, and criticized widely by native groups across Canada. Campbell spoke of the torch as a symbol of olympic pride, a "golden light" that has no precedent from the ancient greek games and in fact was started as a modern Olympic tradition by the Nazis, in the 1936 summer games. Highlighting this fact, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre has just opened an exhibit profiling Canadas' involvement in the spectacle. 

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