By Sam Normand
The environment at St. James Park was that of a party. A gathering of benevolent merrymakers spreading awareness one hit at a time.
People of all walks of life wore signs, capes, climbed trees and pitched tents wherever there was a spare square of grass.
My brother had invited me and two of my friends to come with him and stay at his house in Chinatown so we could experience the Occupy Toronto protest. I was there not as a journalist, or even as a student. I was there simply to enjoy what was to be had and talk to people. I wanted to find out for myself what this worldwide movement was all about.
The occupation was an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York City more than a month ago. That group is angry about the bank bailouts, corporate greed, and the unchecked power of Wall Street.
Despite multiple arrests, lack of media coverage, and being dismissed as “neo-hippy pretenders”, the movement gained momentum. Eventually camera crews began showing and more protests started popping up. Then, on October 15th, the same day I arrived, Occupy Toronto got into full swing.
Occupy Wall Street had apparently set off some chain reaction. Some latent frustration amongst the young and the restless had been uncorked, it seemed, and people all over the world were now occupying symbols of corporate greed.
As I walked around the corner into the park from Jarvis Street, I could immediately smell weed and cigarettes. The sounds of yelling and music from a purple CUPE bus subsided as I passed, giving way to the sound of a group of people singing Anarchy in the UK.
Police were on bikes stationed at points around the park, watching for any sign of violence and on the lookout for anyone bringing too much of the festivity into the street. The few I encountered seemed to be caught up in the spirit of the event, leaning against bikes, smoking cigarettes, and chatting with protestors.
At the center of the mass, four or five people stood atop a hill. Boom microphones hung over top of them as they shouted announcements. Every announcement would, in turn, be yelled down the line like a massive game of Telephone, ensuring that everyone heard.
Every so often, a shout would come through the crowd, rallying a march. When this happened, a group would form in some area and start marching in one direction, shouting the message and trying to get more people into the park.
But what the message was wasn’t entirely clear.
The area played more as an arena for seemingly random political splinter groups to voice their opinions. Communists, environmentalists, economists, post-modernists, all were voicing different, and often conflicting, messages.
Within approximately 30 minutes I was approached by a girl in her mid-twenties handing out flyers outlining the inevitable doom of zero-interest corporate lending; a woman in her late 50’s was handing out communist newsletters; and a man wearing a pot-leaf centered Canadian flag as a cape, was explaining why marijuana should be legalized.
There was a man on a Segway, playing songs on a tiny guitar in exchange for hits from joints. People were taking shots out of water bottles and barely concealed mickeys. Flashes of Smirnoff labels flitted from pocket to mouth back to pocket.
Despite my attempts, I couldn’t actually get anyone to tell me what the protest itself was about. The general notion that banks were evil and that corporations hate everyone was all I could get. Mostly, it seemed that everyone was there to get drunk and stoned.
Nobody seemed to have an idea of what the true problem was, let alone how it could be solved. Speaking to the so-called co-ordinators was impossible as they were surrounded by a thronging mass of protestors still shouting announcements. Every attempt to get to the core of the problem was met with another personal agenda being pushed.
This splinter group effect seems to be the theme for a protest, which is itself an offshoot of another. Currently there are two variations of the event: Occupy Toronto, and Occupy Bay Street. The lack of focus is being explained by saying that it’s a “movement” and not an event.
But how long can such an unorganized movement take place? Sure, a person can yell about how evil banks are and how corporations step on others, but what’s being proposed to change that? Is not the point of a corporation to succeed in a Darwinian environment, providing wealth while competing with each other?
At one point, after a few minutes of sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels with a man in a gazebo, I was told that we couldn’t play Public Enemy because those in charge feared getting a noise complaint from surrounding condominiums. Understandably, there is concern about overstepping boundaries, but we were already having what appeared to be a massive party in a public park.
As the night pressed on it seemed that the hope was things would change by simply being there. Draw enough attention and have a good enough time and maybe that would rub off on the world. Perhaps you would wake up from your tent and find the world a bit better.
Whether the Occupy movement will achieve its goal is yet to be seen. As of right now, there are still people Occupying Toronto, camped out at St. James Park, still hoping to rub some of that goodwill onto the world. Maybe they won’t change the globe, but they have, if only for a brief while, changed St. James.
Maybe that’s a start.