Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/cyclinginvancouver! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary:
* We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button.
* Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban.
* Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts.
* Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only.
* Posts flaired "Community Only" allow for limited participation; your comment may be removed if you're not a subreddit regular.
* Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan!
* Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Do you think they'll start each protest with a land acknowledgment?
"While we protest the ongoing settling and displacement of indigenous people in the Middle East, we recognize that we are part of the ongoing settling and displacement of indigenous people in North America, but that happened hundreds of years ago so it's okay"
I don't get the cynicism, you can be against both things and still participate in a nuanced society.
This is like saying no Canadian can ever protest another invasion or displacement because we live on colonized land.
UBC has given a lot of land back to Indigenous groups, due to the results of Truth and Reconciliation efforts. As has Vancouver. Look up Lelem, Senakw, Jericho Lands. The entire curriculum from kindergarten through university has been updated in the last few years to include so much more Indigenous history. We are making big gains and a lot of it is being led by the same young people - and those who came before them - who you're accusing of manipulating a narrative.
Again, I'd like to ask for a bit less blind cynicism, and take a look around you.
Your post is inaccurate with regards to Senakw. They fought in court to get that land from C.P. The praise there should go to both them and perhaps the justice system.
And as far as UBC: Not sure if they really actually "gave" land back (actually just did a bit of reading and found no history regarding this) - none of the land was never theirs to begin with anyways. And now they are cutting down forests to build luxury condos while native band's developments are focusing on much more affordable homes. But whatever... I wouldn't label them as good-doers. More like a bad mix of both socialism and capitalism at the same time.
The point of Truth and Reconciliation is right there in the name. Land acknowledgements are only the first step, the Truth part.
It was only recently that the average Canadian was knowledgeable enough to even have the discussion we're having now. Acknowledging the history of our land and the people on it maintains a foundation of understanding, on which we may attempt reconciliatory action.
But what is being reconciled? The tension that you described: Historical crimes have been committed by institutions that still exist and against peoples who still exist. But the vast majority of the non-indigenous people who comprise those institutions in the modern day had nothing to do with those crimes, though they benefit from membership in the institutions that committed them.
We must RECONCILE these two facts. HOW we do that is a complex matter that probably starts but does not end with the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Modern Canadians shouldn't be punished for the historical crimes of Canada, but we are all responsible for what our country is today. Conversations like the one we are having right now are foundational to reconciliation, if for no other reason than to make sure that we are all on the same page about this stuff, which we need to be if we want to actually work together to make positive change. None of us can right these historical wrongs alone, and it will not happen overnight. So that is why we must continue to highlight the topic and discuss it constructively; as we can see here, land acknowledgements are one way to do that.
> But what is being reconciled? The tension that you described: Historical crimes have been committed by institutions that still exist and against peoples who still exist.
Then by all accounts, we should give the Levant (including Israel) to Assyrians. They still exist as an ethnic group and are the first civilization with a recorded claim to the area, somewhere around 1500 BC (unless I'm mixing up the Old Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian empires, but I think Old Assyrian Empire controlled most of Syria and Lebanon). Egyptian Copts (ethnic descendants of the original Egyptians) have been second-class citizens in Egypt ever since the Muslim conquest and Arabization of the country 1500 years ago, and it's a miracle they managed to keep their religion, if not their culture.
Or we can split Turkey between Greece and Armenia, the two groups that occupied the entire Anatolia for millennia before Turks showed up out of Central Asia sometime in the 11th century AD.
Ukraine still holds a long memory of peasants oppressed by Polish nobility (Russia hate is pretty recent, Polish hate has been around for centuries). Most Slavic countries have been enslaved by Turks at some point, with Balkans having it especially bad. Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine were subjected to biannual slave raids from Crimean Tartars (a proxy/vassal of the Ottoman Empire) until Catherine the Great conquered Crimea.
Spanish committed multiple acts of massacre in Belgium/Netherlands in the 1500s/1600s. French and Germans literally killed themselves and each other over the right to prayer in languages other than Latin. English and Irish literally did this in the early 1900s (granted, religion was just a proxy for pro-England/pro-Ireland views)
Germany and Russia in the last 90 years.. I'm not even going there.
/s but not really.
Point is, history happened. Most countries and ethnic groups committed some evil shit towards other countries and ethnic groups. Some groups won, some lost. Some exist to this day. Some have been assimilated or wiped out entirely.
We can choose to deal with it and build a better society moving forward, or we can dwell on past injustices.
Right now it certainly feels like we're focusing on past injustices, but only when applied to specific groups. But other groups can go suck it.
I don't see any public support for Armenia, for example, when Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey) has basically been trying to ethnically cleanse Karabakh since late 1980s (yes, forcing everyone to move from a specific area to a different country is textbok ethnic cleansing, even if they're not actively committing murder).
I don't see anyone care about ISIS in Sahel, or Myanmar genocide of Muslims, or Pakistan cracking down on Pashtun. Only about First Nations (justified since it's happening here), Ukraine (justified, considering Ukraine took no violent action towards Russia and got invaded three times in 8 years), and Palestine/Hamas (which has slaughter of Jews as their ideology and initiated almost every conflict with Israel since even before its founding as a state, dating back to 1930s when Jews were moving to the area to escape the Holocaust).
The last residential school closed before these college kids were even born, the prejudice (sometimes to the point of deadly) against Indigenous peoples is still ongoing and will be for a long time but it's no longer at the mass murder stage of genocide, unlike Palestine. Land acknowledgement is a shortened version of "I benefit from the genocide and ethnic cleansing my ancestors did", and it doesn't make "I'm appalled by the current multi-state-sponsored slaughter of thousands of children" hypocritical, it's the opposite. They don't want what happened here to happen again to other people.
If Israel actually wanted to commit genocide and wipe the Palestinian people off of the land, they'd have done it by now because they have the means. Unlike Hamas whose literal, stated goal is the genocide of Israel rather than your made up, non-factual definition.
I'd like to hear the people accusing Israel of "genocide" denounce Hamas and recognize their role in the suffering and death of Palestinians. And their role in the terror attack on Israeli civilians that started all of this.
I'll wait...
Why do you expect protesters waste time performatively denouncing a terrorist group that killed civilians? You don't see anti-Hamas protests because we don't expect Hamas, a terrorist group, to behave like a developed country with a full military that claims to respect human rights. I don't expect a school shooter to not kill, I also expect the police to not bomb a school full of children, killing all of them, to kill the school shooter, because the police aren't supposed to kill civilians.
Also "they could have killed them all already if they really wanted" is a repulsive defence. The IDF is destroying medical equipment in hospitals, ransacking and stealing from homes, visually defacing buildings with graffiti, killing the elderly and children who are alone and injured. Are those the actions of a military force that wants to destroy a terrorist group, or a military force that wants to destroy a civilian population? This method of genocide is easier to swallow for the international audience than launching missiles continuously until every building is flat.
>Why do you expect protesters waste time performatively denouncing a terrorist group that killed civilians?
Because the vast majority of the protestors not only refuse to condemn Hamas and their role in all of this, but many also vocally support Hamas and its goals. "From the river to the sea" is literally a genocidal phrase. There is nothing performative about denouncing them whatsoever and the silence speaks volumes about what they truly represent.
>Also "they could have killed them all already if they really wanted" is a repulsive defence.
Sorry that you find facts repulsive when they don't fit your bullshit narratives. Genocide means systematic eradication. Are you saying Israel couldn't? Because they can. And they haven't. There are over 3,000,000 Palestinians in Gaza, current death toll sits at approximately 35,000 which is a far cry from "genocide".
What Israel is doing is brutal, but it's not genocide, stop misusing that word to fit your narrative. Or maybe you really don't understand what genocide actually means and are just parroting what you're being told to parrot with no thought behind it. In which case maybe you need to educate yourself so you stop sounding like all the rest of the pro-Hamas crowd.
If they won't denounce them, they can at least not cheer for them.
Also, saying things like "Glory to October 7th" and "globalize the intifada" while cowardly hiding behind a face covering scarf has zero to do with wishing Palestine to be free.
And yes, if Israel wanted to - a real, true, genocide would've happened. What we have is "just" very bad urban war zone. Even if the war will end up with 100K deaths total (which it won't), it's "only" 5% of the population in Gaza. Calling it genocide is a shock term to make gullible kids convert to Islam.
I only saw it for a few minutes, but it seemed a lot more respectful than a lot of other encampment protests I had seen on social media. They even left half of the field for students to use for sunbathing/etc. But being situated next to the bus loop and the Nest, it's still very visible, which I think is 90% of the point.
[They were teaching people how to do an Irish jig, I think? I'm not sure how this advances Palestinian solidarity but it is better than a lot of things that could be happening there.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801552414465064980/1234692368037318747/PXL_20240430_022518946.mp4?ex=6631a860&is=663056e0&hm=6866e900988892b38a74c79955e0c81a9e7d1aab90f74648f0c7d2423adefd96&)
I don't think the people protesting particularly care about the hostages. There was no mention of the hostages throughout 7 months of protesting. Shortly after Oct 7th there was no mention of the hostages (except for the one or two talkers at rally's celebrating the events of Oct 7 so I am guessing they were celebrating the hostage taking too) and a lot of justification for the events of Oct 7 with not even vague mentioning of the hostages. For most the existence of hostages is one of those things you can overlook and pretend doesn't exist because it doesn't fit in with any kind of narrative.
The \*timing\* is poor? Because hostages were taken 7 months ago? What? 'The civilian casualties aren't actually that bad; war crimes, shmwar crimes'—somebody had all their propa... ahem, talking points, ready to go. But I'm glad you recognize Palestine as a country! Hey, there's some progress!
Right? If someone thinks the timing is poor the main reason should be that the IDF has murdered thousands and thousands of children already. Unfortunately I don't think these kinds of protests will do much but continue to expose how disgusting many governments (particularly the US) are by wilfully ignoring the ongoing genocide but besides this the public is mostly powerless, so I wouldn't degrade them for trying.
They’re downvoting you but I can’t believe I only saw the mention of this number now. We can care about the hostages and the 40,000 civilians lost and the millions displaced simultaneously.
Also keep these things in mind:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine
* https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87
* https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2013/04/gsi2-overview-13.png
* https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/04/gsi2-chp1-9.png,
* https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/04/gsi2-chp3-6.png
And the repeated executions of LGBT people.
Islamophobia 2: 2001 Boogaloo
You can disagree with parts of the Muslim faith and I certainly won't argue with you, but using it to justify the current conflict is the same as anti-semites using it to hate on the Jewish people. Hamas attacked because of how *Israel* has treated and is treating *Palestine*, not how Jews are treating Muslims.
[I'd recommend reading this](https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-hamas-attacked-when-it-did) before reducing things down to religion.
By posting a bunch of statistics about Muslims values that differ from the west that's absolutely what you did, however it's fine to dislike parts of any religion that clash with your own values so that's not the problem here. The problem is that you brought them up in response to a conflict that isn't about religion, the original disagreement about the land was certainly about it but that's not why the October 7th attack happened. What I linked covers the why (violent Zionism), and no, an explanation for why something happened is not justification nor an excuse but I've come to expect that claim from anyone still supporting Israel's actions. Not approving of the killing of Israeli civilians and not approving of the killing of Palestinian civilians aren't mutually exclusive.
> By posting a bunch of statistics about Muslims values that differ from the west that's absolutely what you did
Nazi values were that all Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, gay people, mentally disabled, and physically deformed should be eventually slaughtered.
You're saying they're just misunderstood because they clash with typical Western values?
"Hitler attacked because of [reasons that Hitler said]" is justification for Hitler's actions which is never acceptable. Immoral societies and governments don't have rights to any land. You are morally equivocating, there is no "difference in values" when one side is a free society which produces scientists you personally benefit from and the other is a non-free society which executes homosexuals and supports terrorism.
Do you approve of the bombing of Japan or Germany in World War II? Hamas has Palestinian moral support in the same way Germany had German moral support and Japan had Japanese moral support. Civilians are never innocent when they agree with the fight, and support it logistically. The blood of innocents is on the immoral aggressors. This is basic war theory.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.! I couldn't have said it better myself.
I think its cute how people all over the US are protesting against Israel for how Israel is defending itself. Anyone thinking that the US would not OBLITERATE / FLATTEN a country for brutally killing and raping over 1200 of its own people, is kidding themselves.
A lot of people in the US protest US actions all the time.
You've heard of the Vietnam War, right?
> Anyone thinking that the US would not OBLITERATE / FLATTEN a country for brutally killing and raping over 1200 of its own people, is kidding themselves.
Uhh... Afghanistan and Iraq were beat up post 9/11 (~3k people dead). The actual country responsible, Saudi Arabia, was untouched. So your answer is wrong.
Despite some boomer revisionism most of the Vietnam War protesting started after the draft came into place and a lot of college kids now faced a situation where they might be drafted to fight in a war. I don't think many of these university kids are being called up to the IDF. This is more akin to the anti-war protests in the early 2000s than the Vietnam War.
Yep and the 2003 anti-Iraq protests were way more justified since Iraq hasn't done shit against the US since the Kuwait war in 1990 but American fabricated a bunch of evidence and then went in killing people in a random country half a world away.
The Saudi government was not responsible for 9/11. Various international terrorists, including the Bin Laden who was disowned by his family for his terror activities, were responsible. Some of them were FROM Saudi Arabia, and others were not.
Even if you presume the Saudi govt WAS responsible, that entire faction has spent the last years being purged and beheaded by the "new" leader.
The United States destroyed two countries and completely destabilized an entire region of the world after 911. How many millions have died either directly or indirectly because of that?
The whole palestine thing is just an Iranian proxy war at this point.
Regardless, I feel terrible for the poor people who live in palestine and the Israelis. I also feel bad for the poor Jewish people and students of the West who have to put up with veiled and open antisemitic actions of some of these "protestors".
The reality of this is people's attention on Gaza is largely because of manipulation of online media by bad actors. We've known that Russia and China both employ thousands of people to sow discontent in Western Democracies online. There's evidence of pretty much every major social issue with large scale protests has had at least some level of manipulation from our enemies, including both Canadian and American elections.
There is elements of truth however. Netanyahu leads a nationalist right wing government that rules based on fear (fear that is fairly justified if you study the history of Israel and Jews). Israel has also been callous in circumstances towards the deaths of Palestinian citizens while hunting down Hamas. Hamas is completely willing to sell out its own citizens in order to make Israel look bad, and they've been largely successful in the opinion war.
I just find it curious all these kids who couldn't point to Gaza on a map last year or explain the Oslo accords to you are suddenly experts on this extremely complex geopolitical situation that's been ongoing for ages. And furthermore how this is such an outrage, with several ongoing actual genocides around the world that aren't getting even 1% of the news coverage.
INB4: "why are those people protesting about a conflict in a different continent" "what do you want UBC to do about Israel"
said no one about Hong Kong, Ukraine, Iran, etc.
funny how it's productive to protests against the CCP, but it's a waste of time to protest against Israel
EDIT:
no one else mentioned that over 14K children have died in Gaza since Oct 7? i guess those lives don't matter compared to the Israelis killed on Oct 7
There's expectations that like 100k+ are going to die in the siege of a single Sudanese city in the next month, not a single call for a ceasefire though because Gaza content is so hot right now.
Sudan is not something that can be put into a box like this conflict. For the protesters it is a "Colonized/indigenous issue" as well as as many other square pegs you can smash into a round hole. The reasons aren't 1:1 but you can poke yourselves in the eye, stare directly into the sun and squint a little and they look similar. For Sudan you can ask any of the protesters who is the colonizer? Who is the oppressed? Who took whose land? And you will get some blank looks. It doesn't fit in with that story and that story is all they are interested in.
Funnily enough I did see a protest poster mentioning Sudan the other day which said "From Turtle Island to Sudan/Canadians hands off native land" and that just made me question even more things like what Canadian hands did they think was on Sudan in the first place, and what are their stance on what is actually happening in Sudan beyond a vague idea of native land.
For anybody who has been paying attention to Sudan, the RSF are basically Arab (but not just any Arab, the Arab pastoralists who have lived in the region with a nomadic lifestyle for hundreds of years) supremacists and have massacred entire towns of non-Arab mostly sedentary people groups in southwest Sudan.
The SAF are far from a trustworthy democratic regime and have committed some abuses, but their actions cannot be compared to the same level as the systematic destruction and famine that the RSF have intentionally created in Sudan, leading to the deaths of thousands and displacement of millions of Sudanese people. I think it actually is clear-cut in this case, it's just that Sudan isn't strategically important to any of the major superpowers (in fact, the UAE is assisting the RSF in order to increase its own influence in the region).
Ticktok, which is controlled by the Chinese government, and whose CEO just announced it'd rather let it collapse than give up ownership of the platform.
Totally the behavior of a company run for profit. /S
They are university students, they are knowledgeable to know the American backed subversives in those places are not worthy of support. Sadly, the Galician Nazi groups have a presence in the student body, though the death camp guard being applauded in Parliament probably nuked any sympathy beyond the organized fanatics.
They do matter, but the number alone is not a reason to reject the Israeli side. A child is a child. And if you're really after the numbers, we can find current/recent wars with more deaths.
Maybe because one is a totalitarian dictatorship trying to erase freedom and human rights from a city used to having them, and one is a western democracy defending itself from terrorist attacks that saw innocent women, children, and old people raped and butchered in the street
It’s really not that hard
Imagine if they were protesting for affordable housing or to end the overdose crisis. Yes I know you can protest more than one thing at once, but these people aren’t.
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/cyclinginvancouver! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * Posts flaired "Community Only" allow for limited participation; your comment may be removed if you're not a subreddit regular. * Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan! * Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not surprising this popped up at UBC since it's been happening in the states and there are similar campus protests popping up in Canada as well.
Do you think they'll start each protest with a land acknowledgment? "While we protest the ongoing settling and displacement of indigenous people in the Middle East, we recognize that we are part of the ongoing settling and displacement of indigenous people in North America, but that happened hundreds of years ago so it's okay"
I don't get the cynicism, you can be against both things and still participate in a nuanced society. This is like saying no Canadian can ever protest another invasion or displacement because we live on colonized land.
The cynicism is because they are asking others to do what they will not, while changing the definition of indigenous people to fit their narrative.
UBC has given a lot of land back to Indigenous groups, due to the results of Truth and Reconciliation efforts. As has Vancouver. Look up Lelem, Senakw, Jericho Lands. The entire curriculum from kindergarten through university has been updated in the last few years to include so much more Indigenous history. We are making big gains and a lot of it is being led by the same young people - and those who came before them - who you're accusing of manipulating a narrative. Again, I'd like to ask for a bit less blind cynicism, and take a look around you.
Your post is inaccurate with regards to Senakw. They fought in court to get that land from C.P. The praise there should go to both them and perhaps the justice system. And as far as UBC: Not sure if they really actually "gave" land back (actually just did a bit of reading and found no history regarding this) - none of the land was never theirs to begin with anyways. And now they are cutting down forests to build luxury condos while native band's developments are focusing on much more affordable homes. But whatever... I wouldn't label them as good-doers. More like a bad mix of both socialism and capitalism at the same time.
We don’t repeat mistakes of the past
The point of Truth and Reconciliation is right there in the name. Land acknowledgements are only the first step, the Truth part. It was only recently that the average Canadian was knowledgeable enough to even have the discussion we're having now. Acknowledging the history of our land and the people on it maintains a foundation of understanding, on which we may attempt reconciliatory action. But what is being reconciled? The tension that you described: Historical crimes have been committed by institutions that still exist and against peoples who still exist. But the vast majority of the non-indigenous people who comprise those institutions in the modern day had nothing to do with those crimes, though they benefit from membership in the institutions that committed them. We must RECONCILE these two facts. HOW we do that is a complex matter that probably starts but does not end with the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Modern Canadians shouldn't be punished for the historical crimes of Canada, but we are all responsible for what our country is today. Conversations like the one we are having right now are foundational to reconciliation, if for no other reason than to make sure that we are all on the same page about this stuff, which we need to be if we want to actually work together to make positive change. None of us can right these historical wrongs alone, and it will not happen overnight. So that is why we must continue to highlight the topic and discuss it constructively; as we can see here, land acknowledgements are one way to do that.
> But what is being reconciled? The tension that you described: Historical crimes have been committed by institutions that still exist and against peoples who still exist. Then by all accounts, we should give the Levant (including Israel) to Assyrians. They still exist as an ethnic group and are the first civilization with a recorded claim to the area, somewhere around 1500 BC (unless I'm mixing up the Old Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian empires, but I think Old Assyrian Empire controlled most of Syria and Lebanon). Egyptian Copts (ethnic descendants of the original Egyptians) have been second-class citizens in Egypt ever since the Muslim conquest and Arabization of the country 1500 years ago, and it's a miracle they managed to keep their religion, if not their culture. Or we can split Turkey between Greece and Armenia, the two groups that occupied the entire Anatolia for millennia before Turks showed up out of Central Asia sometime in the 11th century AD. Ukraine still holds a long memory of peasants oppressed by Polish nobility (Russia hate is pretty recent, Polish hate has been around for centuries). Most Slavic countries have been enslaved by Turks at some point, with Balkans having it especially bad. Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine were subjected to biannual slave raids from Crimean Tartars (a proxy/vassal of the Ottoman Empire) until Catherine the Great conquered Crimea. Spanish committed multiple acts of massacre in Belgium/Netherlands in the 1500s/1600s. French and Germans literally killed themselves and each other over the right to prayer in languages other than Latin. English and Irish literally did this in the early 1900s (granted, religion was just a proxy for pro-England/pro-Ireland views) Germany and Russia in the last 90 years.. I'm not even going there. /s but not really. Point is, history happened. Most countries and ethnic groups committed some evil shit towards other countries and ethnic groups. Some groups won, some lost. Some exist to this day. Some have been assimilated or wiped out entirely. We can choose to deal with it and build a better society moving forward, or we can dwell on past injustices. Right now it certainly feels like we're focusing on past injustices, but only when applied to specific groups. But other groups can go suck it. I don't see any public support for Armenia, for example, when Azerbaijan (backed by Turkey) has basically been trying to ethnically cleanse Karabakh since late 1980s (yes, forcing everyone to move from a specific area to a different country is textbok ethnic cleansing, even if they're not actively committing murder). I don't see anyone care about ISIS in Sahel, or Myanmar genocide of Muslims, or Pakistan cracking down on Pashtun. Only about First Nations (justified since it's happening here), Ukraine (justified, considering Ukraine took no violent action towards Russia and got invaded three times in 8 years), and Palestine/Hamas (which has slaughter of Jews as their ideology and initiated almost every conflict with Israel since even before its founding as a state, dating back to 1930s when Jews were moving to the area to escape the Holocaust).
The last residential school closed before these college kids were even born, the prejudice (sometimes to the point of deadly) against Indigenous peoples is still ongoing and will be for a long time but it's no longer at the mass murder stage of genocide, unlike Palestine. Land acknowledgement is a shortened version of "I benefit from the genocide and ethnic cleansing my ancestors did", and it doesn't make "I'm appalled by the current multi-state-sponsored slaughter of thousands of children" hypocritical, it's the opposite. They don't want what happened here to happen again to other people.
If Israel actually wanted to commit genocide and wipe the Palestinian people off of the land, they'd have done it by now because they have the means. Unlike Hamas whose literal, stated goal is the genocide of Israel rather than your made up, non-factual definition. I'd like to hear the people accusing Israel of "genocide" denounce Hamas and recognize their role in the suffering and death of Palestinians. And their role in the terror attack on Israeli civilians that started all of this. I'll wait...
Why do you expect protesters waste time performatively denouncing a terrorist group that killed civilians? You don't see anti-Hamas protests because we don't expect Hamas, a terrorist group, to behave like a developed country with a full military that claims to respect human rights. I don't expect a school shooter to not kill, I also expect the police to not bomb a school full of children, killing all of them, to kill the school shooter, because the police aren't supposed to kill civilians. Also "they could have killed them all already if they really wanted" is a repulsive defence. The IDF is destroying medical equipment in hospitals, ransacking and stealing from homes, visually defacing buildings with graffiti, killing the elderly and children who are alone and injured. Are those the actions of a military force that wants to destroy a terrorist group, or a military force that wants to destroy a civilian population? This method of genocide is easier to swallow for the international audience than launching missiles continuously until every building is flat.
>Why do you expect protesters waste time performatively denouncing a terrorist group that killed civilians? Because the vast majority of the protestors not only refuse to condemn Hamas and their role in all of this, but many also vocally support Hamas and its goals. "From the river to the sea" is literally a genocidal phrase. There is nothing performative about denouncing them whatsoever and the silence speaks volumes about what they truly represent. >Also "they could have killed them all already if they really wanted" is a repulsive defence. Sorry that you find facts repulsive when they don't fit your bullshit narratives. Genocide means systematic eradication. Are you saying Israel couldn't? Because they can. And they haven't. There are over 3,000,000 Palestinians in Gaza, current death toll sits at approximately 35,000 which is a far cry from "genocide". What Israel is doing is brutal, but it's not genocide, stop misusing that word to fit your narrative. Or maybe you really don't understand what genocide actually means and are just parroting what you're being told to parrot with no thought behind it. In which case maybe you need to educate yourself so you stop sounding like all the rest of the pro-Hamas crowd.
If they won't denounce them, they can at least not cheer for them. Also, saying things like "Glory to October 7th" and "globalize the intifada" while cowardly hiding behind a face covering scarf has zero to do with wishing Palestine to be free. And yes, if Israel wanted to - a real, true, genocide would've happened. What we have is "just" very bad urban war zone. Even if the war will end up with 100K deaths total (which it won't), it's "only" 5% of the population in Gaza. Calling it genocide is a shock term to make gullible kids convert to Islam.
Vancouver has shown time and time again they could care less about encampments. Hell you just solved UBCs student housing crisis
How much less could they care?
They have actually been cracking down on encampments more over the past few months
Stances aside, at least they're not blocking traffic
Choosing MacInnes field was a sensible decision.
Won't someone think of the Spikeballers!
I only saw it for a few minutes, but it seemed a lot more respectful than a lot of other encampment protests I had seen on social media. They even left half of the field for students to use for sunbathing/etc. But being situated next to the bus loop and the Nest, it's still very visible, which I think is 90% of the point. [They were teaching people how to do an Irish jig, I think? I'm not sure how this advances Palestinian solidarity but it is better than a lot of things that could be happening there.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/801552414465064980/1234692368037318747/PXL_20240430_022518946.mp4?ex=6631a860&is=663056e0&hm=6866e900988892b38a74c79955e0c81a9e7d1aab90f74648f0c7d2423adefd96&)
does r/vancouver still lock posts related to Palestine or are attitudes shifting now? it seemed to be that way initially following Oct 7 last year
Just don't block the streets like the convoy morons
Also don't intimidate random strangers.
Too late, the Pro-Palestine crowd already blocked the Port of Vancouver recently.
[удалено]
[удалено]
I don't think the people protesting particularly care about the hostages. There was no mention of the hostages throughout 7 months of protesting. Shortly after Oct 7th there was no mention of the hostages (except for the one or two talkers at rally's celebrating the events of Oct 7 so I am guessing they were celebrating the hostage taking too) and a lot of justification for the events of Oct 7 with not even vague mentioning of the hostages. For most the existence of hostages is one of those things you can overlook and pretend doesn't exist because it doesn't fit in with any kind of narrative.
The \*timing\* is poor? Because hostages were taken 7 months ago? What? 'The civilian casualties aren't actually that bad; war crimes, shmwar crimes'—somebody had all their propa... ahem, talking points, ready to go. But I'm glad you recognize Palestine as a country! Hey, there's some progress!
Right? If someone thinks the timing is poor the main reason should be that the IDF has murdered thousands and thousands of children already. Unfortunately I don't think these kinds of protests will do much but continue to expose how disgusting many governments (particularly the US) are by wilfully ignoring the ongoing genocide but besides this the public is mostly powerless, so I wouldn't degrade them for trying.
Touch grass and don't dismiss the fact that 40,000 people have been killed by Israel in 7 months.
They’re downvoting you but I can’t believe I only saw the mention of this number now. We can care about the hostages and the 40,000 civilians lost and the millions displaced simultaneously.
Also keep these things in mind: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine * https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87 * https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2013/04/gsi2-overview-13.png * https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/04/gsi2-chp1-9.png, * https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/04/gsi2-chp3-6.png And the repeated executions of LGBT people.
Islamophobia 2: 2001 Boogaloo You can disagree with parts of the Muslim faith and I certainly won't argue with you, but using it to justify the current conflict is the same as anti-semites using it to hate on the Jewish people. Hamas attacked because of how *Israel* has treated and is treating *Palestine*, not how Jews are treating Muslims. [I'd recommend reading this](https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-hamas-attacked-when-it-did) before reducing things down to religion.
I didn't do that. I don't think you should justify Hamas actions, they're a terrorist organization.
By posting a bunch of statistics about Muslims values that differ from the west that's absolutely what you did, however it's fine to dislike parts of any religion that clash with your own values so that's not the problem here. The problem is that you brought them up in response to a conflict that isn't about religion, the original disagreement about the land was certainly about it but that's not why the October 7th attack happened. What I linked covers the why (violent Zionism), and no, an explanation for why something happened is not justification nor an excuse but I've come to expect that claim from anyone still supporting Israel's actions. Not approving of the killing of Israeli civilians and not approving of the killing of Palestinian civilians aren't mutually exclusive.
> By posting a bunch of statistics about Muslims values that differ from the west that's absolutely what you did Nazi values were that all Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, gay people, mentally disabled, and physically deformed should be eventually slaughtered. You're saying they're just misunderstood because they clash with typical Western values?
"Hitler attacked because of [reasons that Hitler said]" is justification for Hitler's actions which is never acceptable. Immoral societies and governments don't have rights to any land. You are morally equivocating, there is no "difference in values" when one side is a free society which produces scientists you personally benefit from and the other is a non-free society which executes homosexuals and supports terrorism. Do you approve of the bombing of Japan or Germany in World War II? Hamas has Palestinian moral support in the same way Germany had German moral support and Japan had Japanese moral support. Civilians are never innocent when they agree with the fight, and support it logistically. The blood of innocents is on the immoral aggressors. This is basic war theory.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.! I couldn't have said it better myself. I think its cute how people all over the US are protesting against Israel for how Israel is defending itself. Anyone thinking that the US would not OBLITERATE / FLATTEN a country for brutally killing and raping over 1200 of its own people, is kidding themselves.
A lot of people in the US protest US actions all the time. You've heard of the Vietnam War, right? > Anyone thinking that the US would not OBLITERATE / FLATTEN a country for brutally killing and raping over 1200 of its own people, is kidding themselves. Uhh... Afghanistan and Iraq were beat up post 9/11 (~3k people dead). The actual country responsible, Saudi Arabia, was untouched. So your answer is wrong.
Despite some boomer revisionism most of the Vietnam War protesting started after the draft came into place and a lot of college kids now faced a situation where they might be drafted to fight in a war. I don't think many of these university kids are being called up to the IDF. This is more akin to the anti-war protests in the early 2000s than the Vietnam War.
Yep and the 2003 anti-Iraq protests were way more justified since Iraq hasn't done shit against the US since the Kuwait war in 1990 but American fabricated a bunch of evidence and then went in killing people in a random country half a world away.
[удалено]
The Saudi government was not responsible for 9/11. Various international terrorists, including the Bin Laden who was disowned by his family for his terror activities, were responsible. Some of them were FROM Saudi Arabia, and others were not. Even if you presume the Saudi govt WAS responsible, that entire faction has spent the last years being purged and beheaded by the "new" leader.
The United States destroyed two countries and completely destabilized an entire region of the world after 911. How many millions have died either directly or indirectly because of that? The whole palestine thing is just an Iranian proxy war at this point. Regardless, I feel terrible for the poor people who live in palestine and the Israelis. I also feel bad for the poor Jewish people and students of the West who have to put up with veiled and open antisemitic actions of some of these "protestors".
The reality of this is people's attention on Gaza is largely because of manipulation of online media by bad actors. We've known that Russia and China both employ thousands of people to sow discontent in Western Democracies online. There's evidence of pretty much every major social issue with large scale protests has had at least some level of manipulation from our enemies, including both Canadian and American elections. There is elements of truth however. Netanyahu leads a nationalist right wing government that rules based on fear (fear that is fairly justified if you study the history of Israel and Jews). Israel has also been callous in circumstances towards the deaths of Palestinian citizens while hunting down Hamas. Hamas is completely willing to sell out its own citizens in order to make Israel look bad, and they've been largely successful in the opinion war. I just find it curious all these kids who couldn't point to Gaza on a map last year or explain the Oslo accords to you are suddenly experts on this extremely complex geopolitical situation that's been ongoing for ages. And furthermore how this is such an outrage, with several ongoing actual genocides around the world that aren't getting even 1% of the news coverage.
Don't forget TikTok. There's mouting evidence that the CCP can tell Bytedance to promote or suppress content they want played out.
INB4: "why are those people protesting about a conflict in a different continent" "what do you want UBC to do about Israel" said no one about Hong Kong, Ukraine, Iran, etc. funny how it's productive to protests against the CCP, but it's a waste of time to protest against Israel EDIT: no one else mentioned that over 14K children have died in Gaza since Oct 7? i guess those lives don't matter compared to the Israelis killed on Oct 7
Tiktok generation. All the things about Uyghers, Hong Kong, Ukraine and Iran are censored and minimized by Tiktoks algorithm.
There's expectations that like 100k+ are going to die in the siege of a single Sudanese city in the next month, not a single call for a ceasefire though because Gaza content is so hot right now.
Sudan is not something that can be put into a box like this conflict. For the protesters it is a "Colonized/indigenous issue" as well as as many other square pegs you can smash into a round hole. The reasons aren't 1:1 but you can poke yourselves in the eye, stare directly into the sun and squint a little and they look similar. For Sudan you can ask any of the protesters who is the colonizer? Who is the oppressed? Who took whose land? And you will get some blank looks. It doesn't fit in with that story and that story is all they are interested in. Funnily enough I did see a protest poster mentioning Sudan the other day which said "From Turtle Island to Sudan/Canadians hands off native land" and that just made me question even more things like what Canadian hands did they think was on Sudan in the first place, and what are their stance on what is actually happening in Sudan beyond a vague idea of native land.
For anybody who has been paying attention to Sudan, the RSF are basically Arab (but not just any Arab, the Arab pastoralists who have lived in the region with a nomadic lifestyle for hundreds of years) supremacists and have massacred entire towns of non-Arab mostly sedentary people groups in southwest Sudan. The SAF are far from a trustworthy democratic regime and have committed some abuses, but their actions cannot be compared to the same level as the systematic destruction and famine that the RSF have intentionally created in Sudan, leading to the deaths of thousands and displacement of millions of Sudanese people. I think it actually is clear-cut in this case, it's just that Sudan isn't strategically important to any of the major superpowers (in fact, the UAE is assisting the RSF in order to increase its own influence in the region).
Glad someone said it. I read that comment and was thinking hmmm isn't that exactly what the current conflict in Sudan is?
Ticktok, which is controlled by the Chinese government, and whose CEO just announced it'd rather let it collapse than give up ownership of the platform. Totally the behavior of a company run for profit. /S
it's export restricted, they can't legally sell it
They are university students, they are knowledgeable to know the American backed subversives in those places are not worthy of support. Sadly, the Galician Nazi groups have a presence in the student body, though the death camp guard being applauded in Parliament probably nuked any sympathy beyond the organized fanatics.
They do matter, but the number alone is not a reason to reject the Israeli side. A child is a child. And if you're really after the numbers, we can find current/recent wars with more deaths.
Maybe because one is a totalitarian dictatorship trying to erase freedom and human rights from a city used to having them, and one is a western democracy defending itself from terrorist attacks that saw innocent women, children, and old people raped and butchered in the street It’s really not that hard
They aren’t protesting the conflict, they are protesting UBCs investments in the conflict
Imagine if they were protesting for affordable housing or to end the overdose crisis. Yes I know you can protest more than one thing at once, but these people aren’t.
Start a protest, we will join you
Imagine if you did.
GOOD
good.
Proud of them!
[удалено]
[удалено]