EDITORIAL: Games protesters need to grow up
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Updated: November 03, 2009 11:47 AM
The 2010 Olympics alone aren’t causing the government to cut funding in ministries across the board. A little thing called the recession has had far greater impact on the government’s books and the decisions made to prevent a sinkhole of a deficit from developing.
Nonetheless, the Olympics and anything connected to the Games have made a convenient target for protesters looking to get some ink. Blaming the Games for the province’s financial woes and significantly disrupting what should have been a positive experience for thousands of Greater Victorians shows how misguided protesters are.
What are they hoping to accomplish? Changing people’s minds about an event that has been confirmed for six years – well before the recession hit? Why not give the public credit for being able to decide on their own how they feel it? With their antics in and around Victoria during Friday’s torch run festivities, the protesters came across as selfish and elitist, not a well-reasoned participant in a civil discussion.
This isn’t the 1960s. We aren’t talking civil rights, or women’s equality or any other issue that affects a significant portion of the population in B.C. This is a difference of opinion in how public money is spent, a discussion that has gone on for decades and will no doubt continue.
Torch relay festivities are about community, not necessarily about supporting the Games or the fact they’re being held at a time when provincial government funding cuts are squeezing groups of all kinds.
Protesters often talk about maintaining freedom of speech and expression. But where are those freedoms when citizens chosen to carry the torch – many called it the greatest honour in their life – have that great and memorable moment negated by people more interested in causing mischief than contributing to the larger discussion?
These protesters need to grow up and start behaving like adults. Otherwise they’ll never truly be heard by anyone other than people looking to protest for protest’s sake.
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