For this column I’m tiptoeing. Most weeks, on most issues, I bust in like the Kool-Aid Man, but one doesn’t lightly talk about Middle East peace, eight decades of conflict around Israel, or the current war in Gaza.
Since Oct. 7, and an attack by the terrorist group Hamas that killed 1,400 people in southern Israel, it definitely feels like there’s been a schism. On the one hand, there’s people who unequivocally support Israel, the world’s only Jewish-run state and one of the few true democracies in the region; and on the other there’s people who feel deeply about the gross inequity suffered by Palestinians for decades, especially now that 29,000 of them have been killed in the ensuing conflict.
Still, there are people caught in the middle. People who might go along with the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself but are still uncomfortable about the fact that Israel’s counteroffensive has killed nearly 21 times the number of people who were killed in the inciting incident. It’s also half-a-world away and a geo-political situation that’s just completely outside the highly local experience of most people in Guelph.
Having said that, there’s a pretty passionate activist base in this city who are riled up (and I would say rightly) about the atrocities that have been happening in Gaza for the last five months. If you can’t get upset about 29,000, and possibly – likely – more, being dead, what exactly can you get upset about? It might even be enough to make you want to stop traffic on the city’s busiest road.
Guelph activists were very busy last week, first by shutting down the Hanlon Expressway with a sit-in (stand-in?) and then posting pro-Palestinian messages in bus shelters. I’m not prepared to call that vandalism. To me, vandalism is spray-painting your initials or a badly drawn penis, but there was a message with those displays even if you didn’t like it.
We’re going to get to that, but first let’s talk about protest because I think the reaction to protest says more about us than it does about the issue. “All these protests end up doing is making those who have been inconvenienced dislike the cause more if I am honest,” reads literally the first comment on the Reddit thread for this topic.
“Inconvenienced”? Like when all the hospitals in your area are destroyed or taken offline? Or like having to fight for access to food and water? Or having to abandon your home and move from one refuge to another as the war perpetually catches up with you?
Yes, you were inconvenienced, which is the point. Getting in your way, and slowing your commute, is meant to force you to confront the issue, or at the very least think about it. And then you go to work or home and tell your co-worker, family member, or roommate about what happened. A protest that doesn’t annoy you isn’t a protest, it’s like a notification from an app on your phone, you can just swipe it and it goes away.
And protest isn’t just about the reaction in the moment, it’s a memo to posterity that this is something we cared about and felt compelled to act on. When you look back in time and see protests to the Iraq War, or the Vietnam War, they seem right and righteous now, but that is not how they looked at the time. Just as many people wanted to hang the Chicago 7 as wanted to deify them.
Now let’s look at the worst crime of all, the vandalism of our precious bus shelters.
First, I can’t remember the last time that damage to a bus shelter was addressed in its own Guelph police media release. I don’t know how many times I’ve strolled passed a bus shelter with a missing pane of glass or a broken poster case or with spray-painted initials or a badly drawn penis plastered on the side.
Stranger still, the mayor got shirty about the vandalism. After all, since nearly three-quarters of the bus stops in Guelph don’t have shelters, I always assumed that they were one of those “nice to haves” like digital signs that offer real-time updates.
“Not only will the taxpayers of Guelph now have to pay thousands of dollars and multiple repairs to these shelters, but some of these messages have clearly made people feel like they not only don’t belong, but that they’re being specifically targeted,” Cam Guthrie said in a social media post.
He may be right. One of the posters featured on the Instagram feed of Show Up Guelph used the word “intifada”, which had a more benign origin but to the average person now has sinister undertones. You don’t go to the mayor of Guelph for a lesson in foreign affairs and world history, but I have to say that Guthrie has been pretty selective about which marginalized groups get his support. Just ask the local queer community last fall about that.
It's a reminder that there are all kinds of marginalized communities in Guelph, and this is where I note my frustration with the bus shelter protest because marginalized people use Guelph Transit.
Who uses Guelph Transit? The poor use it, as do seniors and students. I also know that in certain areas of this city, a bus shelter not only offers a place to wait for the bus, but it also offers shelter. Many people out walking use shelters as a place to stop for a minute to get out of the elements when its raining or snowing, but people also use it as a place to stop and rest when the weather’s nice. How are they affected if a shelter is offline or unavailable?
Now, I’m not saying “don’t protest”, and I’m not saying, “don’t be angry”. But anger misdirected can do more damage to the cause than promotion.
I’m not sure who’s idea it was to use shelters, but I’ve got to tell you that the people you want to influence aren’t at the bus stops, they’re on the Hanlon. On the plus side, you did get the mayor to care about the state of bus shelters in Guelph, so while it didn’t help the Palestinians, at least you’re fellow Guelphites got the assist.
