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VICTORIANEWS VICTORIA Friday, October 19, 2012
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People’s Assembly of Victoria participant Anushka Nagji, above, is asked by a Victoria police constable to walk on the sidewalk as she passes out Occupy This Christmas bookmarks to passersby last November on Government Street. Nagji spoke to the News this week about where the Occupy movement is a year later in Victoria. During Occupy Victoria activities last year in Centennial Square (photos right), campers’ daily life was on display to the public.
Occupy Victoria: a year later A Roszan Holmen Reporting
t this time last year, Occupy landed in Victoria. Tents, tarps and couches began to fill Centennial Square, launching the local incarnation of an already wellestablished international movement. For six weeks, activists braved the fall weather before an injunction by the City of Victoria put an end to the encampment. But even as tenters packed up and the square emptied last November, a common question buzzed on the lips of activists: what’s next? “I really tried hard to keep it going by having assemblies and trying to
raise issues I thought people could rally around,” said Robert Duncan, a member of the People’s Assembly of Victoria, which steered the protest by consensus. “People were swearing up and down that there was going to be a lot of camping again (in the) summer, but it didn’t happen.” Inevitably the group dwindled, said Duncan, who works in a group home. “There is a lot of complacency. People don’t feel the issues are touching them in a major way – yet.” So what happened to the movement? One year later, the News caught
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up with four activists heavily involved with the People’s Assembly. While the momentum of Occupy may have abated, they all insist it wasn’t a wasted effort. Rather, it sparked debate that continues today about poverty, activism and even the very definition of Occupy. The lessons learned about resistance have energized other protests, said Anushka Nagji. When faced with the city’s injunction last November, the law student used her training to launch a legal defence. It failed, but Occupy Victoria “has inspired and created so many more
cascading events and groups,” Nagji said from Vancouver, where she now studies. She counts the so-called Casserole Protests among them. When the Montreal studenttuition protests spread to other major cities in the spring, Nagji was twice arrested and spent the night in jail. “The second time I was beat up pretty bad; I had a cracked rib and was laid up for about a month,” she said. Occupy also sparked connections, added Michelle Buchanan. PLEASE SEE: Occupy, Page A13
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