winter olympic
First day after winter olympic opening ceremony. All the pavilions are crowded with people. The rain didn't stop anyone. But the long line up did stop me from entering the pavilions.
The next Winter Olympic will be hosted in Sochi 2014, Russia. The people here are protesting about Russia holding the game at Sochi which used to belong to the Circassian until they were massacared. While I do sympathize with them, but the Circassian genocide happened at around 1867, about the time of American Civil War. Granted, the Circassian had been discriminated from the past and even today. The exiles were disallowed from entering their homeland. Their situation are similar to the Tibetans and the American Natives... They all have been treated unfairly, but really not much can be done, consider their former suppressors were Russia, China and the USA, all super-power class countries.
As futile as it looks, I still view this protest in a positive way. They were peaceful in nature, they didn't block the entrance, and they were very clear about what they were protesting for (by handing out phamplets). It is a strong contrast to the scum-bag protestors in Robson Street.
I don't think much can be done about land-ceding, but at least Russia and China can improve the way they treat the natives (like in US or Canada... well it isn't perfect but at least nobody has to be jailed/exiled/executed, not recently anyway).
Russia meets Vancouver. The next Winter Olympic in 2014. I didn't enter the dom, not because of the portestors, but because of the long lineup. I will try again next week.
There are some globes demonstrating the environmental message.
