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August 7, 2006

Hezbollah in Montreal

I was not aware of the protest rally down St-Denis yesterday. Rose and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. For us, that was the Quartier Latin around 3 pm yesterday. Until yesterday, I was more ambivalent about the situation in Lebanon until I saw the terrorist flags being shown all over the place. I remember not so long ago when Hezbollah was regarded as a bunch of filthy terrorist killers. Now they are being hailed as heroes. I cannot believe that they and other related groups have manipulated the world so much that they now have sympathy from pretty much everyone everywhere.

I realize that the rally was not officially pro-Hezbollah, but to end the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. People want peace. They all want peace. I do, too. But this rally was so obviously in favour of everything that Hezbollah stood for that my skin started to crawl. It might as well have been a Hezbollah rally. (Watch the video.) Why are we as a society supporting terrorists?

I used to avoid discussing Quebec separatism, but I have relaxed a bit on that. But this conflict, and which side you are on (as though there are only two) could be another subject that I will choose to keep mum about except in very controlled instances lest violence break out. Something like what nearly happened to Rose yesterday. She feels very strongly about the situation and is firmly against Hezbollah. It deeply saddened and enraged her to see people from here, women, the PQ, supporting all of this. So when she decided to exercise her right to speak, just like everyone else, by shouting "Hezbollah, terroriste!" in response to their shouts of "Israël, terroriste!", four women confronted her. An empty water bottle sailed in her direction.

When Rose said those two words, no less than 15 people turned towards her with daggers in their eyes. One of the four women became very aggressive and angry, yelling epithets such as "slut" at Rose. She tried to physically attack her, but was held back by her three friends. You should have seen the woman's eyes. There was hate in them. As soon as I took the picture, I had to break up a possible conflagration by getting in between them and forming a wall. I was saying, "Okay, nothing to see here, break it up, thank you" as though Rose were a star and I were Chief of Security. I must say this: if the woman's friends hadn't restrained her, I would have had to. That would NOT have been pretty, especially since I likely would have held her in a half nelson (she was small) until the police arrived.

Speaking of police, where were they? I didn't see a single cop down that way. The press says that there were 15000 people in the rally. What kind of security is that? This is a highly sensitive situation where anything could have happened.

I understand that mob mentality takes over sometimes in rallies, and that yelling contrary opinions at a rally is not necessarily the best thing to do if you don't want your ass kicked, so I won't say that these protesters are any worse than other ones. But Rose had a right, right there, to express her views without the obvious threat of violence. Furthermore, I don't think that most supporters know enough to make an informed decision, which can be hard, especially if the media is manipulated or manipulating. It's as though their collective memory does not remember anything before July 12. But that is another post that I likely won't ever make.

Here are some pics I took with my crappy camera phone. Here's a video and other pics.

And if you ever wonder if there is any manipulation of the media, wonder no more. If it isn't Hezbollah, it's us. It was Reuters in this case, but it could have been the Gazette, or even more likely, La Presse.

Posted by JonasParker at August 7, 2006 9:08 AM

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Posted by: Suj at August 8, 2006 1:28 PM

Posted by: zura at August 15, 2006 10:26 AM

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