Posted on 06/26/2002 6:02:05 PM PDT by Loyalist
Tattooed teen wrestles with ice-cream guilt
Rebecca Eckler
National Post
This is the first in a series as Rebecca Eckler begins her Diary of a Novice Protester, following Amelia Borek through a labyrinth of first-time marches and protests against the G8 summit in Kananaskis.
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CALGARY - Amelia Borek's Diary for June 24th:
Food Consumption: one bowl of tomato soup.
Days in Calgary: not positive, but arrived sometime last week.
Number of tatoos: two (planning to get another this week).
Facial piercings: two.
Number of protesters sharing her room at the Calgary Hostel: eight.
Number of words written in magic marker on her body: six.
Mood: slightly hung over.
Amelia Borek is 19 years old. She caught a ride with friends from her home in Hilton Beach -- on St. Joseph Island, an hour east of Sault Ste. Marie -- who were driving to Calgary from Toronto for the G8 summit. She has two studs in the dimples of her cheeks on her pretty face, a tattoo of a Buddha holding a lotus plant on her right arm, and another tattoo of a peace sign with a hemp plant on her back.
She's missing her high school graduation on Wednesday to take part in the protests.
"I'm not a summit-hopper," she says. "This is actually my first major protest that I'm taking part in. So really I'm here to broaden my knowledge. Especially growing up in a small town, where all I do is read and read and read about issues, it will be good to take part in an observing capacity and put it all into some sort of mould.
"Obviously, my sympathies lie on a certain side, but I'm mainly here to observe. I've brought cameras."
We meet at the activists convergence space at the Calgary Multicultural Centre, where Borek has been volunteering, helping organize the medics and legal aid for protesters who find themselves in need.
She says her parents have been "100% supportive" of her coming to Calgary.
"They are wonderful wonderful, understanding, people. Of course they are worried, but they don't tell me that. They also know they couldn't tell me not to go."
She calls them every day.
Borek is staying at a hostel, which costs about $20 a night and has washers and dryers. "It's really nice," she says. "I left most of my funds at home. My deal with my parents is that if I need help, they'll send funds over."
She packed all her clothes and a tent into one small knapsack. (She plans to go camping after the summit, then head to Vermont for the summer.)
Ideally, she doesn't want to spend any money in Calgary, or as little as possible.
"You know, I went to the protest on Sunday and immediately afterwards I found myself using my debit card taking money out of a bank machine in a food court in a mall so I could buy ice cream. It made me sick. Being a middle-class girl raised in Canada, it just made me realize how easy it is to step on the little people."
She's torn, it seems, about living in a capitalist society, about having few choices but to eat and live within the "system."
"It's about oppression," she says.
She smokes Players Light cigarettes. "But don't write that. I'm embarrassed that I smoke," she pleads.
She's a vegetarian, but not because she doesn't like meat. "It's more the industry of meat that I'm opposed to, rather than the product," she says.
Two nights ago, she went to see a punk band perform at one of Calgary's most popular haunts, the Underground, where she dressed up as an anti-G8 clown and handed out pamphlets. That was the night she also wrote on her arm (still visible yesterday): "Rise Up! Resist! Rebel!"
Today, she wears a patch on her shirt that reads: "Don't let G8 decide your future."
As for the talk of possible violent protesters, she says: "There's been so much talk about possible violence in the papers, that they don't talk enough about the issues. Usually violence is an aftermath of not talking about the issues," she says.
"I don't want to participate in any violence, but if it happens, it happens. People have to sympathize with the activists. And, usually, the worst that happens is that a window gets broken. But, you know, it's just a window."
In the blazing Calgary sun, wearing a black tank top, brown corduroy pants and a matching wool cap, she realizes someone has taken away her can of Nestea Ice Tea (owned by Coca-Cola).
"Hey, can you get me another one of those? I'm so thirsty," she calls out to another volunteer/activist.
© Copyright 2002 National Post
This misguided girl, like so many of her ilk, will be crying to Mummy and Daddy for airfare home, or to bail them out, when the rubber bullets and tear gas start flying.
That's how they express their uniqueness and individuality.
I'm serious.
;0)
I live in Sault Ste. Marie. I was just out in the Ste. Mary's river last week and was in the vicinity of St. Joseph's Island. If I see her parents, I'll give them the URL for this thread.
Only a schizophrenic would argue with that...
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