The simmering sickness inside the heart of many, unleashed

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9

Five days have passed since the shocking riots in Vancouver cast an indelible pall over the night of Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final and yet the shock still remains.  When looking back on June 15, 2011, future generations will probably not remember that Boston defeated the Canucks by a 4-0 score to win the Cup.  Instead, they should remember a night of sheer horror: unbridled thuggery, contempt for authority, assaults on police officers and firefighters, threats and intimidation against Good Samaritans, wanton property damage and theft, an orgy of destruction plus thousands of average citizens looking on with joyous approval.

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Yes, future generations should remember, but how will they react?

Will they invoke the mindless, dismissive one-word mantra of the times – “Whatever” – and shrug off the riots as a small, insignificant outlier in Vancouver’s history?  Will they excitedly and laughingly point at the screen of their hand-held devices as they recognize themselves proudly standing in front of a looted store or a burning car?  Will they be filled with latent satisfaction for a job well done, inciting others to join them at making a statement, wreaking havoc against a society they perceive as oppressive?

Or will they be filled with regret and sorrow and see what happened that night for what it truly was: a spectacularly base outpouring of unrestrained evil perhaps instigated by a few but shockingly perpetuated by many, many more.  And amidst the several conflagrations that roared on Vancouver streets, consuming vehicles and garbage, the last vestiges of the Canadian “goodness” myth also went up in flames, incinerated, immolated beyond recognition by the fuel pouring out of thousands of deceitful, desperately sick hearts.

Too harsh of a conclusion?  Ask the man who was savagely beaten for scolding and trying to hold back the mob that systematically smashed out the windows of the Hudson’s Bay store.  Ask the lady who was accosted and harassed as she calmly tried to talk reason into an equally brazen, senseless, rage-filled mob bent on looting another store.  Ask the many vehicle owners who watched helplessly on television as fires set by cowards rendered their cars and trucks a total write-off.  Ask the firefighter who was sucker-punched by an out-of-control drunken piece of excrement.  Ask the many police officers who were cursed at and jeered when they attempted to control the crowds while the throng cheered when thrown debris rained down on the police.

The Vancouver riots had nothing at all to do with hockey – the setting could have been baseball, soccer or basketball – but everything to do with causing chaos whether the Canucks won or lost.  It is also a pointless debate to decide whether the rioters were “true Canucks’ fans” or not.  Maybe some were; maybe some weren’t.  What matters is that the instigators – wearing Canucks’ colours or not – were people who harboured evil in their heart, looking for an opening to unleash it and finally, made a decision to give in and cause chaos.  These are the professional anarchists the chief of police and city officials referred to in their initial statements.  The types that armed themselves with weapons, destructive or incendiary material and masks to conceal their identities and mixed in with the crowds.

Yet most unsettling were the so-called average “normal” citizens on the streets – possibly a family member, a friend, a co-worker, a child, a neighbour – who at first may have watched in shock, disbelieving the sight of flipped cars and small fires, but then felt a rush of perverse excitement.

Wow!  A riot!  Cool!

In those fateful moments, those average citizens also had a choice: participate or abstain.  Unfortunately, a large majority chose the former, intoxicated by the emotional high of joining in the destruction.  Others mindlessly treated the riot scene as a tourist attraction, snapping video and pictures.  True, a small minority had the presence of mind to gather evidence but the much larger majority did so simply for a foolish thrill, a keepsake of the ‘best moment of their lives’ (as one ridiculous Facebook profile stated).  Consequently, police were often obstructed from stopping the perpetrators, firefighters blocked from putting out fires and yet the crowds of average citizens had the audacity to jeer.

In the aftermath that is just beginning, there will be those who claim innocence.

Hey, I was just taking a picture to show my buddies. I’ve never been in a riot.  It was awesome!

Well congratulations, King Ding-a-ling, I hope it was a Kodak moment.  You must feel real proud of yourself to have blocked the police and firefighters and it must feel great to have teamed up with your fellow gawkers, providing a large cloak of bodies to shield the identities of the more destructive types.

It was just one purse.  I’m in a low-income bracket.

Fantastic logic.  Let’s make a deal:  Since you think your income bracket justifies the theft of a purse then I think my income bracket prevents me from ever owning a house so I’m squatting in your house.

Canadians from Vancouver, Toronto or elsewhere must get rid of any self-congratulatory ideas about the general safety and goodness of our nation.  We all saw the images from last Wednesday.  That was not Libya or Afghanistan.  That was a Canadian city.  That was a Canadian city overrun for a few hours by Canadians bent on maximizing destruction abetted by many, many other Canadians who approved of what unfolded.

My hope is that the justice system will surprise me and crack down hard to the fullest possible extent of the law on all who were involved in the Vancouver riots.  However, it’s hard not to be cynical this week about a country in which some citizens demonstrate hatred, contempt and abuse of freedom and veritably spit upon those who stand on the side of what is right.