Security Blanket

Considering we live in one of the safest countries in the world, it’s depressingly ironic that we continue to be addicted to security. No big surprise, really: factor in how much of popular culture is based on planning crimes, committing crimes, solving crimes and stopping crimes, as well as the act of trying and punishing those who get caught with crime on their hands—to say nothing of the mainstream media’s own obsession with fomenting a pervasive culture of fear, regardless of the basis in local reality—and it’s no wonder so many of us have come to believe that the real secret to being a good neighbour lies in having good, strong chain-link fences topped with razor wire.

Granted, much of this can be traced back to our southern neighbour’s own security obsession, which we continue to soak up like the cultural-imperialist soaked sponge we are, but the simple fact is most of us have allowed ourselves to be convinced that force—or the threat of force—is the only way to solve our problems, real or imagined. Whether you’re talking globally or in the city’s downtown core, the official solution always seems to involve dropping the hammer . . . even though offering our hand is more the cultural norm.

Nothing makes this more clear than the upcoming Olympics. While security costs were originally sold to us at the price of $175 million, the overall bill is now tipping the $900 million mark—a big-ticket cost that reportedly includes nearly $100 million for 5,000 private security officers, $79 million for three cruise ships to house all the extra personnel, $65 million for new police equipment, $15 million for security upgrades to BC Ferries and Canada Border Services Agency plus a comparably paltry $3.8 million on security for the national Torch Run alone. Then there’s all those new security cameras (900 in Whistler, 100 in Vancouver) which we’ve been promised will be removed after the games. Sorry, but it doesn’t take much of a cynic to envision all this new equipment, training and enhanced security infrastructure being used to combat the resulting increases in poverty, injustice and social unrest that will be the province’s true Olympic legacy.

Most telling, of course, is the fact that all of these security measures are being taken to ensure the safety of the athletes and “Internationally Protected Persons” for a 16-day event (25 if you include the Paralympics) that has really only ever had two security breaches: Munich, 1972, and Atlanta, 1996. Clearly, the Olympics—much like the various international political summits—quite literally affords government forces the opportunity to better learn how to limit and manage civil unrest, and to beef up their equipment lockers for those times when things do get out of hand. And, of course, to get the message out that any oppositional attitude will be promptly, and severely, dealt with. (After all, the world is watching . . . sort of.)

Instead of propping up the tarnished illusion of Olympic dreams, would our provincial government have been willing to increase the real sense of security for the people of B.C. by spending millions (billions?) on the likes of education, health care, arts funding, green technologies, community assistance programs and realistic job creation during this recession? I’d say there’s about a snowball’s chance at Whistler of anyone saying “yes” to that one. Once again, illusion wins over reality, and image triumphs over action.

Me, I’d take a security blanket over blanket security any day. M