These are the things

This is Barbara Sternberger, feminist avant guard film maker, who said it better than anyone else could at the Toronto G20.  You see the thing she has in her hand and the look on her face?  I'll explain now...

The day was both hot and humid, as are so many days in TO in the summer.  The place was packed too -- like sardines, or an Iron Maiden concert -- but we were there -- like sardines, or an Iron Maiden concert -- to be close to each other and feel the power of just having it out.  The music was loud and the cops -- oh man, the cops! -- were everywhere... on rooftops, undercover, overburdened, stressed out and ready.  So anyway, we walked anyway, and the music pounded and we were excited and scared and we walked into downtown where the cops lined the block entrances to the demilitarized zone and there, in the midst of all the pain and glory, the wigged out hippies and the punkers with babes in arms, the bystanders running and tweeting, was this one lady -- so strong and simple, waving a green triangular flag at the police and then walking away.  And I said to my friend, "look at that lady!  that's amazing!"  And she said:

That's Barbara Sternberg!

And Barbara Sternberg came over to us and said a punctuated hello to my friend and said, so straightforwardly, so much like a stern school marm:

'I'm going up to each of these lines of police officers and saying 'We Stand For Peace And You Stand For Violence And You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourselves', and then I walk on to the next group and Tell Them The Same.'

And even if history remembers the whole thing as a great failure -- a failure of protest, of government defence, of legal prowess -- I will always recall this woman's solo stand against everything unjust.  Everything she felt to be unjust and which she stood against nonetheless.