How to Radicalize a Generation
May 10th, 2000By Naomi Klein Toronto ravers are trying to be so reasonable. They have worked with City Council to draft the Protocol for the Operation of Safe Dance Events. The Toronto Dance Safety Committee has tried to make sure paramedic teams are at all the big parties. And this week, at the inquiry into the death of 20-year-old Allan Ho, ravers are explaining that the primary cause of ecstasy-related death is dehydration. Therefore, they say, most of the risk from the drug can be eliminated at raves simply by making sure there is unlimited access to water and proper ventilation. What the ravers are only just beginning to understand is that none of this matters. The rave uproar, like all drug wars, isn't about safety, it's about politics. It's about the fact that a lot of parents don't understand their own kids: the way they dress, the music they listen to, the thing with the pacifier lollipops. Which provides a great political opportunity for Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino to step up for National Daddy Dutyto claim he knows exactly what those sinister lollipops and teddy-bear backpacks are all about. Drugs and violence, that's what. The only solution is...