Dharm Makwana

Picketing the Paralympics isn’t on the agenda of one prominent Olympic protester.

Chris Shaw, a member of the Olympic Resistance Network, said he doesn’t plan to protest the Paralympics nor has he heard of anyone else aiming to do so though potential for demonstrations remains.

“The reason I wouldn’t go out there because it’s just not the same organization,” Shaw said of structural differences between the Olympic and Paralympic Games. “This is really about more of the community and competition for its own sake rather than the same kind of stuff we saw last week, when we saw frenzied jumping up-and-down fits as Canada wins gold.”

Paralympics don’t bring with them the same commercialization as the heavily sponsored Olympics, which closed on Feb. 28, Shaw added.

“It’s apples and oranges, they’re all in the basket of fruit but they’re different things entirely, at least from my perspective,” the UBC professor explained.

Shaw plans to remain busy in the anti-Olympic movement and would share lessons learned from the Vancouver spectacle with other activists in future host cities London, England, and Sochi, Russia.

“The Sochi opposition, if there is one, is going to need a lot of help because they’re up against a very much more oppressive state apparatus,” he said. “You don’t take protests lightly in Russia.”