the news from the Canadas

(ivica)

:       strikes

"You must never go down to the end of the town if you don't go down with me."
(A.A.Milne)

Miss Keriel Strange is on strike. I knew one of her teachers. I asked permission from her parents and they said it was okay because she refused to talk to them and they wanted to know themselves. So they arranged an introduction.

She is graduating this year from her high school. I met her and two of her friends (one young lady and one young man) at the Weirdo Centre (the biggest downtown mall in Fat City). I offered to buy the drinks in the food court and we stumbled along awkwardly for a few minutes until I realized that she was not going to co-operate.

So I talked about strikes.... The strike is a civilized weapon. Rather than shooting or punching, you withdraw yourself...until changes are made. A boxer in an Olympic forum. Gandhi in a mountain of people. Henry David Thoreau against the immoral laws of his own government. The Chinese students of Tiananmen Square against the Chinese tanks that were to mow them down on June 4, 1989. (And then of course there's the huge herd of watchers... who look on helplessly as if it were a faraway play or a television show.) Violent people don't go on strike. Civilized non-violent people do. I asked if she would like to see anyone in particular go on strike, like teachers or drug dealers or the Spice Girls....

She chuckled and said that yes, it would be nice to see all the sports jerks go on strike. The boys get so preoccupied that there's no time left over for their families or wives or girl friends. Professional athletes are just greedy drunks and druggies---overpaid soap-opera stars for men. She sipped on her Dr. Pepper.

"There was no pretense about them. They had little ambition. They lived life instinctively.
They didn't belong to Ottawa or to Canada; they never fitted in."
 (Norman Levine)

And she'd liked to see civil servants go on strike. Environmental laws are passed, child porno laws are passed, and they do nothing, they just sit back on their soon-to-be pensioned off asses. There's enough talk without action in this city. Nothing gets better. And she would like to see women in church, in Parliament, in business. (I suggested some churches, some Parliaments, some businesses.) I said that she could start her own little power-grabbing group today. (Nothing is stopping her in this free city...start small today...something small, manageable, and meaningful in her life)

I thought at the time that here was a new synthesis who wasn't right wing or left wing, yuppie or hippie, baby boom or generation X...a new generation...maybe another Renaissance. Her two friends said almost nothing---like they were in a church, or on guard, but very sincere and polite.... The girl wore what looked like a Quaker white linen bonnet. The boy was nondescript.

She would like to see day-care centres go on strike forever, and summer camps, and even kindergartens, and primary school teachers. Women are perfectly capable of taking care of their children and their businesses if men were also willing to take care of both their kids and their businesses. And she would like to see garbage men go on strike until all the garbage came only in see-through garbage bags. And the old folks in the old-age homes should go on strike too.

I got the impression that she realized that (in this city) the cops follow the rules but the killers don't. The poor children here in the Canadas and the starving children elsewhere, will NOT be helped today. I think she saw her little self (standing as tall as she could) in their big old world. I told her that I hoped she won her strike. They thanked me. And they were gone.

I looked around the mall and wondered how many other people were fighting, on strike, or just beaten. Like an amateur anthropologist discovering fossils: HOMO SAPIENS, HOMO ERECTUS, HOMO LARDUS, HOMO RAPIDUS, HOMO FAMILIARIS, HOMO MUSICUS, HOMO BEERUS, HOMO MINIVANUS, HOMO DRUGUS, HOMO BASEBALLUS, HOMO JOBUS, HOMO DIVORSUS, HOMO CANADUS....

Who can legally and morally strike in this country, anyway? Nurses? Cops? Dentists? Tax collectors? Wives? The Royal Union Of Thieves and Fences? The hookers up on Parliament Hill? Washington interns? Clowns? Teenagers? Telephone operators? Mistresses? Brothers-in-law? Bankers? Nuns? The Golden Principle of a democratic strike seems to be: apply enough pressure to be felt and heard without resorting to violence and intimidation. (But not everyone would agree.)

"Il gran rifiuto" 
(Dante)
[The big refusal]
"Silence is deep as Eternity;
speech is shallow as Time."
(Thomas Carlyle)

I would love to interview these three kids again next year and see how they've grown. They were very likeable. It's tough when good people go on strike....

 

 

'til the next time, ivica-sailing-the-road-i-know-exists

 
 

"Meanwhile, entertainment pushed to an extreme
becomes the main form of business and politics."
(Marshall McLuhan)

 

 [.^.LAPIS.^.FORFEX^..PAPYRUS^..]

 

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