We are all, I am sure, aware of the ongoing protests of the Tamil community in Toronto in their desperate attempt to raise public awareness of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in
Sri Lanka. These protests, as protests often do in complacent Canada, have led to a backlash; a backlash interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is that it exposes many of the most salient obstacles that we as a society face in the early 21st Century in our efforts to foster a nation based on a culture of solidarity, social justice and tolerance.
Broadly speaking, the objections to the actions of the Tamils, often quite virulently expressed, breakdown into three
categories: the casually racist or race-baiting questioning of the commitment of the
community to Canada (and whether they are even "Canadian" at all), the sense that the Tamils have no right to, or are engaging in criminal conduct by
disrupting traffic in the city, and, most insidious of all, the sense that their protests are irrelevant anyway as there is nothing that we, as a country or as individuals, can do about it.
Christie
Blatchford probably best represents the first
category, writing in the Globe and Mail that the Tamils are somehow taking advantage of our democracy, that many of them may not be Canadian citizens at all, and that those who are are really Canadian in name only, as their true heart lies with their fellow Tamils on the far side of the world.
Well, democracy exists precisely to be taken advantage of. The origins of our societal commitment to democracy, to freedom of speech and assembly, is a
revolutionary and expansive one in that it is part of a broader liberal democratic commitment to UNIVERSAL human rights, regardless of where these human beings may reside or what citizenship they may hold. Tamils have a RIGHT to express themselves and to protest in Canada even if they are not citizens, and it is odd that reactionaries like
Blatchford often seem so interested in upholding the democratic rights of those in other countries, like China or Afghanistan (where such rights are often woefully absent) but have but a paper thin embrace of such rights right here at home. Many people, especially in North America, travel to countries in which they are not citizens, or to communities in which they do not reside, to participate in protests of one type or another, and this makes them a part of the great tapestry of democracy that should be available to all, everywhere, always.
Would
Blatchford question the
legitimacy of an American ex-patriot participating in a rally in support of the war in Afghanistan or would she seek to bar Americans from coming to Canada to participate in, for example, pro-life protests? I doubt it.
Blatchford, immersed as she is in the pornography of crime reporting, blinded as she is by the alleged desire for a certain type of social order, is very much a part of that wide segment of our population intoxicated by
convienience and so overwhelmed by their own Ptolemaic self-
obsessiveness that they confuse privileges with rights, and see intimidation or criminality in anything that at all disrupts their daily lives in even the most minor way. Such folks have objected to every radical protest ever held, and had they had sway over the flow of human events such things as the Jim Crow south would still exist.
In the rhetoric of these people one would think that Toronto was somehow under
siege, held hostage by a rampaging mob. In reality, I think it is fair to say that these protests have led to a most minimal disruption and that the vast majority of the city's four million citizens have experienced no disruption of any kind, at all, period. The hysteria is vastly disproportionate to the reality on the street. Even the short -lived seizing of the highway
occurred on a Sunday night, did not interfere with any rush hours, and was only spectacular due to the audacity and courage of those involved and the absurd non-stop coverage of it by "news" outlets like the pathetic
CP24.
Other protests have seized or disrupted highways, whether those of native peoples or truckers for example, and other groups will do this again. Is it dangerous? Slightly, yes, but then sometimes a cause is important enough to motive people to take such steps. Is it criminal? Unquestionably, but in a most insignificant way, and almost all protests that get noticed at all are in some way or another in violation of some part of the criminal code or some set of city by-laws of one type or another.
Never mind that we, as
Torontonians, seem to have no trouble dealing with the temporary detours forced upon us by such events as St. Patrick's Day, Santa Christmas parades, religious processions of various types, or the shutting down of entire streets for hours for Buffalo Bills games. And, I, for one, would venture that none of these hold the importance of a community standing up against what they see as a threat to their very survival. That this threat is not
occurring in Canada means nothing; this isn't Ireland either!
Democracy, as many others have noted, is a messy thing, and when people are working for a cause, as opposed to being disruptive in some violent or actually criminal way, we have a long tradition of allowing this as part of the small price we pay to be in a country allegedly dedicated to freedom of assembly. Should we, instead, yearn to be citizens of lands where the seizing of public spaces to express anger or indignation are met by the iron fist of government and police?
If your fear of the slight
interference with routine is so great, or if your constitution is unable to cope with such moments of civil
disobedience, than it is in Singapore that you belong and I encourage you to make your way there so that the government can do your thinking for you.
But of all of the objections raised, of all the contempt shown for the Tamils, none is more singularly instructive of the mindset of a certain segment, and a very influential one at that, of our society, than that trotted out by that constant windbag of middle-class self-indulgence, conformity and indifference, Margaret
Wente.
To her, above all, the question is, why bother? In the end, it will accomplish nothing anyway. The
Sri Lankan army will crush the Tamil Tigers and kill thousands of trapped civilians regardless of anything we do, so we might as well do nothing. And if the Tamils in Canada were right thinking Canadians like the rest of us they would understand this and go back to their empty
pursuit of material gain and the discovery of the best latte available in this or that neighbourhood.
I was, earlier today, looking for a way to best express all the reasons and not just the obvious ones, that we, as leftists, as Canadians of good
conscience, should not only stand up to this ugly, small-minded way of thinking, but should actually begin to fight it and the whole ideology that underlies it.
Quite by accident I came across it at a local fitness centre. There, on a blackboard, the owner had written "If nothing changes then nothing changes". This is, of course, trite and completely meaningless. Beyond that, though, it is interesting as it shows how the
rhetoric of change, or of democracy, or of community or of family, or of any of the other institutions and freedoms so forsaken or abandoned by the last thirty years of North American reaction can be so totally expropriated to reflect sentiments that are totally devoid of anything beyond crass individualism.
The change spoken of here was change to one's waistline or butt size. The owner, oddly, is a vocal and forceful opponent of the change sought by the Tamils and others who protest or seek to make a difference.
So can the protests succeed? Can we as Canadians hope to stop what is happening? Maybe not. But so what?
The more important question is how long can we continue to stand by, always saying there is nothing we can do, that there is no point because nothing ever changes anyway, while the things that make this country worth living in are sold off, eliminated, downsized, or destroyed in the name of tax relief?
I am sure that the Tamils are aware of the odds
against them, and yet they stand up because that is what people do in the face of hopelessness; they create, through their actions, hope. Hope clung to and felt together, as brothers and sisters, as a community, because they refuse to let go and they refuse to give up.
We have given up. My generation, and more especially
Wente's generation of 35-60 year
olds were hand fed everything. We had the recreation centres, the after school programmes, the cheap university education, the free high school textbooks, the social safety net and the sense that we lived in an optimistic, forward-looking community. A community. Imperfect and yet real. With rights and freedoms that others had fought and died for. Sacrificed for. Unions, soldiers, activists. Those glorious and forgotten freedom fighters in church basements and committee rooms, fanning out with clipboards to do something to change the world they lived in. People willing to make an effort.
And now? This same generation has slammed the door on those who came next. We, for tax cuts and personal self-gratification have gutted schools, universities, the social safety net and our sense of communal purpose. We have thrown up our hands in the face of
globalization, deregulation, poverty, injustice and now recession and said "there is nothing we can do". It is all
inevitable. Many of us, 46% of us, cannot even be bothered to vote.
Most of us cling to the pillars of community, family and country that, the right especially, point to as the bedrock of our civilization.
Yet these things take effort, they require sacrifice. Community and family are hard. They take dedication and an understanding that there exists a greater purpose beyond the selfish and hedonistic. That others matter. That sometimes we should persist and work in the face of setbacks, difficulties or even
catastrophes, large and small, personal or communal. That some things are worth striving for.
It is easier to ignore our neighbours, it is easier to forget that our actions have consequences, it is easier, by far, to put ourselves first.
Yet, inexorably, this leads to isolation, to the dissolution of the common threads that bind us to each other. This leads to the breakdown of the very things that we hold dear. It leads to the sense of emptiness and unhappiness that so many feel despite all the material goods they accumulate and despite the fact that they have put themselves and their own tiny universes ahead of all others and all else.
So why fight? Why protest?
For the same reason that the
heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto did. Not because you will win, but because it is the fight that makes you human and it is the fight that makes the world worth living in. Ultimately it is the fight that will change things, maybe not today, maybe not for those for whom the
Sri Lankan army is about to end it all, but for others somewhere, someday.
If you don't fight in the face of such barbarism, then what does that say about you?
They used to say that complacency is complicity. But complacency was better by far than what the
Wentes and the boomers of the world have brought us. They have brought us indifference and cynicism. The active and
conscious desire to not care. This is no longer complicity, it is
collaboration.
Wente and those who feel this way might as well be doing the killing themselves.
It is time to stand up and be counted against this. It is time to say that we can make a difference and that fighting injustice is always worthwhile whatever the odds. It is time to stand with workers being forced to grant concessions despite the huge salaries of
CEOs. It is time to say that community is more important than tax cuts. It is time to say that social solidarity
means more than a trip to
Wal Mart and that putting time into preserving the things that prevent our descent into Ayn Rand anarchy is worth it.
Dylan Thomas wrote of fighting against the dying of the light. The Tamils are fighting against the dying of their light.
We should stand with them. Regardless of whatever may have happened in the past. Simply because what is happening to them now is truly, deeply, wrong.
And if this means that some folks have to detour off University Avenue, put down their cell phones for ten minutes to figure out how to get to work, or to actually take the time to care for just a few seconds of their precious lives about the
annihilation of the aspirations of a people, then too fucking bad.
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