14:05 - 07/11/2009
Distractions
A+ and I watched "Slumdog Millionaire" together the other night. I almost didn't make it through the first five minutes. It is a fabulous movie, but the subject matter caught me off guard. I guess I was expecting something similar to "Bride and Prejudice" or "Bend it like Beckham", both of which I really enjoyed. Instead, the very first prisoner of conscience I advocated for when I first joined Amnesty International seemed to be up there on the screen before my eyes. He was an 18 year old student from Pakistan (yes I know, one country to the North and West) who had been working for democritisation in that country. The torture scene in "Slumdog Millionaire",sanitized as it was, was almost identical to what I recall reading about that boy's torment when I first received his dossier. I thought I was going to be sick.
Later, when I worked/read of issues on Bosnia and Rwanda, for example, those torture scenes seemed almost tame by comparison, but I digress. There was always a lot of guilt, working on various prisoner files. I felt guilty about living in such a privileged society where the majority of people neither know nor care about the inhumane bestiality of some of our biggest trading partners aka "international friends". Maybe that's the reason so little is heard of it in our own communities. It isn't that the traditional media didn't and doesn't try to get the word out - they were/are one of Amnesty International's greatest allies. However, their main source of income is advertising from those corporations who stand to lose the most - cash and power-wise - should the citizens of our country demand accountability. Those in power are equally as brutal, maybe even moreso, toward reporters - remember Daniel Pearl - or media that threaten their cosy little systems of abuse and exploitation. The recent events in places like Iran, Burma, Tibet, Honduras, and China and the still on-going trauma in places like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Kenya, clearly demonstrate how far those who hold power are willing to go to ensure they are never held responsible for their acts of terror against their own citizens. God bless the developers of the internet, Twitter, Facebook and freegate for their work, even though it may not have been their reason for building it. "If you build it they will come."
A+, his Mom and I were discussing all this over lunch a couple of days ago, the news hour just passed being a litany of stories about further abuses/atrocities. Wherever there are raw resources of value in "less sophisticated" (meaning consumer-based) communities, it seems that foreign governments and global corporations feel they have the right to brutally take over and exploit those people for their own, and their stockholders', gain. Even law makers in our own countries are knowingly complicit - if the price is right. What has been highlighted in the news recently is the pre-meditated pattern and policy of displacement and slow strangulation of the local populations by a flooding in of citizens of the aggressor nation. The Han in Xinjiang and Tibetans is well known, but there is India taking over Nepal and Peru decimating the Inca in the Amazon, or the corporate invasions of Honduras and Nigeria, that are most visible in recent events. Because the aggressors control traditional media, those who resist their loss of their culture and ways of life are portrayed as backward at best or terrorists at worst. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela, good examples of how frightened the invaders are of even one small human and how much effort they will employ to assassinate the character or the person in question. Another way the aggressors hide their actions is by diverting attention elsewhere or using some other crisis to mask their own assaults on a population. For example, two years ago during the uprisings in Tibet, the Chinese government entered Uighur cities and forcefully bulldozed their existing homes/housing in the name of "progress". They shunted the victims into substandard tenements, claiming they were only interested in improving the lives of their victims. What they were doing was removing physical centres of the Uighurs traditional cultures, in order to diminish and destroy their traditional cultural practices. This while there is currently a campaign to save very similar "heritage" homes located in Beijing. Uh huh. Phew, end of rant - for today, anyway.
I've been sending out resumes for the past week or so, not having heard anything back from the Canadian head office about my concerns and appeals of the actions of the city and area managers. The silence is one way of containing an issue, I guess. I have had several responses and a few surprise invitations to submit a resume for a position, but nothing substantive yet. It is very depressing and a bit scary given the jobless numbers being released, as well as the litany of layoffs being announced both in the public and private sectors. Just have to keep trying I guess.
I am still doing my quality assurance assignments as they become available, but the economy has reduced the number of those available too. Yesterday, walking to one such assignment, I came across a young woman passed out on the street. Her friend said she just fainted and fell suddenly without warning, after complaining of chest pains. Just 17 years old and appearing to be in good physical shape and health - other than being unconscious. Another woman and her father had arrived to help just before me. She on her cell phone to emergency services, while the Dad and I tried to keep the young woman calm and immobile when she came around until an ambulance arrived. Her friend was calling other supports while we were waiting. They had been on their way to summer school, you see, and needed to let their teachers know why they were absent. I moved on when I saw the ambulance approaching, while the others stayed with the young lady. Hope she is ok.
Arrived at the store I was to evaluate only to deal with another unexpected issue - this time in the form of a very aggressive customer walking in. She interrupted the discussion the sales person and I were having to demand that her needs be dealt with first and immediately - "because she was in a hurry, you know". Having had years of customer service experience myself, I deferred to the woman feeling that she had demonstrated enough volatility in that first minute to make it wiser for me to wait. I also didn't want to leave the clerk alone with the customer, which would have been the case if I had insisted on completing my transaction first. Road rage isn't only for men. When I filed my report later, I noted that the store was very isolated and that the risk to lone staff was an issue that should be considered. Doubt that the client will appreciate the expression of my opinion, but I really don't want to hear about one of their staff being assaulted or worse because there was no one around to go to. Sigh.
A+ continues to help me by spending a lot of time with me. We went to the Stampede on Wednesday - Childrens' day, as it is traditionally known locally. Thousands of children, strollers and exhausted parents all seeming to have a great time all the same. We walked and took photos for about 8 hours. Oi. Rain came down in buckets, seemingly at half hour intervals, so we moved in and out of the exhibition halls in rhythm to the floods. The artists' gallery was great. There was a display/recruiting exhibit by our military that attracted a lot of attention from the young males in the crowd. I was unsettled by the animal exhibits, which surprised me. In the past, the housing for the domestic farm animals - one of the reasons for the origin of the fair after all - was humane. Usually a lot of space and protection from humans crowding too close. This year it was just a series of one small metal pen after another, sometimes with some of the animals tethered tightly outside the cage, so that fair goers could "pet" them. Some of those poor animals were obviously very traumatized and it hurt to look at them. Sigh. I'll think about that and act on it soon. How we treat the "least" among us. Matthew: 35 - 45, if you care to know.
Back out in the sun, eating hot dogs and watching the crowds. In the hall with the children's play area - very entertaining even before watching the actors improvise on the Red Riding Hood theme. Outside next, checking out the "Dream Home" being raffled off by the Kinsmen. Then the Coca Cola stage, which offers up free outdoor concert entertainment daily. The bands Thornley and the Heebies Jeebies braving the downpours among electric guitars and other mysterious cables criss-crossing the stage, oh my. Both great acts. Watching fair-goers on some of the equally electrified rides, still operating despite the deep puddles of water they were standing in. Oi, too. Watching the show dogs inside the Corral, enjoying the reactions of the children as they cheered on their favorite pups. Met up with some of the people who had left the company I worked for at Christmas, while wandering toward the First Nations Teepee Village. It was nice to learn that they were doing much better both emotionally and financially - gives me hope, right? Taking photos of the winners of the traditional pow-wow dances, as well as of the RCMP and police officers who were participating in their own special ways. A quick bowl of wonton soup shared to warm up, then the train ride back home. Oh, the blisters. Oh well. Turned on the news just in time to see a photo of a funnel cloud overhead taken by a resident in my community - oh no. However, the cats seemed unfazed, so who am I to panic.
One dream I remember with some puzzlement from yesterday. A+ and I seemed to be out golfing. Neither of us knows how to golf, but in the dream we were very good. Hmmm. The setting was what intrigued me. It reminded me partly of the one valley in the mountains surrounding Banff. Exquisite summery beauty. There was also a mountain meadow full of, what looked like, poppies, that kept recalling to mind that one scene in the "Wizard of Oz" where Dorothy (Judy Garland) fell asleep. I don't really know what the mind was trying to convey to me, but at least it felt like a happy dream. Anyway time to go send out another resume, I think. Bye, dear diary.
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