As I sit here in the brave solitude of this haven I call my family office, I am thankful for three things: I don't live in Yemen, I don't live in Tunisia, and I don't live in Egypt. Granted, I wouldn't make it very far for very long in any one of those Middle East countries for any number of other reasons—faith and food, being two of them. Recent public outrage in those lands would be another; it has made me very happy to live here in southern Alberta.
If I needed a violence fix like that, I can always go to a PTA meeting.
There's just something about rampaging crowds vandalizing, firebombing, and desecrating that makes me feel just a little, well, uncomfortable. While I understand that Canadians are safe, for the time being, people in a mob mentality can do really insane things. And I'd be really uncomfortable if my name was Mubarak. Or Al Kuyda, for that matter.
And just in case you think it's only those hotheaded Arabs that are destroying their country's treasured sites and downtown cores, somewhere in the back of my mind I remember the people of Greece and Portugal and France having their collective temper tantrums last year, railing against the government—and expressing their anger by trashing and looting stores.
Strange, isn't it: They're attacking the government by attacking ordinary people like themselves.
And then there are the countries like the Ukraine and Taiwan, as disparate (not "desperate," Maurice, but it could fit) from each other as possible. We're talking fistfights, kicks to the head, and any item not chained to the floor being thrown at the enemy. Hockey game? Marriage counselling session? Church board meeting? None of the above. It was just another crazy day in those respective (not to be confused with "respectable") country's parliament.
I am trying to present the above in a witty way, but seriously, humans, it worries me.
It worries me, because these are recorded examples of what a general unrest that is pervading our world; only the Lord knows what details are being left out. It worries me that every continent seems to be convulsing, not just Asia or Europe, or some other land mass far removed from our sense of civil reality.
Peaceful protests, yes; mass demonstrations, okay, so long as it doesn't get out of hand. But vandalism, destruction, and violence is too much. I may very likely agree that some of these reactions are warranted, just not how they're carried out. Dictators for life, for example, would be more than I could endure. Can you imagine, for instance, thirty years of the NDP? Rigged elections, so the Liberal party got in, election after election? Man, I too would feel like kicking the nearest sphinx myself.
There are two faults in these worldwide outbursts, and neither one of them can be solved by a quippy column like this. One, no one party, let alone one person, should rule any country for decade after decade, especially when it is not in the best interests of the populace. Yugoslavia is a prime example of this: After its breakup, all you-know-what broke loose, with civil war as one of its bloody results. And many of those Balkan states are still seriously dysfunctional.
Two, no populace should ever think of the government as the answer to all their problems. It has assumed God-like qualities that do not belong to them. Government has its basic and streamlined responsibility, but in most Western countries it has far exceeded that role.
And this is where the global unrest lurches a little closer to home. In our fair democracy, we too often allow the government to meddle in too many of our daily affairs. We think we are so independent, yet we lean on the government for pensions, job creation, health, education, land claims and a host of other sectors that should be in the hands of the ordinary people.
At least we have a say in our own small way, so if we don't like a party or a politician, we can go to the polls and place our "x" in the right box. Also, recent resignations (hello, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Stelmach-- British Columbia and Alberta premiers, respectively) show that government leaders can step away without its citizens torching the town.
No, I'll pass on a trip to Yemen. I could get arrested or shot—or both. I think I'll make my personal demonstration by way of whining at the local coffee shop. The worst thing that could happen to me is I could burn my tongue.
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