Photoblogging - Part V

This is the state of our world.

We're still up to our knees, and the water is rising...

As nothing occurs in isolation, I must now revisit my earlier remarks on the drug den that has surfaced only four houses from where my parents live. My mother and I lapsed into a heated debate last night over the issue: our dialogue covered law and order, and living in fear, and the world of business, and ended with her telling me she did not want this problem in her neighbourhood, period. As we were ramping up our frustration, we noticed the story on the television of the two boys who were gunned down in their car Friday evening.

By now, you're aware of my description of the sewer of problems backwashing into the living room, which is the case here, but my wagging fingers and saying "I told you so!" doesn't do any of us much good. My mother is afraid, as are her neighbours - particularly those who felt the wrath of these "salespeople" due to mistaken identity - and they have every right to be. My fear is, when a misinformed public is afraid, and when that fear becomes anger, what consequences will ensue? Conversely, what does preaching love and compassion do, especially when someone is about to hurl a brick through your window?

I wish I could believe in the world ingrained in the general public - a world in which the police and the army are the force of good, in which criminals see the errors of their ways and seek to engage the community in a more constructive manner, in which justice is truly served - but, as you and I know painfully well, this is but a dream, played out on television as if genuine, its audience the victims of a scheme so grand as to be beyond anything fathomable. I could easily tell you I haven't the heart to hit my unsuspecting family and friends with the cold, hard reality, but leaving them in the dream world is a far worse fate, especially when said cold, hard reality knocks the wind out of them by surprise, as is the case with this neighbourhood drug den. The alternative, however, means shattering the world as our loved ones know it, which may very well result in either wholesale denial or crippling despair. For instance, try telling your mother that narcotics are a market-driven commodity over which wars at all levels, from gun battles between rival gangs to "search and destroy" exercises by large armies; that Drug Tsars operate legally under the auspices of the "pharmaceutical industry"; that the police crack down on these narcotics hubs to put on a show for the cameras before returning these commodities to the marketplace; that justice is awarded to the highest bidder; that a company like Disney, purveyor of wholesome family imagery, is a multi-billion-dollar baron of propaganda for the Empire of Plenty, feeding pro-war messages into the minds of the unsuspecting proletariat; that we are being programmed to fall in line through our electronic and printed media, and that this happens via peripheral persuasion, far beyond the reaches of our awareness? Does it sound like some extravagant conspiracy theory to you? If you place yourselves in the role of John & Jane Q. Surburbanite Taxpaying Consumer, it sure does, only because the masters of this mayhem have fashioned themselves such clever masks, it is nearly impossible for anyone innundated with bills and personal strife to pay any attention to the machinery at work.

I'll come down from my soapbox now. Frankly, I'm tired of preaching, for what good has it done? Raised awareness? That's only the first step, and without the necessary faith to do something about it, this awareness will only destroy our collective heart. So, what is to be done? What do we do when we see a group of young boys stomping the daylights out of some kid, or when he hear of a young man walk up to a car at a stoplight and blast two boys in the front seat to the land of oblivion? Is it as simple as saying "all we need is love"? Mind you, it's not an incorrect assertion; it just doesn't sound all that practical in its form.

So, how do love and respect rule the day? We can't seem to find it in the penal system, nor in the business world. So, what do we do? How do we reach out to would-be felons? How do we teach the community to be not afraid, that their fear is what keeps the status quo what it is, that evil will previal so long as we remain fearful?

My mother says I always focus on the negative, and that I ought to see the positive side of life. In my defense, I tell her I point out all this negativity because we're all of us immersed in it, and that denial of its existence is not the path to happiness. We can coat this mess in as much sugar as we want to drown out the taste, but we're still ingesting it nonetheless. "Negativity" is not highlighting society's ills; negativity is believing ourselves powerless against them. Salvation will only be achieved when we accept the world for what it is, for only then will we be able to do anything.

The question remains: what do we do?

Double Feature, Single Reel

Yesterday, the CBC, our national television network, gave us a pair of goodies. First, I learned of our Government's formal apology for the nightmare that was the Residential School Program, calling it "a sad chapter in our history (today, I find this... oops). Later that day, its investigative program, The Fifth Estate, set its crosshairs on gang violence and the trafficking of "illegal" firearms. Perhaps you're wondering why I have juxtaposed these two seemingly unrelated stories. Upon first glance, the only thing they share is the network on which they were broadcast, but if you see them for what they are, you will recognize them as two strands woven into the same fabric.

First, my thoughts on the former. I would like to believe this to be a sincere gesture on behalf of our Government, I really would. I firmly believe, by acknowledging our transgressions, the healing process can commence, and want very much to applaud our elected officials for undertaking the primary step towards this goal; as you may have guessed, I'm not quite ready to do so, for something tells me this is but another in the lengthy string of illusions by our masters of the sleight of hand, another tactic in the political repertoire that can be deployed come election time, another badge the Government can pin to its coat for the country to see. My intention is not to kick sand in the faces of our esteemed Members of Parliament - far from it! My hope, rather, is to test the sincerity of this apology, to see whether or not it means anything, or if it will end up lost in the archives of empty rhetoric. I imagine they're hoping no one remembers their rejection of the United Nations Declaration of Aboriginal Rights, one of only four nations to do so; Australia, New Zealand and the United States being the others. (!) If atonement for its sins is what our Government seeks, it is not off to a pleasant start. Perhaps it should get cracking on that myriad of land claims. Perhaps it should a revision of our Canadian history texts issued to schools across the country, in which our colonizing this land and subjugating its inhabitants is painted with one convenient broad stroke. Perhaps it should actively seek to improve the squalid conditions in which most First Nations folk live.

On to the second half of our double feature: the CBC's portrayal of this supposed pandemic of gang violence that has the nation in its throes. While The Fifth Estate ought to be commended on highlighting how easy it is to acquire firearms in the United States, I'm afraid it misses the mark - my use of this pun was purely coincidental, unless you subscribe to the theory of parapraxis, in which case, watch me pat myself on the pack for such a clever idiom - when trying to capture the big picture. For instance, while so much attention was directed towards "illegal" gun trafficking, not a single mention was made of the world's largest gun runners, who just so happen to hold permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council; not so much as a whisper of the dealings of the likes of Lockheed Martin, Kellogg Brown & Root, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman or the like, manufacturers of the largest armaments the likes of which we'll ever see (until they develop even larger toys, that is). Can you really blame the underworld for trying to make a buck?

So, how do these two stories connect? Well, for starters, they feature two marginalized elements in our merry society, who, for generations, have been forced to play catch-up to their White counterparts whose hands grasp the string from which the proverbial carrot dangles; who thrived until the coming of the White Man. Furthermore, these stories reflect the violent current shaping our glorious civilization: the wanton slaughter and subjugation of people the world over by our hands has now manifested itself in our own backyard. More importantly, perhaps, these events, particularly the manner in which they are portrayed, reflect our denial of what is: in the case of the former, I suspect it to be a case of "We said we're sorry. Now will you please let it go?"; in the latter, an outright refusal to acknowledge the connection between "gang violence" and the wars we fight abroad, and the torrid flow of capital driving both.

We ordered our children to kill one another when we arrived on this continent, we order our children to kill one another when we send them overseas, yet we act surprised when they do the same in our streets, and try so desperately to contain the problem by throwing even more muscle at it. I'm afraid the septic tank is full; it's time to start accepting the mess we've made.

The hardened heart will once again be pure.

"I know that the older people get and the more they know, the more they think before doing anything. Above all, they lose that blind trust in the honesty and goodness of their friends in good times or bad. A child's glance is frank, clear, open. An older person's is rather closed, a little cynical, shadowed by hidden thoughts and tears of disillusionment." - Anaïs Nin, 2 June 1919

I've taken to riding my bicycle again - as a means of both recreation and transporting myself around the city - and it has enveloped me with feelings of nostalgia. I used to ride my bicycle all the time as a child, until the driver's license fell into my hands, and with it, the car keys. I took to it occasionally over the years, though not enough to invoke any meaning from it. Now, having shunned a personal motorized chariot - by and large, anyway, for there still exists the odd occasion when I must borrow a vehicle from a friend or relative - I do much of my traveling on the transit system, which is great for those long trips on which I can catch up on my reading or sleeping; however, given its questionable reliability (I'm not pointing my finger at any particular element), I'm growing increasingly fond of my bicycle, and, as a result, have found myself engrossed in days of yore.

As the Earth rotated and the Sun made its way out of view late Friday, I pedaled my human-powered machine along my "street of early sorrows", a stretch of four-lane road in a north-south orientation, located in the west end of Scarborough (which had since been assimilated into the city of Toronto some ten years back), lined by bungalows and schools and parks and the occasional shopping centre. I spent the better part of my seemingly short life in a house just east of this street, nestled in a cul-de-sac about four blocks inward; both the elementary and high schools I attended are on this street, though I don't find myself nearly as nostalgic for the latter as I do the former - I don't wish to elaborate on how it all started to turn sour upon entering high school, at least not in great detail, for it is beside the point I wish to make... come to think of it, it may just end up supporting it, after all.

Now, I'm a full-fledged adult, less than two years from my thirtieth birthday, wondering where the magic went, hoping to retrieve it. Considering the tumultuous years of my adolescence, I count about fifteen years of misfortune during which I felt myself unable to escape so easily to my realm of the imaginary - after all, how could I ever find a job or a mate if I didn't hone my skills as a social animal? - compounding itself year after year. As a child, I yearned for the supposed freedom that came with adulthood, only to discover adult problems more monumental, and "freedom" further and further away. My mind, once abound in wonder, found itself enamoured by thoughts of bills and first impressions and politicians and more self-loathing.

What happened to us? What happened to that magic, that innocence we once knew so well? How did we allow our hearts to become hardened? How did we become so afraid to love? Is it possible to return to the innocence of days gone by, or are we forever confined to this rotten state of affairs, forever victims of this negativity?

I, for one, along with many others, feel it's not too late to retrieve the magic. Through my spiritual teachings, I've learned that "the universe is you", that is, the world around us is a reflection of who we are, and we are a reflection of the world around us (it's a bidirectional relationship; it cannot be unilateral), thus the barriers we erect to lock the pain away only create more, until the walls collapse and our remains are found splayed over the sidewalk.

As old as I am, as many "adult" problems I have faced, I firmly believe the children are still alive within us, and once we've stripped away the layers of fear that shroud us, these children will once again flourish; they will once again be allowed to dream, to live, to blossom.

I bookend this entry with two excerpts from the early diary of Anaïs Nin, renowned for the erotica and journals she authored and the company she kept. She wrote these words at the age of sixteen, and they've struck me, nearly inety years hence, at the age of twenty-eight, thus prompting me to write this piece in the hopes that those of you trapped in the pit of despair can see the shimmer of hope whose rays always penetrate through the darkness.

"[H]e will see us giving each of all those "miserable ones" a chance to be as happy as we are. Then we shall see if kind treatment and happiness don't melt all those hearts hardened by misfortune." - Anaïs Nin, 20 August 1919

We're up to our kneees in it... whom do we blame?

I was going to draft an open letter to Mark Steyn in the wake of his article - titled The Future belongs to Islam, published in Maclean's magazine - but I have since decided against doing so, for he has far more important matters about which to worry than a few Muslims moving into his neighbourhood. I could continue ad infinitum about his self-professed crusade for "freedom of speech", though he knows full well this argument is but a red herring his audience will devour: he could have issued a diatribe against the Chinese or the squirrels, but chose instead to lock his crosshairs on the Islamic population.

That's enough I'll say about that, for, as I mentioned earlier, his problem - our problem - is far greater, and no amount of fear-mongering on his or anyone else's part (Ezra, Paul, Rupert, Conrad; I'm looking at all of you!) will whisk it away; in fact, it only stands to compound it further.

The quite suburban cul-de-sac on which I was raised - where, in 1987, my parents transplanted our family in an effort to distance us from the crime plaguing the city - is not so quiet in 2008. Just in the past week or two, a party down the street grew out of hand, during which time, a melee insued in the street, followed by a brick being hurled through the window of someone suspected by another party of instigating the fisticuffs. In a separate incident, a young lady with whom I grew up, who now has a family of her own, witnessed a group of kids stomping the piss out of someone across the street from her mother's house; as she strolled by, she was instructed to "keep on walking", and that she "didn't see anything". Lastly, the local residents have noticed a steady flux of automobile traffic to and from a certain house on the street, stopping only for a moment while one of the young men leaned his head and torso into the window and, presumably, completed a "business transaction". Some residents have also noticed an individual in a Hummer making a weekly visit at three or four in the morning, presumably to make a delivery. There is now talk of banding together and requesting that the police investigate this suspected hub of narcotics trafficking.

As I listened to this tale, I could not help but think to myself, "Sure, call the cops. If not them, it'll be someone else." The sleepy suburban street on which my parents sought refuge in 1987 is now plagued by society's ills in 2008. The shit pipe has backwashed into the living room, and the residents are now scrambling to clean the mess. It pains me to see these people, my neighbours of yore, live in fear; what hurts more is that this was inevitable, and that no amount of police presence will do a thing about it. After all, we live in a market economy, and these people are just as eager as the next to make a buck for themselves. Haul their asses off to the jail house, and three other families will take their place. Bailing buckets may rid your domicile of that foul sludge, and disinfectants and other harsh chemicals may remove its noxious odour, but it all has to travel somewhere, and down the pipe it can no longer go. Perhaps into your neighbour's yard? Does that solve the problem?

Time and again, we are told by those we perceive as figures of authority to be vigilant against the "cancer" innundating our humble society, these "weeds" that inconveniently sprout all over our pristine lawn. Much like in our gardening endeavours, our approach, thus far, has been to tear the weed out of the ground, or extract the cancerous tissue from the body, and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Homeowners, landscapers, gardeners and the like, I ask you this: what happens? The weeds return. The moral of this story? No mechanistic approach can solve an organic problem. This "cancer" is not some alien element we can simply discard and forget; it is part of us. Eliminating the people plagued by the problem does not solve the problem; rather, it is indicative of our being consumed by the problem.

Oh, yes; I almost neglected to mention a critical detail: these so-called "trouble makers" are not Arabic, nor are they Black, nor are they of the Islamic faith; they are White! Yes, folks! White people are running drugs out of a cozy suburban bungalow! Perhaps on your quiet resdiential street, too! You see that, Mark Steyn? While you're pining over the Muslim family who just moved into the house next to yours, worried about whether or not they will greet you with plastic explosives, Whitey lurks on your block, supplying your children and their friends with weed and other goodies. What's that? Some Imam said the world must be rid of all "non-Muslims"? Well, why don't you ask your Muslim neighbours how their friends and family back home feel about Whitey's presence? Even better: why don't you sit yourself down and read these religious texts? And if the hijab and the niqab scare you, ask these women how they feel about flashing their tits to onlookers - better yet, if you have a daughter of your own, ask her.

In sum, the point I'm trying to convey - the same point I've been trying to convey through this medium all along - is, the effort we expend marginalizing groups of people in the name of "security" while remaining totally oblivious to the core of the problem ends up making us less and less secure. Say we succeed in removing these elements from our merry society; then what? The problem is still there, so what do we do? Continue amputating limbs and extracting organs until nothing remains but a hollow, hemmorhaging torso? The universe is who we are, and nothing is added to or subtracted from infinity (here is where I ought to cite the appropriate spiritual master for this bit of wisdom, but knowledge cannot be downcast into something proprietary); in more applicable terms, our own fear and subsequent subjugation of "others" manifests itself in society's ills, and we can't simply flush them away - out of sight, out of mind - because they end up somewhere, mainly here.

But I do agree with Mr. Steyn on one count: it is not my place, nor anyone else's, to tell him what he can and cannot say to his adoring fans; so please, tell your readers to flush that shit down the pipe, but remember: shit comes from your body, and shit has a way of finding its way to your sanctuary.

N.B.: By "shit", I do not mean the people Mr. Steyn fears, but rather the problems of which he attempts to wash his hands clean by attributing them to said people. I should add, you are intelligent enough to deduce this yourself, but I cannot take any chances in a society that discourages its citizens from probing beneath the surface of anything; nonetheless, had I inadvertently insulted your intellect with this final note, I offer my sincerest apology.