On Blockades

I wrote this months ago but never finished it. I don't like it much but I havent written much lately so here you go.

 

--------------------------------------------------------

This was a weekend of aboriginals. At least for me.

 

As surely 99% of the people who read this blog are intimately aware, this Friday was the start of the Canada Day long weekend. I live in Toronto but many family members and friends live in Ottawa, including a brand  spanking new nephew of whom I am somewhat enamored. So like many Canadians I made plans to travel from the one place ot the other. Ottawa is, after all, a beautiful place to be on Canada Day with its beautiful revellers and happy families all decked out in smiles and red.

 

Unfortunately, I was told, the trains would NOT be running on time and the highway would be blocked by a small group of mohawks with a - no pun intended - axe to grind with the federal government over land claims and native poverty issues. Now if you are expecting one of the usual rants on this subject you came to the wrong place. Some other day I can add yet another thousand words onto the million word high pile articulating the (widely held) view that aboriginal insistence on maintaining the reserve system is the problem and that more money isnt the solution - and then I could research the land claims issue just to find out what the HELL is going on there because I really dont know yet. But instead I just want to address the tactics. More specificall, the PRICE of tactics.

 

Do you really think that the palestinians, northern irish, muslims, basques and heaven knows who else, are just plain EVIL?  They arent evil. They are weak. They can't fight a head to head fight but still feel compelled to take action and so they do.  Shawn Brant, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Osama Bin Laden are all exercising civil disobedience. Some more constructively then others.  

 

That having been said though - there has to be a price for civil disobedience. You don't get to break the law AND not get punished for it. The fact that you are willing to break the law enough to get punished... well, that's what makes your stand important in the first place.  

 

Blockade a road. Go to jail. Simple as that. Blow up a building. Go to jail. Or die. Whatever.

 

Which doesn't mean the rest of us get to ignore the reason the person committed the crime in the first place. Sometimes they have a damn good point and we should damn well listen.