Heather Conn Blogs

A white-haired woman in her eighties looked up from her magazine, smiled, and returned to her reading when I walked into a Vancouver, BC waiting room this week before my dental surgery. She was stylishly dressed in a black-and-grey ensemble with a curlicue-shaped white scarf.

“Are you who I think you are?” I asked her.

“Grace,” she replied, seated across from me. “Grace McCarthy.”

Immediately, I thought of “Gracie’s finger,” that election scandal when she was a B.C. Social Credit cabinet minister. (She was suspected in 1982 of interfering in the redrawing of electoral boundaries in her Little Mountain constituency to include a sliver of the wealthy Arbutus Street corridor. This change, which became known as “Gracie’s finger” due to its long, narrow shape, helped ensure her electoral victory.)

I thought of the white lights that glitter at night on the Lions Gate Bridge (their addition was her idea) and the repainting of Vancouver’s SeaBus catamarans from orange, recommended for safety on the water, to red, white, and blue, her preference.

I thought of McCarthy at the 1986 Socred party convention in Whistler, where Bill Vander Zalm won the nomination. I covered that event as a freelancer, writing a feature with a Wizard of Oz theme for the prairie magazine NeWest Review. I’ll leave you to guess to which character I likened Gracie (and it wasn’t Dorothy).

With these associations rushing through my head, all I did was seize the opportunity for some schmaltzy self-promotion.

“I’ve written a book for kids and the main character’s name is Gracie,” I told her.

“That’s lovely,” she said, reaching into her purse to pull something out. It wasn’t a revolver, but a packaged mint. It fell onto a nearby chair, but she didn’t notice.

“You dropped something,” I said and pointed to the mint.

She looked around, surprised, and picked it up. “Do you want it?”

Nonplussed, I nodded and took it from her.

“What are you up to these days?” I asked. McCarthy mentioned that she had started a charity for children with Crohn’s disease.

“I didn’t even know that kids could get Crohn’s disease,” I said.

“Oh yes, and it’s terrible.” When her granddaughter was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, McCarthy co-founded the C.H.I.L.D. (Children with Intestinal and Liver Disorders) Foundation in 1995 to raise funds for children suffering from these ailments. She is now the volunteer chair of the organization.

McCarthy’s warmth and graciousness surprised me and left me unnerved. I thought of her former nickname “Amazing Grace.” Regardless of her past politics and activities, I applaud her current charity initiative and continued drive at age eighty-four. I hope that I have such purpose, direction, and energy when I’m her age.

Occupy Vancouver tents on their last day by the art gallery (Nov. 21)

I applaud how Vancouver, BC mayor Gregor Robertson handled the recent dismantling of Occupy Vancouver. Unlike some mayors in U.S. cities (e.g. Portland and Oakland), he deserves tremendous credit for avoiding riot squads, confrontation and violent clashes on the occupiers’ final day in front of the art gallery (Nov. 21). Thankfully, the occupiers, too, remained peaceful as they left.

On the morning of their last day in that location, I asked one young man, who was holding high a “Vive la Revolution” sign, if he expected the occupiers’ 2 p.m. departure to be violent. He told me: “Part of me hopes so.”

I watched a half-dozen occupiers take apart their tents at 11:30 a.m., two-and-a-half hours before the city had ordered them gone. The atmosphere was relaxed. A man with a throaty voice and lone guitar was singing “Democracy” at the main microphone. A handful of city officials and uniformed policed mingled with occupiers, standing on the outskirts of the mini tent city. One young man with a painted face walked up to three officers and told them “I’m glad you’re here.”

Song sparrows chittered in the trees at the corner of Georgia and Hornby. From a block away, my stomach felt the pounding, visceral beat of drums. A small group of first nations men and women had formed a circle of seats at Georgia and Granville and were drumming, with bold, rhythmic power, to protest the police handling of the murders of women who went missing on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. “I want to know what happened to my sister,” a native man said into a microphone, standing on the downtown intersection that the city had closed in preparation for protest.

The occupiers’ camp had helped spawn this display of free speech. Hurray for such an open lament. An expert in social movements, quoted recently in Canadian Press, has said that Occupy is the most important democratic social movement of the last two generations and that demonstrators who have taken over parks and other public spaces should be left alone. Occupy Wall Street has said: “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.”

“We’re observing a process of commercializing and privatizing public space, and we should be outraged by it,” says Vincent Mosco, professor emeritus of sociology at Queen’s University. “But we don’t hear about limits on public space until a genuine public movement raising significant political issues decides to make use of public space.”

 

“I hope it [Vancouver’s Occupy movement] is not dead,” environmental leader David Suzuki told about 100 people at his foundation’s Elders’ Forum, held Nov. 24 at the downtown Vancouver Public Library. Democracy is tough, he added, and today’s young occupiers need the helping hand of elders to tell them what roots they’re coming from.

“They’re trying to be different in having no leaders but that’s doomed in the world we’re living,” he said. Suzuki visited the occupy camps in Vancouver and Montreal, but he must have missed the occupiers’ elders’ tent in his home city. At a morning breakout session in his own day-long forum, several female seniors spoke in favor of the occupy movement and its desire for grassroots change. They might not have had tents pitched with the occupiers, but their hearts were alongside them.

Both individually and as a society, as we face daily challenges of injustice and inequities, we all have a basic choice to make: What will we use to motivate our thoughts and actions – love or fear? Do we choose peace or conflict? This sounds ridiculously simple, yet look at how fear fuels much, if not most, of human behavior around the world.

I like what Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics, says in the five-minute documentary excerpt of Occupy Love, produced by Velcrow Ripper. We need a healing world of peace that works for everyone. People, whether they’re part of the 99 or one per cent, flourish in an atmosphere of joint creativity, intimacy, community, and open communication, where life has meaning. We can all create such a world. Let’s start now. Occupy Love.

    — photos by Heather Conn

 

 

 

I am delighted that Gregor Robertson won the mayoralty race in Vancouver, BC and that the Vision Vancouver team can continue its mandate for progressive change. This means that the city’s sustainability plan with its bold goals and target dates will not be shelved or disrupted.

I found it truly offensive to receive an email from Suzanne Anton on Nov. 19 (voting day), which recapped her goals as a potential mayor and what she would pledge to do in that role. I thought that such politicking on voting day was illegal! If so, she and the NPA team need to be censured for their actions.

Hurray for the Green Party grabbing its first council seat. What a great opportunity for the Greens’ newly elected councillor Adriane Carr, who will add her knowledgeable earth-focused perspective. I think that the results of Vancouver’s municipal election show that going green is no temporary fad for residents. Enough people in the city truly recognize that we need fundamental lifestyle changes in how we relate to the environment.

However, I am sad to see that Ellen Woodsworth of the Committee of Progressive Electors did not get re-elected. She has been a grassroots activist for decades in many arenas, from women’s right to choose to affordable housing and poverty issues. I was impressed with the humility, dedication, and passion for helping others that she shared on the Nov. 9 Women in Politics panel in downtown Vancouver, co-hosted by the Minerva Foundation and several women’s business groups.

As for the Sunshine Coast elections, the Gibsons mayoralty results are indeed disheartening. Having lawyer Wayne Rowe at the helm will require an even stronger fight to try and save Gospel Rock. Early congrats to new electee Dan Bouman and re-elected Lee Ann Johnson. They’ll provide a much-needed pro-environment stance on council. Barry Janyk gave the Town of Gibsons a dozen years of fine leadership and eco-minded initiatives as mayor. His contributionss and humor in that role will be missed.

Lastly, I extend congratulations to Donna Shugar in her re-election as director in Roberts Creek. We Creekers and all of us in the SCRD will continue to enjoy the benefits of her extensive experience, open and consultative style, and even-handed way of dealing with so many community issues. Donna, I’m extremely pleased to see that you have received such resounding support: more than three times your closest opponent, Barb Hague (Shugar 599 votes; Hague 167; Hans Penner 142).

In a Nov. 20 thank-you email to supporters, Donna shared her view of her campaign: “I have a better sense of what is important to the community in terms of the person they want to represent them. I hope I can live up to your expectations, especially since there will be several key changes to the composition of the SCRD Board.” Go, Donna, go!

Imagine the Occupy Vancouver people in Armani suits, camped out in designer beige tents with cappuccino machines and the same outdoor heaters that restaurants use. If everything else was the same – the signs, the speeches, the behaviour – do you think that the city and its fire and police departments would respond differently to the Occupy encampment? Of course. They’d offer what’s been missing so far in the relationship between both sides: respect, and meaningful dialogue regarding long-term solutions.

Sure, I understand public safety and the need to protect people, and I don’t support the use of violence by police or the occupiers. But Vancouver’s city officials would not have chosen the same heavy-handed and confrontational response of an injunction if doctors, lawyers, and business people made up the Occupy group. Instead, they would have suggested a discreet meeting, among supposed peers, and likely found a settlement that satisfied both groups.

The recent drug-related death, overdose, and bylaw non-compliance at the Occupy camp appears to have cemented a paternalistic city view that all the Occupiers are irresponsible scum, losers, addicts, etc. and therefore, they need to be punished and removed. (Think: unsightly boil = lancing.) Since when has drawing rigid lines into overly simplistic us-versus-them camps ever resulted in a peaceful solution?

The loser label certainly doesn’t describe the gentle, sixtyish woman with her hair in a bun who said to me this week in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery: “I support these people. They’re peaceful. I’m part of the 99 per cent, but I can’t stay here.” She was briefly visiting the Occupy Vancouver site to give food to a young homeless man in dreadlocks, who was living in a tent with his dog.

Such dismissive attitudes don’t consider the Vancouver pediatrician who told me, over a client lunch at Shaughnessy Restaurant, that he had wanted to join the Occupy Vancouver movement and “felt like throwing something” on its first day. These labels ignore people like “Raven,” the young man in a wheelchair with long black hair and bright eyes, who provides on-site security at the Occupy location and approached me this week with warmth and kindness.

And what about all the members of the public who have donated books to the Occupy camp library, the ones now organized in a tent on multi-shelves with categories like “Hegel,” “Analytical Philosophy,” “Sociology/Anthropology,” “Ecology,” and more? Are they losers too?

That’s one of the huge things wrong with our local Occupy scene: too many decision-makers are not looking beyond labels and minor infractions. There’s no committed attempt to understand the movement and its motives and discover what benefits it could offer regarding new approaches to housing, street youth, and many other issues. The Occupiers’ genuine search for a new way to conduct business and relate to the earth and others has devolved into an age-old stance of name-calling and enemy-making. It’s far easier to demonize a supposed foe than bring empathic listening, on both sides, and try to understand each others’ wants and needs.

This week, while I stood on the sidewalk by the Occupy tents in downtown Vancouver, making notes in my tiny pad, a middle-aged, well-dressed man stopped to tell me that he had moved from New York City to the Vancouver region after 9/11 and now worked in the local financial world. Without prompting, he gave his view of how our local Occupy scene compared to its Wall Street counterpart. He saw these main differences:

• ·“In New York, the NYPD is trying to find solutions,” he said. “Here, the police aren’t interested in solutions.”
• ·“In New York, the best minds in business are trying to find solutions. Here, where business is second-string, they’re not interested in solutions.”
• ·“In New York, they’re [Occupy Wall Street] getting help from Madison Avenue guys. Here, the market is too segmented. They need to make it clear what they want.”

Whether you agree with his perspective or not, the Occupy Vancouver issue is no longer about democracy, free speech, and creating new ways to address social ills, but about a sudden fixation with law and security. (Think: fear = riot.) With the upcoming municipal elections, winning votes and appeasing public fears and perceptions, however skewed, take precedence over truly listening to people’s needs and visions and seeking win-win solutions.

Let’s stop the double-standard treatments. All of us who have participated, at any level, in Occupy Vancouver, deserve respect, whichever side we’re on – and there are a lot more than two.

Are you on the side of the 1% or the 99%?

“We need intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits, experienced people whose lives have taught them caution. We still need the best and brightest, but we need them to have somehow learned humility along the way.”  – Ross Douthat, The New York Times   

 

As we approach upcoming municipal elections across B.C., within the larger context of the global Occupy movement, I urge all voters on the Sunshine Coast to consider:

 

• Who will best honour public (community) interests, input, and involvement in local decision-making, rather than the private interests of developers and logging companies?

 

• Who is willing to create or support new, sustainable business models that will protect our environment and reflect the long-term interests of the Sunshine Coast as a whole, rather than make localized choices for short-term gain?

 

The group Sunshine Coast Citizens for Responsible Development recently stated:

 

“We support responsible smart development, which includes involving the greater community in decisions affecting us all. Your vote may decide whether your town becomes a free-for-all for developers or whether you will be allowed to participate in what happens in your town and your ability to freely speak about it.

 

“It is important that we have elected officials who are working for the people and not looking at ways to silence them. Please get out and vote this time around and encourage others to do so as well. There is a lot at stake and once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

 

I support this position. At the world level, it is clear that “the people” (99%) are tired of having their voices, interests, and needs ignored or minimized. Any election is a powerful time to change this dynamic. In our local scene, we can vote for someone who will support collaborative, transparent government and not choose profits over people.

 

In journalism, we’re taught: “Follow the money.” What private organizations or individuals are funding a certain election campaign and why? Whose interests are some candidates truly representing? Follow alliances, public and private, and see where they lead.

 

As a Roberts Creek resident, I support incumbent Donna Shugar as our representative from Area D. Donna is great at bringing together community members with conflicting interests, creating an open and respectful public forum to air views, and responding with a decision that truly reflects the majority viewpoint. (As Occupy movement members like to say: “This is what democracy looks like.”) She has an excellent track record and I like what she stands for:

 

• An inclusive community where all our citizens enjoy a healthy environment and economic dignity
• Ensuring the opportunities of future generations are not compromised by our actions today
• Balancing the priorities of environmental responsibility, economic resilience, health and social well-being, cultural vitality
• Dialogue, negotiation, and consensus-building
• An economy built on small local enterprise.

 

I think it’s appalling – and telling — that at this week’s Green Issues Forum in Gibsons, hosted by the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association, candidates such as Wayne Rowe (running for Gibsons mayor) and Barb Hague (Area D) did not appear. If these people can’t be bothered to show up to participate in public dialogue about important local environmental issues, from logging on Mount Elphinstone and independent power projects to the Chapman Creek watershed, why on earth would they care what people think if they were elected?

 

I urge everyone on the Sunshine Coast to vote on November 19 for those who represent our version of the 99%, not the 1%. My anarchic heart recognizes the huge limitations that our regional district faces when dealing with the Ministry of Forests and other larger government bodies, but I still fundamentally believe in an individual’s democratic power, and right, to vote. People in other countries are dying to gain this right. Let’s not squander ours.

 

 

“First they ignore you

Then they laugh at you

Then they fight you

Then you win” – Gandhi

(on a sign at Occupy Vancouver)

 

“In times of universal deceit,

Telling the truth is a revolutionary act”

– George Orwell

(on a sign at Occupy Vancouver)

 

Under the menacing glare of gargoyles perched high on the corners of Hotel Vancouver, across from looming RBC and HSBC buildings, we gathered downtown, 3,000+ strong on Oct. 15. This Occupy Vancouver movement, spawned by weeks of Occupy Wall Street activism in New York City, had set up a sprawling camp of tents, plus tents for food, first aid, public education, and a children’s area, in front of the art gallery.

 

                                                                                                               — photos by Heather Conn

A handful of friends and I from British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast sat on the edge of the mosaic fountain in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, surrounded by people of every age, ethnicity, and background: infants, white-haired grandmothers, laid-off workers, disgruntled professionals, business people in suits, women in high heels and fashionable dress, bohemians in masks and costumes . . .They were all a highly visible part of the 99 per cent of western society seeking to be heard and counted as banks, corporations, and governments have gained hugely skewed levels of power, making decisions with little accountability over issues that affect the earth, the public good, and livelihoods. As activist Naomi Klein said a week earlier as part of Occupy Wall Street: “Our system is crashing economically and ecologically.” As one of the dozens and dozens of homemade signs in Vancouver, held high among the throng, said on this day: “Another world is possible.”

 

I was heartened to see more than a thousand people gathered by 10 a.m., after premier Christy Clark and others had dismissively predicted that few would appear at the event. More and more people kept arriving, until at least 3,000 (some reports claimed 5,000) marched peacefully in a square along four downtown blocks, starting northward at Georgia and Howe. No one smashed windows, threw food at cops, or yelled verbal abuse at passersby. Cars honked in support of the moving crowd. A police officer wore an orange flower in his lapel. The sea of signs gave heart and meaning to what was a living, growing statement (not “a protest”) shared with others who were organizing publicly on the same day in 1,000 cities across the globe:

 

“One World, One Humanity, Share the World’s Resources”

“Serve the people”

“Close the gap”

“Vancouver wakes up”

“A fair taxation system is overdue”

“We’re the #1 Highest Child Poverty Rate in Canada – Way to go B.C.”

In the first general assembly that morning, various speakers, as part of a moderating team, stood on the art gallery steps and explained the proposed working model for consensus. As defined in the handout provided to the crowd: “A consensus is a decision-making process that attempts to be inclusive and accommodating of the desires and needs of an entire group.” Workers in Venezuela and other Latin American countries have used such models for decision-making in factories and collectives. As one of the moderators pointed out: “It’s not pretty.” It was slow, tedious, and the process bumbling. We were all new at this; our capitalist system had not created models for such forms of decision-making. People would holler out occasionally: “This is what democracy looks like.”

 

Eager for action and group-based agreements, I grew impatient as different speakers read through the consensus document, word for word, using the mike and then having people within the crowd repeat each phrase in a “human mike” format. Requests went out for translators in a host of languages, from Farsi to Spanish. Hand gestures were given as symbols for how each participant could indicate whether he or she agreed with a proposal, had reservations, would stand aside (“I cannot support this proposal and will not help implement it but do not want to stop the group or block the proposal”) or would block it (“I have a fundamental disagreement with the proposal that must be addressed and has not been resolved”). This repetitive process took an hour and a half.

 

I was soon growing bored and frustrated. I had to examine my own impatience and desire for a quick outcome, over the inclusion of all questions and requests for something to be repeated. Rather than feeling energized, hopeful, and excited, this process left me feeling deflated and in limbo. But the non-stop stream of informal speakers from the crowd, who took turns at the microphone, helped to draw me back to the power of a group assembly. (The maximum time allotment for each speaker, decided by the group as a whole, was five minutes.) A speaker asked: “Do you trust the system?”

“No,” the crowd roared back. If the group thought that someone was going on too long or the remarks were too self-serving, they hooted or called “Wrap it up” or made the accompanying hand signal. Here is a selection of those who spoke, besides David Eby of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Seth Klein (Naomi’s brother) of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

 

• Bob, a unionized meter reader for BC Hydro, who will be replaced by a smart meter within a year, after receiving only a 1% pay increase in a decade: “Gordo (former premier Gordon Campbell) exempted smart meters from due process”;

 

• an artist from Montreal: “We’re losing our neighbourhoods”;

 

• Paul Grignon, creator of animated films such as Money as Debt;

 

• a representative from Zeitgeist Vancouver, part of the Zeitgeist world movement: “What are the root problems?”

 

• Activist and grandmother Betty Krawczyk: “Our environment is going, our wild salmon are going. We won’t tolerate it. Their (government/corporate) power comes with our permission, from our acquiescence. True power is in our hands. The power belongs to us, always and forever.” That brought on loud cheers.

 

• The Raging Grannies: “Your right is to be heard.”

 

Later that day, after meeting a client and some of his medical colleagues for lunch at upscale Shaughnessy Restaurant, I was heartened (again) to hear that one of them, a successful doctor, had wanted to join the Occupy Vancouver events himself. He said that he had felt like going down there and throwing something. I was surprised to hear such a remark in that context from such a professional; you never know where you’ll find someone of like mind.

The day’s events did not topple any existing structures or result in resounding changes. However, the simple act of people coming together in peace in a public space to voice discontent and seek more compassionate and inclusive alternatives was a powerful reminder that the power of the people lies innately with the people and in democratic process. We are the power of the majority and we control how much of that we choose to keep or give up.

After returning home just before the seven p.m. general assembly, my husband and I stopped to watch an astounding natural sight: thousands upon thousands of crows were flying, seemingly without end, through the sky. They kept coming and coming, a sprawling black flap of wings across blue, heading east above the Commercial Drive SkyTrain station. They appeared to be coming from downtown. I thought to myself: “Maybe they had their own gathering.” I had never seen such a massive group of crows in my life. I took it as a sign.

 

Click here for a Buddhist perspective on Occupy Wall Street, by Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Michael Stone, author of Awake in the World: Teachings From Yoga and Buddhism for Living an Engaged Life.

 

This week, my guest blogger, again, is Frank McElroy. As I  mentioned in last week’s 9/11-related post, this is his follow-up piece to what he wrote about September 11 a decade ago:

 

The loss of the Trade Center was deeply personal to me.  My brother and I know the man (Karl Koch) whose family company erected the buildings; for decades, my father, an orthopedic surgeon, treated Karl and he was often in our home.  My brother and I had a wonderful visit with him in October 1968, looking, through the night, over all of New York from the top of one of the towers.  In that view, seemingly of the entire world, it was palpable that there was something about and among us, a sense of shared purpose and identity.  Today, that sense has been drowned by an endless and immeasurable lack of civility, a contrarian and senseless interaction, an absence of concern about our larger family and each other.

 

It is a mere ten years since the World Trade Center in Manhattan was consigned to its grave.  In that short period, Americans have given up their optimism, their belief that if we work together, good and some measure of prosperity will come.  We have ceded our privacy to dubious authority in favor of asserted needs for endless security, our calm and good will to fear and paranoia.  We have reaped the “neither” and nothing of Ben Franklin’s astute warning: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

 

Now, after a commission’s investigation, countless hours of testimony and seemingly endless documentaries, we are privileged to learn that in this single event, America experienced the greatest string of failures, possibly complicity, in every part of government. This, particularly, applies to our President (George Bush), his Cabinet, the FBI, and the CIA.  Incompetence at the level of the tiniest failure that occurred should have led to firings, indictments, incarceration.  Nobody responsible for the massive failure is on trial, in jail, accountable.

 

But our nation was glad to wrap itself in the flag as the smoke continued to emanate from the hole in southern Manhattan. This marked a coming together, it seemed, in some ways, to celebrate the heroics and  unending courage of so many who dealt with the mess.  Yet, now, with a bit of distance in time, we ignore the claims for health benefits made by those same heroic and courageous members of our big family.  And we can do that easily because Americans are no longer anything like a family.  Nothing America is about is shared commonly –  any number of charlatans falsely claim the history of the country and claim to have the answers to every problem we face, individually and as a country.  Thrown overboard, the commonweal has sunk to the bottom in favor of the furious drumbeat of fear, pushed by desperate politicians currying favor with business and by the largely spineless and insipid media our Constitution so powerfully protects.

 

Not long after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina battered New Orleans and many small towns — another event that demonstrated both the failure of our government and our character as Americans.  Seven years later, that disaster continues, but is largely forgotten except by those who continue to exist in its endless wake.

 

Yesterday, just before Labor Day, I watched footage from Newfane and Jamaica in Vermont, two small towns on Route 30, places I love and mentioned in my piece back in 2001. After 9/11, I was driving north from Marblehead, through a flag-waving America in New England, so desperately wanting to feel like a family, to share something common and comforting after a foreign force had ripped the American fabric to shreds.  Looking now at the roads and bridges lost to Tropical Storm Irene, days after it happened, I didn’t see any flags being waved, any response at all except the sadness and desperation that come when we reflect, in the face of real disaster, that we really are alone, that all is lost.

 

That has become a mean calculus in America, seized by some to  enhance the division of the country by wealth, race, religion, sex, politics, employment, and every other factor.  The degrees of separation between us might be the same as they were in 2001, but the distance between us has grown dramatically in the last decade.

 

Anticipate, hope, and work for better days.  Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this past week, marking a decade since the 9/11 disaster, I have watched several powerful documentaries about that horrific day, including “9/11: Heroes of the 88th Floor.” (This focuses on Port Authority workers Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz, who saved the lives of dozens of people trapped in the World Trade Center, only to die themselves in the collapse of the towers.) I find such tales of selflessness, and the pay-it-forward response to those rescued by such heroes, truly uplifting, despite the horrendous circumstances.

But my husband, a New Yorker, refuses to watch such shows. He thinks that they over-hype the event, exploiting tragedy, and manipulating sentiment. He finds reminders of 9/11 too upsetting. For two days, following 9/11, he heard the U.S. military jets continue their deafening flight between Boston and New York, circling the skies night and day, and zooming directly overhead his home in Marblehead, Mass., north of Boston. (Who needed such overkill, when all flights were grounded?) He bears his own connection to what happened that September day, which I share below.

To honor his response to 9/11, and those who died that day, their loved ones who remain, the survivors, and those who worked so generously in the clean-up and aftermath, I include my husband’s article, which originally appeared in the Marblehead Reporter. It was later reprinted in The New York Times. This year, the editor of the Reporter asked him to write a follow-up piece, which I will include next week. Stay tuned.

One degree of separation

Frank L. McElroy

Marblehead

On the 11th day after the 11th day of September 2001, I found myself in escape driving through the heart of New England from Marblehead to southwestern Vermont. It couldn’t have been soon enough or more necessary to try to leave behind, even for a moment, the horror of the destruction in southern Manhattan and in Virginia.

Ellen, Mad and I drove along the winding roads of New Hampshire and Vermont, the names of the small towns passing by – Wilton, Peterborough, Dublin, Dummerston, Newfane, Jamaica, Winhall and Peru.

These are tiny places far away from the island of Manhattan, where I was born and where Ellen produced and directed broadcast advertising. Yet people in these places are more closely connected to New York than one might imagine.

The connection was made obvious in the messages which lined our route. There were innumerable flags displayed, beginning in Nashua and continuing the entire route, the greatest density on the roadside likely being in Dublin, N.H. Sign boards related a supportive or conciliatory thought: “Stand Tall America,” “Pray for those who died on Sept. 11,” and “Proud To Be An American/Proud To Be From New York.”

America is a nation of small towns and New York City just happens to be the biggest of all. People in the little towns have always known this – now New Yorkers have learned the same.

I didn’t think I knew anyone who died in the conflagration. My father was safe, as was my niece who lives on Manhattan. A week after the bombing, I connected to the Cornell University Web site. That early list of alumni dead numbered three, and I knew one. Not well, just an occasional acquaintance in the class below me who was a remarkable lacrosse player.

When I saw that name, all courage drained from me. I couldn’t search for any more friends or classmates that day or for days after, because I knew there would be more. And there will be, for everyone.

When the final list is made, many of us will discover that a lover, friend or classmate has been lost. What we won’t directly observe is that this calamity is so awesome and extreme that the six and seven degrees of separation which supposedly connect us all have been pared to one, maybe two.

When we are able to read the final list of the dead, I fear it is safe to say that nearly every one of us will either know someone who died or someone who knew or was related to a victim. In this there is a parallel to the Second World War. Other parallels include extraordinary acts of bravery and heroism, during the attacks and afterwards and continuing.

Driving along New Hampshire 101 and Vermont 9 and 30, I found no relief from the fear and heartache of the earlier 11 days. Looking at the messages, remembering the images, I cried, Ellen cried, Mad, too. We have grown accustomed to our even existence, won and preserved by so many who have come before us and made immeasurable sacrifice.

That existence is forever changed, but I am calmed by the knowledge that the loss occasioned by the brutal attacks is one shared so directly, by so many.

In the last few weeks, I’ve learned a new word: minga. (My husband joked that it must be some version of Mingus, as in Charles, and started doing some free-form jazz on an air trombone.) A Quechan term, it roughly translates to “a community coming together to work for the benefit of all.” I came across it in the book Me to We, by Craig and Marc Kielburger. The authors describe a dilemma they had in Ecuador in a remote, mountain village, where they had come to build a school for local children. Due to delayed transport and delivery of supplies, their rate of construction was lagging far behind their schedule. Reluctantly, they realized that they would have to leave the needy community with the school only half-built.

That’s when they went to the village chief, the oldest woman in the community, for help. Through a translator, she told them: “No problem, I’ll just call a minga.” She took a few steps outside her simple hut and hollered, in Quecha: “Tomorrow . . .there will be a . . . minga.” The next morning, hundreds of people were in the village square. Women had arrived with infants on their backs, men had left their fields at prime harvest time, and young children were standing with eager eyes. They had come to build the school, walking countless kilometres to get there. Many of the kids who showed up lived too far away to even attend the school, but they came anyway. None of these people expected anything in return. They had  brought food and shared it with the authors and their volunteers. The authors state: “In a matter of hours, they did what would have taken us days, if not weeks, to accomplish.” Immediately after the new school was completed, all of these people participated in a lively celebration to honour the new building, then quietly disappeared.

A minga: “Upon hearing the word, people stop everything for individual gain, no matter how important, to come together for the collective good.” The authors tried to think of an equivalent English term, and other than “barn raising”,  the closest they got was “a riot, but for good.” What does this lack of such terminology say about our culture and language?

One reason that I love my community (Roberts Creek on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast), is its minga-like sensibility. People readily pitch in to benefit others in the area, whether it’s volunteering to paint the local Legion, to host a fundraiser for Japan’s tsunami victims or hold a silent auction to give financial support to a neighbour with cancer.

Yet, the dominant culture in the West still clings to a fierce “Me first” philosophy, valuing getting ahead and competing with one’s neighbour far more than mutual support and cooperation. The reality show The Survivor exemplifies this perfectly; ironically, while in this Ecuadorean village, the authors met one of the participants of the first Survivor show. He was so put off by the hype and papparazzi and image-based associations of the show, that he chose to get as far away from that as possible and flew to live in this remote part of the Andes.

I recommend the book Me to We to everyone. I think that it should be required reading in schools. (The authors co-founded the global activist organizations Free the Children and Me to We.) Their book encourages people to take an issue that they care deeply about, then imagine calling a minga to get people to help. They suggest the following:

“Make a list of how you could call one [a minga] in your community. Ask yourself:

• Who would help me? Friends? Parents? Coworkers?
• What tasks would I need help with?
• How would I call my minga? By sending out a group email? By making a presentation to my faith group? By posting a hand-printed notice in my office?

It’s amazing how many people in our lives are ready to help out . . . all they need is someone to ask them.”

From reconciliation to quantum physics to suicide, suffering, and death, the topics recently covered by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh always returned to four things: mindfulness, love, understanding, and meditation practice. I was one of the lucky people who attended his sold-out talk “Open Mind Open Heart” on Aug. 14, which the inspirational Buddhist offered at Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre. I’ve long admired this insightful Vietnamese monk for his books of wisdom, his commitment to nonviolence, and his role in urging Martin Luther King Jr. to speak out against the Vietnam war. Hanh is one who truly walks the talk, literally and figuratively, when it comes to bringing full presence and loving speech to life.

He sat onstage, legs folded on a simple cushion, in his floor-length brown gown and characteristic shaved head. About a dozen male monks stood to his left and about 20 Buddhist nuns to his right, all in the same brown gowns, visiting from his Plum Village retreat in France. Hanh spent one-and-a-half hours sharing Buddhism’s “noble truths”, simple stories, and ways to exercise mindful breathing to help handle challenging conflict. He spoke calmly and fluidly, with no notes, and left room for humour despite his serious subject. He laughed after saying: “If you’re suffering when you’re sitting, breathing, and walking, your [meditation] practice is wrong.”

Any summary provided here will barely do justice to the value of his words, which prompted me to begin reading his book on anger, and wanting to meditate more regularly. One reason why I like Hanh’s approach is that he practices “engaged Buddhism,” which  transforms meditation practice into activism.

Manifesto 2000: Six steps to peace

As Hanh pointed out, it’s a lot easier to talk about deep listening, loving speech, and compassionate behavior than to live it. He mentioned Buddha’s Five Precepts embedded in the Manifesto 2000, written by Nobel Peace Prize laureates, which UNESCO circulated and the United Nations accepted. The pledge, aimed to make individuals feel responsible for creating peace at the personal level, includes these responsibilities, in brief:

1.  Respect all life.

2.  Reject violence.

3.  Share with others.

4.  Listen to understand.

5.  Preserve the planet.

6.  Rediscover solidarity.

Sounds simple, right? Obviously, the world at large is not reflecting that. Yet each of us can begin with making our own behaviour, every day, more peaceful and mindful. Hanh outlined regular exercises in mindful breathing, such as recognizing a painful emotion, scanning one’s body for tension, then smiling and releasing the tension. He said that within three months, this practice would generate a feeling of happiness and joy.

“A cloud can never die”

He spoke of suicide, chosen by so many young people who cannot bear painful feelings. Yet, an emotion can last for only a half-hour if we bring our attention down to the level of the abdomen, feel it in our bodies, and release it. This takes ongoing practice. Hanh spoke of common dilemmas in life: “Many of us sacrifice the present for the future” and “Many Buddhists think they will only be happy when they are reborn.” Yet, he reinforced that joy and happiness are available right here, right now by being in deep contact with others and all around us. To love someone, he said, you have to understand your own suffering and theirs, which gives rise to compassion. This requires deep listening and loving speech, and can lead to reconciliation, even between parents and children who have had no contact in many years. He gave several examples of this from people who have attended his retreats.

Hanh reinforced that the concept of something moving into nothing, such as the common societal view of death, is not true. “A cloud can never die,” he said; it simply becomes rain or hail.

The event began with music, song, and interactive exercises, performed by the monk “choir”. It ended with a beautiful, plaintive song, performed in French and English by an elderly nun with a gentle, lined face, which invited listeners not to fear death. Overall, the afternoon was a wonderful communal experience, one for which I feel tremendous gratitude.