"What difference can one person make?" I asked myself as I clicked the button to give, online, to Red Cross efforts in Haiti.
It is, of course, a common question. In this case, the Red Cross initiative is endorsed by our university, and I know that my colleagues are also participating. The government is matching charitable donations, and the media reports regularly on the totals raised. When we have the opportunity to support something, we seldom feel alone.
But it is more common for us to want to stand up to protest something, to withdraw our support, and that is a far lonelier undertaking. Yesterday, I watched on television a handful of Lethbridge citizens, out in the snow and out in the cold, protesting Stephen Harper's proroguing of parliament. I suspect that, as a practical measure, the protesters would have been better off making a donation to the federal NDP: few if any of them would vote for Mr. Harper, anyway.
Protests from the inside might be the ones that hurt. How many of the people who now say they would not support the federal Conservatives really represent lost votes? I have voted, at one time or another, for every national federal party, and while I am indifferent as to whether we decide the future of this government now or after the Olympics (and after a budget), I did write a letter of protest last year in opposition to the change in arts funding that will cripple many small magazines in this country. Interestingly, the mealy-mouthed response from the minister's office is as likely to influence my vote as the policy itself. (For the record, my local MP did not reply at all: he is retiring, it turns out.)
Maybe "the market" listens to lonely protests, though I do not think that struggling NBC will care if a household in Southern Alberta never watches Jay Leno in order to protest their shabby treatment of Conan O'Brien. Buying all my books from the university bookstore or the local independent did not slow Chapters.
As we pulled away from Tim Horton's last week, my wife asked, "Are they on the list?" I had to smile. We have a friend in Regina who, in his younger days, used to have "the list." He would methodically and with great discipline refuse to patronize businesses at which the service had been bad. When we made Claresholm on Sunday afternoon, parched and peckish, we were bound for disappointment: our order of pastry and teas was canceled when, after we had paid, the drive-thru manager wanted our food for a customer at her window. But would Timmy's really miss me if I started going to 7/11 for caffeine? Would it make any difference to their competition? More to the point: would I have the discipline never to visit again?
When I was in third grade, through my ninth year of life, our home room was directly across from the washrooms and the water fountains at Dawson Elementary School. From the first day of September, my classmates pestered Mrs. Moore with requests to be excused: "Can I go to the bathroom, miss? Can I get a drink?" Oddly, I resolved never to make use of the facility, waiting for recess, lunch, and the end of the day. It probably started as bashfulness, or a desire to ingratiate myself with the teacher, but -- over time -- it was a quiet challenge in discipline.
I think something similar is the key to protests. When it is not possible to bring about change by shifting allegiance in a meaningful way, we should still undertake our quiet, solitary protests. Writing a letter, sending an email, picking up the phone -- heck, I'll even grant you marching outside -- is good discipline. And if it saves us from seething in silence, all the better.
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