Demonstrators are skipping lunch and breathing aggressively
AN ARTIST FRIEND told me he was going on a protest match at the weekend. That’s brave—he lives in Beijing, where expressing an opinion about your own society is a criminal offence.
I said: “Hold on. Isn’t that dangerous? What are you going to do?”
He said: “Stroll along a shopping street.”
I said: “Isn’t that what you normally do on weekends?”
He said: “Yes.”
Beijingers are clever. You do what you always do but redefine it as a protest action.
I told him that I would support his shopping protest by personally organizing a one-man “sleeping on the sofa” protest.
A mutual friend offered to do a “vegging in front of YouTube” protest and his girlfriend a “going to the toilet” protest.
The Beijing guy was touched. “Thanks, we really appreciate your support,” he said.
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Perhaps the most minimalistic demonstrations in the history of the world are those held regularly by a mystical group called Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong), at which participants are requested to “stand and breathe”.
I’ve seen several of these. They cause big problems for the uniformed bullies sent by the authorities.
GUARD: “We order you to stop your protest immediately.”
PROTESTOR: “Stop breathing?”
GUARD: “Yes.”
PROTESTOR: “But YOU are breathing.”
GUARD: “No I’m not.”
PROTESTOR: “Yes you are. I can hear you.
GUARD (holding his breath and speaking through closed lips): “Nnnno ahmmm nnnnt.”
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Demonstrations in Asia are often off-beat. In Bangladesh last week, share prices fell five days in a row. Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the stock exchange in Dhaka, chanting their displeasure. I’m no financial expert, but I’m not sure that share certificates can actually hear and respond to such protests.
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Sri Lankans recently demonstrated about the cost of living, and in India, more than 800,000 people demonstrated about the price of onions. That might sound odd, but pretty much everything in India contains onions, or tastes like it does, including chicken curry, daal, jam doughnuts, the glue on the back of stamps, slices of blueberry cheesecake etc.
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In Hong Kong, marchers celebrated a government decision to give each permanent resident a cash payout, not realizing that they were simply getting a tiny bit of their own money back—as were rich people who never paid tax in the first place.
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But possibly the most baffling protest in history is taking place in New Delhi this month. Passport office workers, complaining about working conditions, organized a “No Lunch” protest on March 1 and 3, skipping their break. This was followed by a “Work On Holidays” protest, turning up at the office on the first two Saturdays of this month, when they didn’t have to.
Union leaders said they wanted to do something unusual to grab people’s attention. They certainly got me. Still, I’m not sure about the fundamental logic of these protests. If I was a member of the boss classes, I would be thrilled if my workers did this sort of demonstration every week, all year long: “We reject the union’s demands outright, so you’ll have to continue the protests until the next talks, scheduled for AD 2139.”
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Now I am going to have a nap on the sofa. The people of Beijing are relying on me.
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(Illustration above: This girl has the ultimate all purpose protest sign)
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(Illustration: This guy should really learn to spell before insulting other people’s intelligence)
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ON UNRELATED MATTERS….
THANKS for the comments and emails about Japan – Grandpa and Angela, very philosophical, and others, like Karuna and Donald, with good tales to tell.
This morning, ten minutes ago, I was talking to a guy in the coffee shop who said he had organized a conference in Japan in the fall but now should maybe change it. I told him that by autumn, the mood will have changed and we all want to go to Japan to support the reconstruction and show solidarity.
There was a nice story on CNN about a Japanese student in America who feared her family was wiped out because their home was right where the tsunami hit in the video I posted yesterday.
After three days of misery, she was sent a link to a scrap of video on YouTube which showed her sister holding up a sign saying “We are safe” – a news team had filmed her and included the footage in a clip that ended up on YouTube.
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THANKS also to the gals at the Women in Publishing Society—I was the speaker at a book launch party they held on Monday night. (Jenny, Dhania and Shobha below.)
Go to their website here.
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