While reviewing Bishop Fred Henry's invitation to parishioners to accommodate G-8 protesters, I couldn't help remembering that St. Peter nailed these guys 2,000 years ago. In his second epistle-general, he wrote they, "shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are, and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you." (2 Pet. 2:13)
It's fun and easy to take scripture out of context. No offence intended.
But listening to these young spots and blemishes, it's clear most have only a superficial idea of what the G-8 is about. So what are they doing here?
Well, here's the Hannaford theory of protest.
Once past the stage of bare subsistence, one has time to think. And, with the luxury of contemplation, comes a yearning that life should have significance. Are we truly as the grass of the field, blooming one day and gone, its place known no more, the next? Nobody likes to think they lived for nothing. So folks try to change their world. There are a few Johnny Appleseeds who want to do something simple and non-confrontational, bless them. Then there are the missionaries who want to change the world by changing hearts. Bless them too.
More typical, unfortunately, is the mentality that just wants a cause, any cause, and to rage. Examples?
Lots. Here are a few: The French Revolution, Europe's year of anarchy in 1848. Communism. Fascism. National Socialism. China's cultural revolution. All morally and intellectually bankrupt, but with this in common: They believed that if the old order could only be swept away, preferably drenched in blood and fire, then from its ashes they would raise a perfect civilization in which peace and justice would reign.
Wishful thinking, of course. Not only did the revolutions produce none of the above, the revolutionaries never stopped to consider the possibility that the next testosterone-overloaded generation might itself want to do some civilization-sweeping.
In fact, that's the trouble. These guys, in their deceivings, never think it through, hence the self-righteous posturing, hence the riots.
Let's look at what this is about.
To the extent that anarchy has any coherence, the issue seems to be that global peace, equality, the environment, trade and human rights are threatened by ruthless multinational businesses. Working with complicit governments, they rip off the Third World.
Therefore they disrupt the G-8.
The truth is that as the world changes, there are winners and losers, but First World multinational investment in the Third World means jobs for people, revenues for governments. It's how a poor nation becomes a rich one.
Look at South Korea. After the Korean War ended in 1953, it was a subsistence-farming backwater, one of the poorest places in the world. Now, its gross domestic product is 70 per cent of Canada's. Sure, it didn't happen all at once and they had their sweat-shop phase. But now, you'll meet well-dressed South Korean tourists in Banff.
If you want to see what happens without investment, consider North Korea, a basket case, barely able to feed itself.
Japan, Taiwan, now Mexico, all prospered by working with multinationals. Vietnam is trying: Making shoes for Nike will pay off in the end, even if the wages are low now. Everybody pays their dues.
Is that what the anti-globalization lobby wants, to take away these countries' opportunity to develop?
Apparently so. Don't forget that organized labour backstops these protests. Labour is not in favour of exporting jobs from North America to the Third World.
An Eritrean cab driver took me downtown the other day. Back in Eritrea, he says, they don't give a rip about the G-8 because too many of them are preoccupied just trying to find something for supper. They would love to earn 50 cents an hour in a factory.
There's no law against ignorance, so if a bunch of dewy-eyed idealists want to earn undying significance in their own eyes by chanting slogans in downtown Calgary, well, that's their right. They should just remember that what a pampered, middle-class kid will spend on a purple hair-wash would keep an Eritrean for a month, and what it costs to get from Vancouver to Calgary to make a point for the Third World, would keep an Eritrean for a year.
There is, however, a law against rioting and Calgary doesn't owe anybody a stage for their personal rendezvous with destiny. Calgarians are a welcoming crowd, but, on their behalf, Mayor Dave Bronconnier has promised accommodation at Spy Hill jail, not a Catholic church, as the reward of unrighteousness. I think Calgarians are with him.
Contact Nigel Hannaford at: hannafordn@theherald.southam.ca
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