And then you go to a funeral of someone who is not close and it’s like a gigantic red light on a zebra crossing. You stop, and when the paintings on the ceiling become boring, you think. You start to remember the names of the ones before: in-Nannu Karlu, in-Nannu Ġanni, in-Nanna Mary, Maria, Jason, il-Bomba, Daniel…And it starts kicking in. You slowly but steadily become introspective. You think about your own life and your loved ones. You think about how you should tell your parents you love them more often. You try to picture yourself in the shoes that are standing up front. You think how frivolous everything else is in comparison. You think how superficial the things that occupied your mind before are. You empathise with the bereaved, and get a heavy knot when their relative speaks. You feel the faces walking behind the hearse dampen your expression, painting your spirits black. You feel the gloom throw its arm around you. You wonder how the sun can perfectly compliment such a sombre mood and still be the symbol of beautiful days. Sometime during the service you experience a change in consciousness. You feel changed, for the better.
Still, somewhere in the back of your mind you know that the chances are that you will eventually get over everything. You know that sometime soon, the irrelevant details in your life will regain their priority and the football match will then become more important than existential dilemmas. Just like a drug, an anti-drug if you will, it temporarily alters your state of mind. It alters your mood and gives you a cerebral introspective low, one that shakes you right through and let’s you out slowly. One that helps give you some perspective. One that humbly and quietly asks you, if not forces you, to appreciate the things that matter.
Note: This article was written in 2006 and published on a different blog.
You cannot just ignore the wishes of a dying man can you? How can you discount an attempt by a fellow human to set their whims in motion for one final time? The sanctity of the deathbed makes things straightforward non-negotiable. For those left behind, lending a hand to the dead is readily relatable. It’s comforting even, to be helping them make things happen from beyond the grave. It is a nod, perhaps, to our shared mortality.
Besides, what sick mind would purposely deprive anyone of having their expressed wishes about how they want to leave this world fulfilled? That question sets things up rather nicely for a story about somebody who would. Alas, Morty, is not that guy; and this is about him, and his friend George, who has just died, leaving behind one wish and the prospect of strange conversations.
The truth is that even if he could ignore George’s wishes, Morty was not going to do it. Not because it was in writing and looking very official; that didn’t matter. The binder in all this was friendship, an average friendship that lasted long enough to muster the loyalty needed to make that document superfluous, at least as an executor’s whip. Its purpose lay elsewhere.
There would be no speculation masquerading as fact in the form of ‘it’s what he would have wanted’. No. This is not what he would have wanted, this is ‘exactly what he wanted’. And Morty had a piece of paper to prove it, with words printed in black, below a hideous letterhead, above an official notarial smudge. This paper, harbinger of hassle though it was, existed for Morty’s service not subjugation. He knew it. It was to help him convince others to play along; because you need a paper to convince people to play along when your friend’s wish is to be buried with his arms spread wide open.
* * *
“Is this a joke?”
That was the first thing the funeral director said to Morty the moment he confirmed to himself that he heard it right. The second and third things were variations of the first, but shared the exact same bewildered disbelief.
The director’s voice made it clear to Morty that his strategy of gently easing into the request didn’t quite butter the conversation in the way he had hoped.
“No, I assure you it is not a joke” he said. “He just wanted to be buried with his arms spread open.”
He was about to add ‘that’s all’, but stopped himself, sensing just in time that they would not be helpful words.
“But why? What is the point of that?”
“I’m not quite sure’.
‘What do you mean, you’re not quite sure? You come to my office telling me to bury a man with his arms wide open and you don’t even have a reason for it?”
“I understand that it sounds a little strange, but…’ “Strange?” the director cut him short, “It is not a little strange. A man buried in a yellow tuxedo with a carrot on his chin is a little strange. This is insane. Who in their right mind would want this?”
“I am sure he had his reasons, and I would tell you if I knew them. But he never told me, and I never felt it prudent to intrude and ask.’
“Well you should have’.
That statement brushed against a raw nerve. Morty regretted not asking George about it. Life is cruel that way. It always felt like a question that didn’t need asking, until the time came when it couldn’t be answered. Then it ignited, as if George’s last breath puffed the little air needed to set that one single question alight.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have asked. Trust me, I can tell perfectly well how absurd all this is, walking in here making this request without being able to explain it. But it was never the right moment for that kind of thing, you know? To ask, I mean. To me, a friend who is drawing his last ones needs loyalty more than anything else. And that’s what I went with. Curiosity doesn’t sit pretty by a deathbed.” He did not come up with that on the spot. He had said it to himself many times this last day. He figured that a notion that was good enough to tame his own regret should ward off charges from a stranger.
“But this makes no sense,” said the director. “Thirty-two years I’ve been in this business, and I can tell you that this kind of nonsense is unheard of. I mean, put a fancy suit on if you want to go out in style, arrange for a side-splitting eulogy if you’re a bit of a character, there are even novelty tombstones you can get these days. But buried with your arms wide open? Preposterous. What kind of buffoonery is this? How will that even work? You’d need a casket fit for a hippo for that kind of thing. This is a reputable business I’m running here, not a circus. None of our designs come anywhere near that. And even if they did, no funeral car can take anything that wide. And how will a monster casket fit through the opening of the grave huh?”
The director paused. Morty had no answer. Just as well because there was no need for one. The director answered himself, “Nah, it cannot be a massive square. Square is no good; it will not fit down the hole. It has to be a cross-shaped casket, and it has to be brought down vertically, tilted at an angle to pass through. And who is going to do that for you, the tetris championship semi-finalists? But then again…”
By now the director was thinking aloud more than talking to Morty. It was an instinctual act of self-preservation of somebody whose world had just been shaken by a very odd request. In all the years in this business there were two assumptions that were never questioned. First, the person in the casket must be dead. Obviously. Secondly, and equally obvious until a few moments ago, the dead must make efficient use of space, and have their arms tucked in like every single dead person that went before them.
“Are you sure you’re not putting me on?” he asked again, half-hoping that his reasoned huffing would get a different answer.
“No,of course not. This is not a joke sir.”
At this point there was little else that could be achieved by speaking words, so Morty dug his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Look, I have a paper,” he said.
* * *
Outside of the funeral home Morty started making his way back. He was not sure what he had just lived through. The word magic kept coming to his mind. Yes, that was it. Magic. Well, it was not really magic; but it was as close to it as anything can get without wands and hocus pocus.There is no other way to account for what occurred the moment he took that paper out. One single piece of paper lifted all absurdity from the situation and infused it with a solemnity that was not previously possible. Apparently a piece of official paper with notarial scribbles is what it takes to convince a funeral director. That paper dissipated all suspicions that he was on the gullible end of a prank. More than that it allowed a space to open up in his mind that turned the unfathomable into the possible. Written words can do that. There is a timelessness to them that makes them more authoritative than their spoken brethren, especially when they are the echo of a person now dead.
It did not take much, or long, from then on for the matter to be resolved. You cannot just ignore the expressed wishes of a deathbed. Not if you are half-decent. And the funeral director was more than that. He was a pretty decent man, now also on a mission to help a dead stranger. A pretty decent man, with a lot of hassle coming his way.
* * *
The moment the director agreed to the job Morty’s burden became his own. It was now up to him to lead the way. He became the representative of dead George’s whims. All the indignation he threw at Morty when they first met was reflected back at him by all the unfortunate souls who had to do the tons of extra work needed to make this wish happen. Only his was a much more awkward position. He had no personal connection to the dead man. He did not even know him. Worse still, he did not have a piece of paper to pull out of his pocket. All he had was a decision he made against his better judgement constantly biting his backside. That, and very poor reasons for justifying the pursuit of a wish that subverted established practice.
There was a brief moment early on in this episode when the director felt good about himself for opting to do what is right by a dead man. He figured that others were unlikely to be so accommodating. That feeling did not last long. Soon regret was all that there was. He regretted the whole lot of it. He regretted being swayed. He regretted allowing Morty into his office when he came knocking. He cursed him, he cursed George, and cursed both their bloodlines every time he had to try and justify the absurdity of the task to his underlings and associates. He regretted it constantly until the tomb slabs covered dead George and his cross-shaped casket. And he regretted it thereafter, eventually coming to see in that one encounter with Morty the first slip in his reputation’s downward spiral to ruin.
* * *
For Morty, the moment he stepped out of the funeral home was a good moment. A weight had been lifted, his job was done. Not only that but it was not as hard as he had anticipated. Credit to old George for having the foresight to put it in writing. Now all that was left for Morty was to grieve an old friend, smile in amusement at the thought of him being buried with his arms spread open, and grapple with that one burning question. What was the point of all this? Morty thought about it every time the director rang to scold him with stories of hassle that this whimsy was causing him and his business. Morty wondered, in a long slow dance with regret, about what made his friend do this. How do you reconcile the incongruence? George was by all accounts a nice and decent guy. Why would a good guy put people through such unnecessary hassle? It doesn’t make any sense. In time, that burning question began to flicker. Eventually it ceased to exist; leaving in its place Morty’s interpretation of the matter, posing as fact. There are too many mean people in the world who are remembered as good guys after they are dead. What George wanted was to show that sometimes, or at least one time, the reverse can also be true.
It’s not just music, it is wizardry, what Żizza does. His consistent ability to polish personal experiences of bitter life strife into musical pearls is not merely the work of a musician, it’s the work of a magician. A musician magician perhaps.
It’s not really something new for music to be able to do. That’s the art of the craft, and there’s no novelty in its ability to connect people in profound ways. But there’s just something to Brodu’s music that dances around the magical. Maybe it is the raw naked honesty that doesn’t rest content in telling you but also shows you. Maybe the magic ingredient is the vulnerability that is revealed to the listener, a vulnerability whose show is ironically testament to brave strength, even if oblivious of the fact. A vulnerability that is unassuming and infinitely charming. A vulnerability that invites you in, seduces you, and then lets you go back to wherever it is you came from, with little keepsakes in your pockets that glow in the dark when you need them to, tune mementos that enrich your life just by being in it.
Brodu is an incredibly apt name for a band that seems to effortlessly sooth the soul in this cold cruel world. The band’s music is akin to the first sip of a cup of tea on a cold day, which tends to bypass your stomach and goes straight to warming your soul. To be able to turn one’s demons into songs that that can bring pleasure, joy and comfort to others is noble poetry. It is an immense privilege that Żizza does it as often as he does. His songs reveal a lot, and what they do reveal is incredibly difficult not to love.
Left unchecked the construction monster will sooner gobble up the island than listen to citizens’ concerns about quality of life. We are now at a stage where it is almost impossible to have any faith that anyone with any official power will ever do anything decent to safeguard open spaces, to halt the destruction of our countryside, or put the interests of generations to come ahead of imminent financial brownies. I think this much is obvious to anybody with eyes that haven’t been seriously compromised by primary colours that are not yellow.
The crucial question then becomes: What can we do about this?
Evidently, whatever we have been doing is not enough. Shouting “No!” at the world being constructed around us by business interests, important though it is, is not enough. Maybe it’s time we widened our repertoire of contention. Maybe it is time to also dedicate energies to articulate the reality we do want, roll up our collective sleeves, dig into our personal pockets and go out and create it. Maybe it’s time to harness what Rob Hopkins refers to as ‘the power of just doing stuff’.
But do what?
Well, the following is just an idea, one I’m putting out there for the taking by whoever wants to invest the energy to drive it. It may not work. I don’t know. But even if not taken up, maybe it can at least widen how we think about our collective predicament.
Can we manage to crowdfund a piece of ODZ agricultural land?
Who knows? Crowdfunding has had some great success stories. I don’t think it’s impossible. It would make sense to start with a piece of land in Gozo, where property is comparatively cheaper. For argument’s sake let’s say the target is 20,000 euros (including fees, taxes and whatnot). Will we not find enough people to back this? That’s 20 environmentalists with a 1,000 euros; or 40 environmentalists with 500 euros; or 1000 people with 20 euros. You get the picture. The effort can be aided by fundraising events. The environmentalist movement has enough talent to design a successful campaign to raise the required funds. It also has the legal expertise to see how to go about it.
Then what? Then you can plant some trees, preferably fruit bearing ones, put a marker on it that identifies it as privately owned public land and leave it open to be enjoyed by the public. The more owners it has the safer it is. Think of it like privatisation in reverse. Using the rules of the game to outwit it.
It would be a symbolic act. Sure. But it could also be just the beginning.
Once the first pocket exists you have overcome the biggest hurdle. The first one gives people a sense of possibility, of what can be done. A second project can then ride on the success of the first one. A bigger one. A more adventurous design. A food forest. This is crowdfunding, people get to vote with their money for as specific a plan as is presented to them. A third, and why not a fourth? Why not a new project every year? We can create pockets of what are technically privately owned spaces that are open to the public. Pockets of spaces that grow food, are safe from future destruction, and can be enjoyed by generations to come.
I know it shouldn’t be our job to provide natural open spaces for the public. That is correct. It shouldn’t be. But it now is.
She liked propriety and etiquette, that kind of thing. She found comfort where others felt restraint, and often thought that people would not embarrass themselves as much as they do if they followed a few simple rules. The few simple rules that held her world together were in truth neither few nor simple. They came in all manner of guises and had enough provisos and contextual nuances to give migraines to the sane. Anything that had a wrong way of doing also had a proper way, and she made well sure to know it and be seen following it.
For such reasons social functions were for her delightful pass times. They allowed her to display her prowess, to impress, and feel splendid for the day. Seeing her keeping conversation you would have little idea of all the rules that she was checking off in her head. Even as she spoke, her imagination conjured a mirror in which she saw herself picking hors d’oeuvres correctly, holding her wine glass appropriately, and smiling at everyone with a confident charm that can only be borne out of knowing it all.
It was thus unfortunate, if not cruel, that all the etiquette in the world, which she invested so much in, couldn’t help her today. There was no way for it to rescue her, to let her know about the piece of spinach stuck in her front teeth, which drew eyes with every smile that she shared.
The building would have been quiet, were it not for the construction noise outside. He went in as usual, carrying his letterbox’s catch for the day: a collection of adverts, menus and special offers. Sometimes he gets routine statements from the bank, but he never opens those. He has been wanting to inform someone that he did not need them printed out, but he had not yet gotten round to it. He closed the door and dropped everything on the table, with the others. It was now a pile. The fact is he came in from work too hungry to bother going through the mail, and by the time he finished dinner, it was never a priority anymore. The fact that his “no junk mail” notice hadn’t had the intended effect made him bitter. Perhaps his disengagement from the mail process was his own pathetic form of rebellion. His life was too predictable to merit postal vigilance. He knew it, and had no pretensions to the contrary. Nothing ever came in that couldn’t wait for the monthly clear up, when he went through the letters, before throwing everything away.
“One of these days I’ll miss an important letter”, he sometimes thought, when his procrastination pile began taking shape. Then he would let out a half-hearted giggle of self-mockery. It was a one-man-in-joke. He knew too well that important letters had no place in his life. He did nothing exciting to warrant receiving anything interesting.
Only “one of these days” had already come. Two weeks ago.
Perhaps he would have noticed the envelope from the council, had it not slid between the pages of a discount magazine. Either way, even if he had seen it, he might not have opened it. And even if he had opened and read the instructions to vacate the building today due to construction work, he might not have taken heed.
It may have been partially his fault for being careless with his mail, but nobody can blame him for the wrecking ball that went through his living room wall by accident, which wiped him out, tea in hand, leaving him face down in the rubble of a demolished pile of unopened mail.
Bħaż-żejt u d-deheb, jew djamant perfett. Bħal badge tal-Juventus quddiem Anastasi. Bħal ħawħa fis-suq li ġiet qabel sħaba. Jew ktejjeb imħarbex minn pinnet l-awtur (qabel miet). Inkella biljett għal spettaklu ta’ darba. Jew kitarra maħruġa b’edizzjoni speċjali. Xi mawra fuq espedizzjoni spazjali. Jew xi pittura, kapulavur. Forsi xi part ta’ iljunfant f’irkant tal-avorju. Jew xi kamra eżotika bil-ħut taħt saqajk. Xi plot il-Madliena fl-iskema tal-bini. Insomma, kwalunkwe żikk utli, li mhux infinit.
Skarsi u prezzjużi. Għax rari lussużi. Jiswew tassew.
Imma mhux biss.
Fil-verità xejn m’hu infinit. Mhux kollox skars imma lanqas. Haw’ ħafna abbundanza. U l-abbundanza twaqqa l-prezz u ġġib kollox kważi b’xejn. Il-ħawħa pijuniera forsi tkun naqra għalja l-ewwel ġimgħa, imma erba t’ijiem wara, meta l-istaġun ikun daħal sew u kullimkien ikun mifqugħ bil-ħawħ, jorħos. U mhux talli jorħos, imma jibda ħiereġ min kull toqba anatomika li għandek. Iqażżuk. L-abbundanza timmansa s-sensi, idderijhom. Iġgħalhek tieħu kollox for granted. Tnessik kif kont qabel. Tnessik min kont qabel.
L-ixkafef tal-ħwienet illum mimlijin. F’l-istess ħin però l-ebda tfajjel b’iphone f’idu ma jista qatt iduq ċikkulata itjeb minn dik li ħarġet ommu mil-bagalja ta’ zijuha meta ġie lura mil-Ġermanja (tal-Punent ovjament). Il-‘Catch’ illum għan-nostalġija tkun fuq ilsien in-nies, mhux għat-toma. Fil-fatt qisha m’għadix tajba bħal ma tiftakar li kienet hu’?
L-iskarsita fil-fatt ma tilgħabx biss mal-prezz, imma tbabas ukoll il-perċeżżjoni tal-valur. Bħal donnu kapaċċi napprezzaw ħafna aktar meta nħarsu dritt f’għajnejn iċ-ċaħda. Tant li meta tintebaħ li oġġett relattivament skars wasal biex jispiċċalek, trawwem perspettiva oħra. Tħares lejħ mod ieħor. Tibża għalih. Tkun ekonomiku. Issir qammiel. Bħal meta tintebaħ tard wisq li it-toilet paper wasal f’l-aħħar tlett folji u ma jidhirx li tista ġġib wieħed ġdid faċilment. Titwi u tiddobba. Daqs tazz’ ilma. Daqs tazz’ ilma…fid-deżert.
In-nuqqas, ġaladarba ma jafx bil-wens li toffri l-abbundanza jpattilek b’valur għoli ta’ apprezzament. Kull naqra issir tiswa. L-abbundanza, minn naħa tagħha, ittik anqas milli twiegħedek għax malajr tnessik kemm kont mikrum meta kont imċaħħad. Mhux imbilli jtambrulek li aktar ma jkollok aktar aħjar. Taħlifx. Temminx. Aktar ma jkollok, aktar faċli tinsa eżatt x’għandek. U dak li tinsa li għandek, jitgawda daqs dak li m’għandekx.
U hawnhekk jinbet daqsxejn ta’ paradoss. Paradoss imwelled minn verità sempliċi: dak li jkollok malajr tidrah. U mhux talli tidrah, imma issir tipretendih; u wara ftit tieqaf ukoll tapprezzah. Fl-istess ħin pero’, għalkemm tkun drajtu u ma tgħatix wisq kasu, ma tkunx lest iċċedieħ, għax il-lussu li drajt bih isir parti minn ħajtek anke jekk qas biss tgħarfu.
Imma issa la l-pjaċir frivolu ta’ l-aħħar akwist batta, issa tibda tiffoka fuq dak li jmiss. U mhux talli hekk, imma issa li ġejt promoss, tista wkoll titfa ħarstek fuq affarijiet li sa ftit ilu lanqas kont tikkunsidra. U ċ-ċirklu ma jispiċċa qatt. Kulħadd ifittex paga aħjar. Imqar jaħasra kieku tiżdied tikka żgħira oħra. Ħarira ta’. Kieku jkun biżżejjed. Iva, biżżejjed. Għid hekk lilek innifsek, u kun ċuċ biżżejjed u emmina. Fil-fond ta’ qalbek taf imma li il-kieku u li kien qas fuq facebook m’huma ħbieb aħseb u ara kemm qatt iltaqaw. Tiskanta kif kulħadd donnu jinsa kif kien ikampa meta kellu inqas.
U f’kemm ilni ngħidlek ssib lilek innifsek taħdem biex issostni il-ħajja li drajt, li sirt taf kif tippretendi. Ħajja li tiġġustifika imma li taf li ma għandekx bżonn. Paga wara l-oħra, takkumula l-imbarazz li xtrajt u armejt, l-ikel li kilt u ħrajt, u l-btali li mort u nsejt. U safratant għalkemm ir-regoli elementari tal-istudji ekonomiċi tgħid li tafgħom ma tintebaħx li dak li hu skars veru huwa prezzjuż. Il-ġranet ta ħajtek dejjem jonqsu qegħdin, u għalkemm issib lil minn tbieħhom bl-irħis, ma ssib imkien mnejn tixtri minnhom. U lanqas tpartat, la quddiem Anastasti u lanqas fuq maltapark. B’dawk li għandek trid tgħix. Dawk li għandek trid tgħix.
Is-suq jiġi jitnejjek mil-perspettiva tiegħek u għalhekk jofrilek prezz irħis. Irkant imnellaħ u żbilanċjat. Jekk ma jixtrix ġurnata minn tiegħek, tkun waħda minn ħajjet ħaddieħor. Int imma ma għandekx ħliefhom, u kuljum qed tonqoslok waħda. Il-valur tagħhom qed jogħla. Ħa tistenna sakemm tibda tara l-qiegħ biex tivvaluthom? U kif tista jekk lanqas biss taf kemm għad baqalek minnhom? Mela ma tgħallimt xejn minn dak ir-roll tat-toilet paper?
Something is brewing in the environmental movement. Perhaps the referendum result and Zonqor Point proposal are among the last straws on the proverbial camel’s back. It is obviously not the first time this happened. Hopefully anything that comes out of the current air of contention does not repeat the same mistakes that others have made in previous years. In this spirit I will share some ideas with regard to social movement protesting in Malta. These ideas are a mixture of my own personal observations from years of active and inactive involvement in social movements as well as my academic interest in the area.
What is wrong with protesting?
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with protesting. The protest march is one of the main instruments in any social movement’s repertoire of contention. Social movements by definition exist outside the circles of power and protesting is a key way they use to gain leverage in favour of their demands.
A protest can serve many functions: it helps to create a sense of collective identity, helps to articulate grievances, affirm participants’ beliefs as well as provide opportunities for networking. The main function of a protest, however, is as a show of force. Protests aim to gather as many people as they can to show the powers that be that they are a force to be reckoned with. This, it is hoped, will prod those in power to take action out of fear of having their own power undermined. It is not a coincidence that a protest’s success is generally gauged by the number of people attending. And the number of people attending is not a mathematical matter, but more often than not a visual one.
Protests in Malta
The problem with protests in Malta is partly due to Malta’s size, which is so small that it is difficult to reach critical mass. Achieving a visually sufficient turnout to have the desired result is not a straightforward matter. Indeed turnout at protests organised by social movements organisations are rarely jaw-dropping. Even when sizeable crowds show up, they never match the discursive claims made by the organising groups about the percentage of the population that backs their claims.
As a result protests often end up being failures. I have lost count of the number of times I attended demonstrations only to find myself having the “Stennejt iktar nies” conversation. There is no neutral outcome in a demonstration. You either exceed people’s expectations or else it is a bit of a failure. And it wouldn’t be so disheartening were it not for the serious implications it have for movements themselves. First, failed protests give power to the adversaries by providing it with arsenal to depict the movement as insignificant and lacking public support. Worse than that, however, is the effect it has on those who bother to participate. It is demotivating, kills any lingering enthusiasm and ends up being a nail in a movement’s coffin rather than an invigorating spark of activism. Following failed protest marches movements tend to go into an indefinite soul-searching hiatus. A break with demotivated personnel is a perfect formula for fizzling out.
So what does this mean? No protests? Ever?
Not necessarily. But protest shouldn’t be the automatic answer to the burning question of what needs to be done. It is only one way of organising collective action, and showing a movement’s might need not necessarily be done in the streets. In the late nineties the Front Kontra l-Golf Kors utilised the support it had from over 20 organisations in a great way. It emphasized the point discursively, in the media, rather than in the streets. The support of 20 organisations is visually more impressive in text than if representatives of those organisations took to the streets to try to make a statement.
One needs to use the street protest when its use is most opportune, not just when we run out of ideas. A protest makes sense if it is can deliver a message better than any other method, when the numbers are in one’s favour and when the context demands it. You don’t use a kitchen knife to chop down a tree, just like you don’t slice your bread with an axe.
For a protest march to be successful it needs to be an extraordinary event rather than a ordinary one. And most imperatively it should not be organised in haste, unless the context truly doesn’t allow otherwise.
If indeed a protest march is organised there are at least two things that need to be done to try and make it as successfully as possible.
Mobilise not just organise
Unfortunately many activists have often operated under the illusion that you only need to organise a protest, and automatically all those in support of its claims will naturally attend. This is unfortunately off the mark. Organising an event may be enough to attract a portion of the target population (primarily those who are already somewhat committed to the ideas of the protest) but a lot of other people will not attend unless they are actively engaged, encouraged and persuaded to be involved. A protest can never be successful if the majority of those attending are activists. For a successful protest it is imperative to have the participation of lay people, who may agree with the ideas but aren’t themselves actively involved. And these people do not just show up, you need to work hard to get them.
Diffuse organisation.
Often enough protests are organised by a central group of people who publicise and promote their event in the hope that others would join them. But for social movement organisations in Malta this may not be enough. As stated, people need to be mobilised to attend. In this respect I believe that people are much more likely to actively try and get others to attend an event they are organising rather than one that they are merely attending. So the more people that are involved in organising the protest the easier to recruit participants.
A mass protest should be divided into different sections with different people organising the different parts. Basic ground rules will obviously need to be agreed but complete liberty within that framework should be encouraged. A protest divided in different but co-ordinated sections would be able to appeal to a wider cross-section of the population giving the protest a national dimension rather than appearing as the fringe activity of a small group of people. Imagine having children, families, media personalities, radicals, students, drama groups, musicians, pensioners etc etc. all in different sections, giving different taste to one big protest. The more people one is able to incorporate in the organisation the wider the turnout. It is a simple ripple effect.
In any particular social situation, individuals have, even if it is unbeknownst to them, many different comportment options. The fact that they choose specific ways of behaving does not negate the existence of those potential choices. Rather, it validates the sociological enterprise, which postulates that the origin of commonly chosen patterns of behaviour is largely social. Studying the processes involved in the acquirement of expected forms of behaviour is in fact a fundamental part of the sociological objective. It is sociology’s “task and its promise”, Wright-Mills argues, to come to grips with the relationship between people’s biography and the historical context in which their narrative is written.
Biographies are often portrayed as collections of decisions made, or paths taken. These choices define a person’s life course, mark a person’s singularity and create a unique narrative distinct from that of others. In this way biographies evoke a sense of agency, suggesting an arbitrary construction of life stories, in which people pick and mix their choices to build a unique story. As Wright-Mills suggests however, biographical choices are not made in a vacuum; they are bound in particular contexts, and are thus inextricably tied to what historical and social circumstances allow. People are born into a world that precedes them, and live their lives within the boundaries that it sets.The existence of such social boundaries means that even though no two biographies can ever be identical, biographies within the same social formation share a lot of narrative commonalities, many more than an exclusive focus on their uniqueness suggests.
In this regard, biographies are paradoxical. On one hand, they are unique and singular, expressing an individual story, whereas on the other they are replete with experiences and behavioural patterns that are common to many others. Even the most extraordinary biographies, like those of biographical literature, are necessarily inundated with ordinary patterns of social behaviour.
Despite the fact that attention is often cast on what distinguishes one narrative from the other, many of the mundane, day-to-day, biographical choices are predictable, conforming to custom, and shared among the population. These include cultural customs such as a basic conformity to appropriate attire (men wear pants, women dresses), and behavioural patterns (how to act in the presence of others) such as how to relate to strangers in public, seating etiquette on public transport and greeting rituals among acquaintances.
These are familiar behaviours that we perform unthinkingly, that we know unconsciously, that are too obvious to even warrant a thought. These routine behaviours do not cause people to stand out. On the contrary, they help them blend in. They reveal them to be like others: members of the same society, able to navigate the social landscape and willing to dance to its rhythms.
These mundane patterns of behaviours constitute the rhythms of social life. I find the dance-rhythm metaphor fitting for a number of reasons, which I will now explore.
Dancing to the rhythm of social life
Timing
First, social life and social interaction, like rhythmic beats, are governed by a strong sense of timing. Going about their daily business people must not only have a vague idea about what to do, but also when to do it. They must wait their turn, await cues from others to respond to situations in a timely way, and identify windows of opportunity that allow them certain behaviours.
Getting this timing wrong would portray a sense of social inaptitude that opens them up for social rebuke. Take the handshake as an example. It is one of the most common social gestures. But how does one deduce what the appropriate length of time to hold a stranger by the hand is? After all, it only takes a few extra seconds of shaking for it to change from a mundane gesture of cordiality into something undoubtedly weird. Imagine how much more weird it would be if one were to transpose the shaking to a different body part, such as the ear for example.
Unfortunately, a definite answer for this insipid dilemma of handshake length is not available. Not that it is necessary. Millions of people successfully shake hands without a problem every day. And that is precisely what makes all this interesting. We are mostly conforming to rules that have not been written or defined, but which have been transmitted remarkably well considering their non-explicitness.
Our everyday lives are governed by timed interactions that are too obvious to merit conscious consideration. For example, in ordinary commercial transactions there seems to be a temporary window of opportunity that allows one to redress a commercial injustice such as receiving the wrong change. Nobody who presents such a claim a month later will be taken seriously, much less compensated. This sense of timing is known, almost instinctively. So much so that one can almost be certain that nobody has ever tried to claim wrong change a month after its occurrence.
Space
Neither social life nor danceable rhythms, however, are solely matters of timing. When visualised, rhythm also evokes a sense of space, which is a crucial component of the rhythmic. Indeed, rhythm is made up of a series of patterned intervals between occurrences. There are two ways in which space is relevant to social life.
First, it is important in terms of place. Knowing “when to do what” may be primarily a question of timing, but it also requires knowledge of context, including what behaviour is expected, or is considered appropriate, in a particular place at any given time. Social boundaries are thus determined by the interplay of space and time, and they change and vary across both.
Secondly, there are also implications for space in terms of social distance. Social life is governed by a sense of social distance, which forms part of the knowledge required for living competently within a society. There are unstated social rules about the appropriate proximity one must keep in social interaction. These rules change according to situational context, depending on such factors as the presumed formality or informality of the situation. In the same way that one does not memorise all potential sentences to learn a language, so one only needs to get a feel for the game to be able to know about what kind of social distance is warranted in any given situation.
Recurrence
Combining timing and space in a repeated way creates rhythm. What is interesting about rhythm is that after some time a recurring rhythmic pattern becomes instinctual, instilling in its listener a sense of routine, a sense of expectation that things will repeat themselves in a familiar pattern.
This holds true for social life as well, which has its own rhythmic meter. It would not be possible without it. Both its existence and its taken-for-granted nature are necessary for keeping up the required social tempo. We trust that familiar things will behave in familiar ways. If we had to constantly question and ponder anew every simple daily act we would not manage to get anything done. Repetition creates familiarity.
Familiarity in turn instils acceptance, which eventually becomes prescriptive, constraining social imaginations by the repetitive and uncontested nature of behavioural patterns. We do many of the things we do in the way that we do them because that is the way we’ve seen them done, because as far as we are concerned, that is the way they have always been done. The rhythm of social life thus structures people’s social existence. This is what makes it sociologically relevant.
Versatile conformity
Lest this sound too deterministic it is worth keeping in mind that rhythms are not completely imposing, nor absolute. A rhythm may very well be static and unchanging, but it can also be fluid and dynamic. More importantly, the particular ways to dance to a specific rhythm vary even more. This accounts for different levels of conformity and particular ways of interpreting social conventions.
Dancing to a beat can take various forms from the rigid conformity of line-dancing to the flexibility of freestyle dance. A rhythm is only a guide. It is a carrot, not a stick. The level of conformity that it fosters is thus best understood as variable on a continuum of conformity. The same is true for social life. Social life allows for specific defiance within a sense of general conformity. The punk who rocks social conventions through style of dress still tends to conform to general social prescriptions. His trousers may be torn and sprayed silly but they are not a skirt.
As implied in the beginning, people still have comportment options even if they tend to make predictable choices about their day-to-day behaviour. We are physically capable of overcoming social expectations, even if we are generally discouraged from doing so very effectively. There is no physical force that stops men from wearing skirts or women from going to formal occasions without make up. And some do, though most do not even see it as a choice. Indeed, though the rhythm of social life may not directly force itself upon anyone, its ubiquity makes it difficult to ignore completely. Dancing to one’s own beat in the face of another rhythmic presence is possible, but in no way an easy proposition. This means that often people dance to the same beat, but differently.
Difficult though it may be, however, some people do actually ignore or bend these normative rhythms of convention. There are at least two things worth noting in this respect.
First, it is often in instances when they are disregarded or circumvented that such unstated points of reference emerge. In this sense, the social rules that structure our daily lives are like oxygen, taken for granted until they become lacking. When people speak to us from far away in situations that warrant close contact we become aware of proxemic propriety, even if only implicitly, by knowing that something is not right. Conversely, the same thing happens when somebody invades our personal space. We don’t advertise the boundaries of our personal space, but not only do we know instantly when it is being violated, we expect others to do so as well. Not knowing is a sign of social skill deficiency.
Secondly, the rhythm of social life is not imposed by any supreme being. There isn’t a big band playing social rhythms in some societal background. It is created, learnt and reproduced by people’s social actions as they go about their business. Metaphorically: the rhythm is created in dance. In other words, us dancing to the rhythm is us creating it. It is perhaps better understood as a choreographed drum circle where the bodily movements necessary to hit the drum and create the rhythm also constitute the dancing that accompanies it.
The metaphor has been stretched to its limits and it might be best to stop before it snaps. What it does though is to depict a situation that allows for different levels of conformity and a sense of agency, and accounts for our very involvement in recreating the rhythms and social conventions through our own conformity. We are not just puppet dancers to a busking big-band, we are co-producing the rhythms that direct our own choreography as we dance to the rhythms of social life.
Conclusion
That social players are constrained by social rules is a founding assumption of sociological investigation and by no means revelatory. What is often overlooked is the extent to which this is the case. It matters to look at what doesn’t matter. Looking at mundane realities, those innocuous and un-notable taken-for-granted activities that comprise daily lives, enables us to gauge the extent to which what people do is structured in socially transmitted patterns of behaviour. It roots our behaviours in contexts and may potentially reveal them to be historically specific. This awareness is empowering because it reveals as malleable what we have known and accepted our entire lives. It reminds us that the way we do things is only one way that things can be done. It “defamiliarises the familiar” beat and in so doing invigorates our sense of agency as dancers.
Passejn 