I made the mistake of reading the Vancouver Sun today. Specifically, the open comments section- which is for all intensive purposes a white trash incarnation of Speakers Corner soley for those who feel the need to share their two cents without any real appreciation of the vital role Free Speech plays in a democratic society.
I was born in Vancouver. If you've never been, I'll give a quick description. Picture the sparkling inverted iceicles of overpriced condominiums shimmering in a deep green overfished sea, flanked by sweeping evergreen mountains (for the 4 days a year when it's actually sunny enough to see them). The monolithic towers of the city's rapidly declining financial district spackle the ruthlessly efficient gridiron of excessively wide streets like crumbling monuments to an optimistic yet long forgotten era. A complete lack of streetwalling leaves the city lacking any concrete sense of place. Generic four laned boulevards are lined with generic franchise shops frequented by career baristas and the cheaply attired provincial financial elite alike. All of this is just a stones throw from the historic Downtown East Side where a cozy cluster of late Victorian brick tenements line the streets in and amongst tired, creaking oak trees, shielding the disenfranchised underclass from the cold indifferent eyes of the Suburban masses.
50 women ('Hookers' in local parlance) were murdered in this neighbourhood by one depraved pig farmer and no one really cared. It's the poorest neighbourhood in Canada and no one really cares. It also performs a number of vital functions; housing the mentally ill who were turfed onto the streets due to cutbacks in Mental Health. Harbouring vulnerable women who were turfed onto the streets due to the closure of women's shelters. Providing sanctuary to aboriginal youth who choose the streets over alcohol flooded 'reserves'. And a shitload of heroin. Oh, and arguably the highest concentration of HIV Infections in North America. But no one really cares. Just look at those breathtaking mountain views- and pretend it doesn't exist.
I'll explain why I hate the City so much. Here's the Vancouver that everyone knows and most love:
It's puuuurdy, isn't it? That is the fantasy that's burnt into the heads of most Vancouverites. Here's the reality:
Sunday afternoon shopping in a lively, thriving marketplace.
A real sense of community spirit.
A great place to kick back, relax and take the edge off.
The City of Glass where single mothers earning 10 dollars an hour can obviously afford the 300 000 plus required for 1 bedroom starter flat in the city.
The problem with Vancouver is this. Despite all its claims to being a leftist, all embracing earth-mama city (Yes, Greenpeace was founded there but that's more down to the particularly strong strain of local marijuana than a political culture of healthy activism) it is in fact a big country town slapped onto Canada's western edge like an ill considered afterthought.
But Gay Marriage! Safe Injection sites! Harm Reduction! Civil rights even Australians only dream of!
Here's an insight into Canadian culture. Contrary to popular belief, Canadians are generally conservative. However, unlike Americans, Canadians are also deferrent to authority and accepting of the status quo. After Luxembourg it's probably the most politically uninspiring country on the planet. The ruling politcal elite (to whom the dwindling middle class and monstrous working poor defer) however, are quite liberal, though that has changed somewhat in recent years with western Conservatives taking power. Thankfully those conservatives still find themselves hampered by a left leaning Civil Service and left leaning Judiciary (again, thankfully). Another surprising theme is that Canadians both loath and resent bureaucracy due to a libertarian bent where everyone is special- generally too small minded to realise that civil institutions are an essential vanguard of political stability. Gay marriage was a product of the courts, not the houses of parliament. The safe injection site (which is tasked with ultra leftist mandates such successfully reducing HIV transmission and fatal overdoses, and providing access to health and social services for those who have fallen through the net) was saved by the courts, not the politicians (who wanted it closed on moral grounds).
I could go on.
The problem Vancouver is having at the moment is one of deep shame and deeper denial. Three prongs- warring gangs making very public execution style hits in crowded streets in the name of controlling the city's very lucrative drug trade. Middleclass suburban youth running riot and trashing the city after the local hockey team lost the Final. But far worse- these pesky reminders of the poor who have dared strayed from their economic prison in the DTES and are now encamped on the front lawn of the Art Gallery in full view of the respectable public. City council is up in arms (Unsanitary Conditions! Violence! *gasp* Drug use!). The small business elite are calling for the police to be sent in. These sorts of things just can not be tolerated in Vancouver.
Bourgeois Smug-Ville.
And herein lies the moral of the story. Everyone is happy to go on thinking they live in 'The Best Place On Earth' (yes, that is the provincial motto- arrogantly emblazoned on license plates and the sides of subway carriages). While their kids experiment with hard drugs in underfunded public schools to eventually earn the provincial minimum wage (8.50 per hour) on a permanent part time basis (read- no benefits). Yet the business community complains that increasing the minimum wage to a modest 10 dollars an hour will hurt business owners who exploit cheap local labour with the same gusto normally reserved for Indian Outsourcing. Nooo- no real imbalance of wealth here.
Jobs are created (and why I hate the term 'job creation') to give a few scraps to the masses to keep them busy, hopefully too occupied with scraping a meagre living as to never challenge anything. You'll never make enough to live adequately well on, but hey- you've got a job, so you don't need benefits! And if you don't have a job, suburban white youth in baseball caps who lack both a tertiary education and even a minute understanding of Economics will happily tell you to get one. Underpriviledge aboriginal single mother who fled an abusive father who was simply continuing the cycle of abuse instilled in him from a Residential School? Her fault! Yes- Australia doesn't have the monopoly on stolen generations. We had a stolen generation too- the only difference being that our stolen kids got laid a lot more. But she's obviously responsible for her predicament! Drug addicts? Oh- they should be drug tested in order to receive welfare benefits. Let them starve if they don't. And these comments are celebrated.
Protesting the mistreatment of Falun Dafa practitioners? Get a job! Begging for handouts? Get a job! Complaining that Global Capitalism is unethical (when its very survival is dependant on an disparant distribution of wealth)? Get a job!
You can make your life better through hard work. Yes- work will liberate you. Now where have we heard that before...
Don't get me wrong- there are a lot of inspiring people in the City who do an immense amount of good work, but they're dwarved by the suburban majority who continue to slog away and accept everything as it is while adversely judging those who dare speak out against what is rapidly becoming an american Meritocratic society. That's how I was raised- this is the way things are, this is how you're expected to live, this is the system we live in, and you're wrong to think you can do things differently. You need to learn a trade, find a job, get a mortgage, and pump out 2.4 children.
Fuck you.
So I voted with my feet and never looked back. I have good friends there, I have family there, but it's not home for the sole reason that I feel a complete disconnect from a city so up it's own arse it can't see past its own hype. For all intensive purposes it is the City of Denial. A city not at ease with itself so it chooses to gloss over its shortcomings with page after page of Economist Liveability reports and Mercer Liveability indeces. Yet it always fidgets uncomfortably when forced to acknowledge its dark side- should it stray out from under its 16 square block rock.
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. (Eugene Debs, Cleveland, 11 September 1918, prior to being imprisoned for sedition).
Thinking back to the battle of Cable Street in East London 75 years ago. A minority (Jewish) trying to prevent fascist sympathisers from marching through their neighbourhood. The protest was unpopular (How dare they protest Fascism in the 30s- prewar Britain was a lot more apathetic about the plight of the Jews than it cares to admit- to the point of deporting refugees back to Europe) but the dowdy community prevailed, despite the police siege and resulting brutality (on the Jews, not the fascist), but history judged them in the right.
And people wonder why I turn to drink. I never think about this shit when plastered.
Maybe I'm more of a Vancouverite than I care to admit.
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