Park Ex solidarity story
A brief La Presse piece looks at Mutual Aid Park Ex, a group that sprang up to muster mutual assistance for people in that neighbourhood. Also, a piece in CultMTL reminds us “World Wars aside, people generally don’t get to know they’re experiencing something truly historical while it’s happening, but that’s the situation here. The way we react to this […] will define more than people think. It may well define the rest of our lives.”
JaneyB 16:26 on 2020-04-07 Permalink
This is by far going to be the biggest economic realignment since WWII. It’s also the biggest experience of social solidarity in living memory. Though the fall of the Soviet Union, the Quiet Revolution here and civil wars throughout the world would have provided that quality in a limited way, there’s really been nothing as international as this since WWII. Many young people in North America have never seen any social solidarity at all having grown up within the vast neoliberal landscape. This crisis is frightening – and we haven’t yet seen the disaster that will occur in the poor countries – but I think the relentless gospel of selfishness of the last 40 years is done, done. I would have preferred the gentle dawning of kindness but fear also works. Let’s hope we see some ingenious and even idealistic reconstruction.
walkerp 17:02 on 2020-04-07 Permalink
I hope you are right, JaneyB!
david99 21:00 on 2020-04-07 Permalink
Huh, I’m (semi-) old enough to remember the late 1990s. This is big if we’re looking at the world news. If we’re just looking at Quebec, we’re been through this with the referendum and the ice storm. We’re old hands!
Blork 21:28 on 2020-04-07 Permalink
Continuing with JaneyB’s theme, I wonder if this will be some kind of anti-9-11. Think of the global schisms that occurred after that event and how so much changed everywhere, not for the better and not just in the U.S. But this event has no clear human enemy, and aside from some trade squabbles and whatnot we’re seeing a lot of people and companies stepping up and doing good, and a lot of solidarity across many divides. I’m too much of a cynic to think it will be revolutionary, but I wonder if 20 years from now people will talk about how things changed after COVID-19 the way we now talk about how things changed after 9-11.
Chris 18:53 on 2020-04-09 Permalink
I too hope you are right, JaneyB! But I doubt it. There was similar hope after the Great Recession, with Occupy Wall Street, that big social change was coming, but, not much changed. I predict in a few months everyone will be back to their usual selfish gluttonous materialistic consumerism.