"How come there are so many crashes? What's wrong with the roads these days?"
Questions like this erupt - in your home and mine, at work-places, coffee shops - anywhere where we gather to talk. They are all over the internet - in blogs like this, in chat-rooms.
We are quick to name our pet hate as the party who made it so - truckers, cabbies, cyclists, the fool engineers who don't design roads right - in fact we spread blame over every one except the guilty parties - and, if we think about it, we know one of them well - only too well.
Who? Look in the mirror - see that face grimacing back at you? That's one of the guilty parties.
The sad truth is that no amount of engineering can make our roads safe - as long as we reserve to ourselves the "right" to do as we please on the road. I'll rephrase that: I am one of the guilty parties to making our roads dangerous. So are you, gentle reader. No - I'm not saying you are a horrible person, dashing out to see how many you can kill or maim today, any more than I am. But we are both (on occasion) careless. We both (on occasion) show less good judgement than we should. We are both of us, in all probability, technically under-trained at the wheel. I know I was, back in 1960, when I was sent up for my official road-test with not more than five or six hours of road-time as a car-driver. The first hour had been spent (successfully) in mastering the Three-Pedal Two-Step - the art of juggling gas, clutch, and brake to allow the car to start up and stop without stalling the engine - and without rolling back downhill at a stop on an up-grade. Shifting gears (today, it's seen as a difficult process, taking far too much of a driver's time to be safe) rapidly became automatic - sufficiently so that, faced one evening with a panic-stop from 50 MPH, I realised, after I and the truck-driver facing me had stopped safely to give some Lead-footed Larry the whole road - each on our own side of the highway, that I'd not only brought the car to a halt, on the shoulder, but that I had down-shifted twice in the process. I've no recollection of it - but there I was stopped, with the car in second (of 4) gear, and the clutch in, engine idling - all my reactions to the vision of a head-on collision at around 100 MPH combined speed had been automatic.
Most of us do not pay enough attention to the road around us - and discover, with a sense of shock, that we don't have the traction we thought we did- be it ice, or snow, or rain - or even a broad swath of traffic paint in an intersection. We see a steel plate on the road - and shy uncontrollably at it, because we've been taught it's uncontrollably slippery. In short, we do not remember to drive what is right in front of us, and adjust our driving to match. Yes - I've been caught short on occasion - very seldom, and never seriously - just enough to remind me to pay better attention. For instance, I recall driving a winding chunk of local rural highway one day, and entering a dropping right-hand curve just a little too fast. As i reacted to this, I suddenly felt that the back of the van I was driving was very close to breaking loose, and trying to overtake the front - in the opposing lane. My reaction - lift that foot from the brake, keep it off the gas, and STEER, like crazy. We exited the curve very slightly wide - where the right side had been on the fog-line, the left side was now almost over the centre-line. As I said, a near-run call. Similarly, I've been caught out on ice or snow, occasionally - just a little shudder to remind me to pay more attention. I have been fortunate in my choice of passenger/co-pilot/navigator. She has a sense of distance, and will react if I get too close - a slight tensing of the body, or an intake of breath, and I react to these as I do to other outside input. Definitely, the second pair of eyes has helped make me safer.
Slavish adherence to posted limits can be dangerous. There are times when conditions are such that even driving under the posted limit can be far too fast. Years ago, I was returning home in Vancouver, BC from a trip out across the Fraser River to the east of the city, and the fog was so dense along the highway that I could only see the fog-line to my right, or the lane marker to my left - not both, and the only reason I felt that 30 MPH was safe was that I had a set of tail-lights in my sight - and that was the speed he was driving, so we both made reasonable progress.
On the other side of the limit - Vancouver, BC has a posted limit of 30 MPH/50 Km/H on all streets. There are arterial ones, though, where traffic regularly moves at 40 MPH/65Km/H, as long as it's moving freely. The traffic lights - say the signs, are synchronized for the posted limit. However, I quickly discovered that it was far, far safer to travel with the flow than to slavishly follow the posted limits, that I would make all the lights comfortably. I have even noticed that police, on traffic regulation, will encourage drivers to keep up, rather than slowing down when we see them.
So - what I've realised - and experience, travelling in other cities tends to bear this out - is that Driving is actually a dance-form. There are universally recognised steps, but also local variants, customs, that we must learn and use, if we want to pass as "just traffic" rather than stick out like tourists or lost souls. Again, this calls for observation, feel, and judgement. Driving is far more than just the business of knowing what the controls are, and how to use them, more than just knowing what the laws are. You also have to watch like a hawk - look at nothing, and see everything. You must observe the hints of an impending action - like the cyclist doing quick shoulder checks as you come up to a corner - so that he can gauge when it's safe to set up his left-turn (more on this later).
How can a cyclist fit into this - given that he's out there, playing with stuff that upwards of 20 times his own mass? How can he possibly feel safe?
Part of that answer is - thee's no way he can "feel safe", in absolute terms. However, there are things he can do to feel as safe as it is possible to be - an acceptable level of risk, as it were. I should know - I've been a cyclist since 1954 - and there are very few roads I will not ride along. There are more I will avoid, if I can - but that's, again, a matter of acceptable risk.
What should I, as a cyclist, do? In the simplest terms - drive that bike like the driver you are. The more nearly I exhibit as just a driver, the less hassle I get. It takes very little to get there - no great amount of fancy clothing, no fancy, expensive bike (Unless you are an elite-level rider, there is very little practical difference between bikes, as long as it's suitable for the job, and fits you.)
I wear clothing that is reflective - a yellow jacket, or a safety vest. If I'm using leggings in cool weather, they have reflective bands around them. I have lights, fore and aft, on the bike, and I have them on, day or night. After all, if ADRL's make cars and trucks more visible in the day-time, would not the same reasoning apply, in spades, to myself on a bike? I obey the helmet laws - not because they make me safe - they don't do a thing for me when I pile-drive into the side of a car, or throw myself under the wheels of a passing dump-truck. But that helmet DOES do one thing - it reduces, minimizes, the severity of any head injury I may incur WHEN I fall (not if - falling is guaranteed. We only have some control over where or when.) I should know - I have fallen a number of times, and struck my head two or three times since i started wearing a skid-lid.
I mentioned that cyclist, frantically glancing over his shoulder as he gets nearer the intersection where he wants to turn. There IS a way to set that turn up - the "vehicular" way. It does take a bit of raw courage - especially the first time, though, once you get the hang of it, it becomes automatic and easy. The secret is to set the turn up far enough in advance - depending on the street and traffic, half a block or more ahead of the left-turn lane, or the corner itself. You start by making your SIGNAL - left arm out-stretched from the shoulder, and kept out. THEN you shoulder-check (using a mirror can be just as good) to see if traffic (t only takes ONR driver) will let you out - when someone does - slows, flicks his lights - GO - to the edge of the lane. If there's another lane, REPEAT (Blanshard, for instance, has three or four lanes) until you get into the turn lane, or arrive at the corner. If you are the first one there - go right up to the stop line, and STOP - if there's a mark on the road, for the "sweet spot", stop on it. If there are others in front of you (Life is OH! so tough!!) stop in the middle of the lane, behind the last one. Carry on. If there's no turn-advantage signal, pull into the intersection - keep that signal out -until you can go. That's all there is to it. SO WHAT, if there are cars passing to your right from behind you. Those drivers can see you, and they know what you are trying to do. You now have traffic from ONE direction to worry about - the ones coming towards you - and you are looking at them. Id someone cedes you Right of Way - accept it, graciously.. After all, you are asking no more than you would, trying to make that corner in a car, are you?
But, you ask, how can I respond fast, to traffic like that? OK - here's another trick that makes it easier: GEAR DOWN, as you come to that stop - my favourite spot is middle chain-ring, in-most gear on the cluster - in mechanical terms, it's about a 40" gear, small enough to give you rapid acceleration, high enough that you don't run out of pedal speed before you clear the intersection, and you can always gear up if you need. Train yourself (it only took me a couple of days, twenty-some years ago, once I'd decided to do so) and it will become fully automatic - part of the experience of mindful cycling. Remember to watch for pedestrians - we have to stop for them, as well. You know you've arrived when you signal you're stopping, and the drivers behind you stop, too. The same applies to emergency vehicles.
So - driving or cycling - we have only ONE job - to be the very best driver we can be. We do that, and the roads will seem so much safer - for us, and for everyone around us. The answer to road safety is really in our own hands. If WE aren't safe - no engineering can make us safe - at least as long as we must operate the vehicle ourselves. If we do, we'll be as safe as we can be - and our vehicle insurance will reflect that.
Monday, 17 September 2018
Saturday, 5 December 2015
An Experience
Years ago - the summer of 1961, in fact - I got my first "real" job - a labourer on a project in Moosonee, Ontario. Now, one of the facts about this is that, even now, Moosonee is an isolated community, with no road access to civilisation (or so we call it). I arrived by train - a full 20 hours' travel from Ottawa, and a long day's trip north from Cochrane, Ontario, with stops for shunting freight all the way. It was a fascinating trip, both for the scenery (and miles and miles of black spruce CAN be that) and for the people and way of life I saw - with the train stopping, virtually, at any mile-post or other "recognised" spot, to drop mails or package freight, or passengers, and occasionally to pick up someone going down to Moosonee.
However, my story really begins with arriving in the community - and walking into the hornet's nest of a strike situation. It appeared that the carpenters employed on this project (We were constructing a substantial radar complex for the RCAF, part if one of the three Early Warning chains across the continent.) were unhappy with their pay and conditions. Never mind that they had received at least one raise in pay over the past year, or that we paid only a few dollars a day for room and board in the camp, and that the meals were both plentiful and appetizing. Even an arrant new-comer, like myself, could figure that this was a good deal.
Certainly, we were expected to work a longer week - in those days, the normal work week was 44 hours, and we worked 59 - ten on weekdays, and nine on Saturday - but what else are you going to do, in a camp on the edge of the bush - for some of these men, far beyond the world we'd always lived in?
For the first few days, those of us who were working, ran the hassle of a picket-line, established where the access road to the job crossed one leg of the wye at the end of the railway, allowing the mixed train that brought us north to be turned for the return south. There were a few brave carpenters who risked the wrath of the Union and worked on, but most of the carpentry on the site was being done by local Cree, some from the Moosonee band, in the village, and others from Moose Factory, a Hudson's Bay post on an island in the Moose river, which flowed into James Bay at this spot. This, of course, explained both the "new" settlement of Moosonee and the railway - it was now a supply port for the isolated posts around the south end of Hudson's Bay.
One point to note about the men from Moose Factory - they never had to cross that picket line, as they landed on the shore, at the end of the rail spur, and walked the half mile up the grade to the job-site - always safely on the other side of the line.
In any event, matters came to a head when the Union started pressing for a general strike - they were going to close down the whole project, and that was that. A meeting was called, at which we were all asked (strongly urged was more like it, as I recall) to be present. There were, of course, Union officials, including some from down south, brought in, along with representatives of the Department of Indian Affairs, and some translators, to impress us all, particularly the local Cree. It was suitably impressive - as impressive as such meetings always are. The "brass" got up, and made speeches letting us know WHY it was vital that we act this way, and they were translated. The meeting was then thrown open to comments from the floor, and the usual list of hot-head "supporters" spoke up - along the lines of "Yeah, Brother, we're all right behind you!", and all went as expected - at least until this short, obviously young, green, kid got up - sounding a bit as if he lived up to his school nick-name of Professor, and opened his mouth. Other student workers started to dive for cover, expecting trouble. The kid spoke up, and admitted he was young, and very new to this business, but he was aware that we had had raises this past year, and that men were walking the sidewalks down south, looking for work. We had jobs, and he thought that, if we went on strike, we'd be cutting off our fool noses to spite our silly faces, and sat down.
Those other students were right - the room DID erupt, and he was soon surrounded by strong Union men, far older and more experienced than himself. One was shaking a fist in his face, promising dire things, another, in his heavily accented English, assured him that, young as he was, he'd soon find out. The organizers waded in. "Give the kid some room. He's young, and will have to learn, but he is entitled to his own opinion. Back off, and settle down!" A village elder came up to him: "I want to shake your hand. You say what I think." As far as I can recall, my remark was the last one made. I do not recall hearing any motion to adjourn, or any decision made, any vote taken, and I made my way back to the bunk-house, more than just a little concerned for my own safety. All went well for the next day or so, though we heard of the theft of a jerry-can of gasoline from the job-site.
As I recall, the fire that came close to destroying the warehouse, and threatening the camp, broke out that Friday night - about 3:00, breaking up a wonderful Poker game - my first ever. (No, I didn't lose. In fact, I think my skill at Bridge and Cribbage stood me in good stead, as I had some idea of how to assess the odds, even if I didn't have years of skill, and knew enough not to get in over my head.) We all turned to, helping the local Volunteer Fire Department, and then caught a couple of hours before turning out for work in the morning. The first of the strikers came back that morning: "When I heard about the fire, I went to the Shop Steward and said ' Gimme my tools. I don't want no part in that kind of violence. I'm goin' back to work.'" By Monday, all the others were back, too, and the strike had collapsed. The next day, the Labourer Foreman came up to me and told me I was to report to the Warehouse. It seemed the Warehouseman had asked for help cleaning up the mess, and the Foreman picked me, because he didn't want to have to watch my back all summer, and he didn't want any "accidents" on the job.
Now - one of the things I'd noticed, of the Cree "helpers" was that, for the kind of work we were doing, they were very effective carpenters - sometimes more so than the "real" ones, as they were good at using scrap pieces as fillers where needed, and saving the full sheets for where they would be most effective. So, obviously, these so-called "backward Indians" were at least as good at this job as the real carpenters, and evidently, they were in no way deficient in their ability to think. This was, I believe, the beginning of my education as to the value and worth of our First Nations.
I was thinking of expounding on my notions of the proper place of Unions in our work-force. But I suspect my views should be reasonably clear - they have a place, a proper one in seeing to it that management does live up to their side of any agreement - in spirit as well as letter. However, they are out of bounds, when they wish to usurp the proper duty of management - they ought, also, to ensure that their own members live up to the agreements in full - in letter AND spirit. If Unions want to run businesses, they ought to do so openly - buy into ownership, and accept the costs of that, as well. From what I have seen, though, of Unions, when it comes to relationships with their own employees, they are as adamant for the "rights" of Management, as they are opposed to them, for their own rank and file. You cannot "run with the hare and hunt with the hounds" - sooner or later, you will come a cropper, and be broken.
So - what am I really exercised about? I've just read John Ralston Saul's The Comeback. In it, he outlines what he has seen among our First Nations - how they are growing, in numbers, in knowledge and strength, even in our own terms. How they have learned, despite all the roadblocks put in their way, to use our laws to forward their own position - to recover their own understanding of the plain words and overt intention of all the Treaties signed. In short, of their recovery of real power - and of the lamentable mindset of our Governments - Provincial and Federal, that seeks to convert this into a zero-sum game, with winners and losers, when, in fact, it is not. What we will see, with this change (and, will we, nill we, it WILL come upon us) is that there are ONLY Winners or Losers - that either all Canada wins - First Nations and the rest of us - or we all lose, and the results of losing are far worse than those of winning.
Can we live with First Nations as fully integrated, even with their own territories, as any immigrant group? Certainly - for this was how the nation was founded in the first place. This is how we have coped with influxes of non-English-speaking Immigrants since the dawn of the 20th Century. I certainly recall the "fuss" about European DP's in the late 40's and early 50's. I remember, only too vividly, the fears that the fall of Vietnam engendered, about the influx of refugees. The same fear has surrounded ALL such immigrant groups - Chinese, East Indians, Japanese (to our great shame), Ugandans, Iranis - all have met with semi-official suspicion, and quite serious denial of any learning. We gripe about the dearth of physicians - and effectively make it certain that no Immigrant physician could possibly be licensed, unless he (and usually that) had been trained in a very limited number of suitable (i.e. English-speaking) institutions - no matter the qualifications, or the degree of competence. We do much the same with other such qualifications, now, too. This used not to be the case - but now we are afraid - that our own education will be "diluted" - in reality, that our own power, as the Rulers of the Land will be challenged.
We have sown a wind of denial and suspicion, much the same as that of our nearest neighbours to the south, and we will reap the whirlwind of permanent relegation to mediocrity, and poverty, where Canada once punched well above its weight. We will become, like our neighbours, the "poor little rich kids" of the world - pampered, effete, and afraid of our own shadows. This has happened before in history - Rome collapsed of its own inefficiency. Spain drowned in the wealth of the Indies, and was, like the USA, both manifestly the Hegemon of the World (well, at least to Europeans) and a state visibly weakening and collapsing at the same time. (This was the first half of the 17th Century - the period of the 30 Years' War in Europe.) I will not attempt to speak of China's history, nor of any other Asian power, as I am not as well versed in that part of the world, but what I have read suggests that much the same is true there. Britain collapsed - yes, bled white by the War that ran from 1914 to 1945 (despite the truce in the middle) - but managed to do so without completely losing control. The dissolution was orderly, and the new stares succeeding (in general) have stayed on a course of reasonably good terms, reasonably civilized behaviour ever since.
We can be what we were before. We can recover our ability to be a world leader. Butt it must start with a real acceptance of the reality of our First Nations. They are, individually and collectively, no whit less intelligent, no whit less able to use the advantages of our modern age - to dream new dreams, and invent or reinvent ways of living together in real community, of using our land, and wealth for the good of all. If this means we, as "white men", give up power to coerce, so be it. We have not, merely to take a local topic, shown much ability to co-operate and create a community that can police itself, build roads and streets, let alone a comprehensive sewer system. We are mired in "Us against Them". Perhaps - just perhaps - our First Nations (whose individual interests are at least as diverse as ours) would do a better job of organising to build such a system. Perhaps our local cities and municipalities ought, in fairness, to deed back the lands we live on to the peoples we stole it from. No - I doubt we would be dispossessed. They, like us, need the tax revenue to build and maintain our infrastructure. Nor would they (unlike ourselves) seek to boot us out of government - we live here as do they, and do have an interest in our community. The difference would likely be that Government would become rather less adversarial, more a matter of consensus, agreement, and serious search for solutions that will satisfy all.
Will this change come smoothly? No - not unless we admit we have been looking at life the wrong way. But it can come smoothly - once we make that change - once we "convert". I have worked among First Nations for years - had them as colleagues, as supervisors, as helpers. As far as I can see, there is nothing to differentiate us but the mythologies upon which our worlds are built - and theirs is at least as compelling as the standard adversarial one our rational mindset enjoins.
However, my story really begins with arriving in the community - and walking into the hornet's nest of a strike situation. It appeared that the carpenters employed on this project (We were constructing a substantial radar complex for the RCAF, part if one of the three Early Warning chains across the continent.) were unhappy with their pay and conditions. Never mind that they had received at least one raise in pay over the past year, or that we paid only a few dollars a day for room and board in the camp, and that the meals were both plentiful and appetizing. Even an arrant new-comer, like myself, could figure that this was a good deal.
Certainly, we were expected to work a longer week - in those days, the normal work week was 44 hours, and we worked 59 - ten on weekdays, and nine on Saturday - but what else are you going to do, in a camp on the edge of the bush - for some of these men, far beyond the world we'd always lived in?
For the first few days, those of us who were working, ran the hassle of a picket-line, established where the access road to the job crossed one leg of the wye at the end of the railway, allowing the mixed train that brought us north to be turned for the return south. There were a few brave carpenters who risked the wrath of the Union and worked on, but most of the carpentry on the site was being done by local Cree, some from the Moosonee band, in the village, and others from Moose Factory, a Hudson's Bay post on an island in the Moose river, which flowed into James Bay at this spot. This, of course, explained both the "new" settlement of Moosonee and the railway - it was now a supply port for the isolated posts around the south end of Hudson's Bay.
One point to note about the men from Moose Factory - they never had to cross that picket line, as they landed on the shore, at the end of the rail spur, and walked the half mile up the grade to the job-site - always safely on the other side of the line.
In any event, matters came to a head when the Union started pressing for a general strike - they were going to close down the whole project, and that was that. A meeting was called, at which we were all asked (strongly urged was more like it, as I recall) to be present. There were, of course, Union officials, including some from down south, brought in, along with representatives of the Department of Indian Affairs, and some translators, to impress us all, particularly the local Cree. It was suitably impressive - as impressive as such meetings always are. The "brass" got up, and made speeches letting us know WHY it was vital that we act this way, and they were translated. The meeting was then thrown open to comments from the floor, and the usual list of hot-head "supporters" spoke up - along the lines of "Yeah, Brother, we're all right behind you!", and all went as expected - at least until this short, obviously young, green, kid got up - sounding a bit as if he lived up to his school nick-name of Professor, and opened his mouth. Other student workers started to dive for cover, expecting trouble. The kid spoke up, and admitted he was young, and very new to this business, but he was aware that we had had raises this past year, and that men were walking the sidewalks down south, looking for work. We had jobs, and he thought that, if we went on strike, we'd be cutting off our fool noses to spite our silly faces, and sat down.
Those other students were right - the room DID erupt, and he was soon surrounded by strong Union men, far older and more experienced than himself. One was shaking a fist in his face, promising dire things, another, in his heavily accented English, assured him that, young as he was, he'd soon find out. The organizers waded in. "Give the kid some room. He's young, and will have to learn, but he is entitled to his own opinion. Back off, and settle down!" A village elder came up to him: "I want to shake your hand. You say what I think." As far as I can recall, my remark was the last one made. I do not recall hearing any motion to adjourn, or any decision made, any vote taken, and I made my way back to the bunk-house, more than just a little concerned for my own safety. All went well for the next day or so, though we heard of the theft of a jerry-can of gasoline from the job-site.
As I recall, the fire that came close to destroying the warehouse, and threatening the camp, broke out that Friday night - about 3:00, breaking up a wonderful Poker game - my first ever. (No, I didn't lose. In fact, I think my skill at Bridge and Cribbage stood me in good stead, as I had some idea of how to assess the odds, even if I didn't have years of skill, and knew enough not to get in over my head.) We all turned to, helping the local Volunteer Fire Department, and then caught a couple of hours before turning out for work in the morning. The first of the strikers came back that morning: "When I heard about the fire, I went to the Shop Steward and said ' Gimme my tools. I don't want no part in that kind of violence. I'm goin' back to work.'" By Monday, all the others were back, too, and the strike had collapsed. The next day, the Labourer Foreman came up to me and told me I was to report to the Warehouse. It seemed the Warehouseman had asked for help cleaning up the mess, and the Foreman picked me, because he didn't want to have to watch my back all summer, and he didn't want any "accidents" on the job.
Now - one of the things I'd noticed, of the Cree "helpers" was that, for the kind of work we were doing, they were very effective carpenters - sometimes more so than the "real" ones, as they were good at using scrap pieces as fillers where needed, and saving the full sheets for where they would be most effective. So, obviously, these so-called "backward Indians" were at least as good at this job as the real carpenters, and evidently, they were in no way deficient in their ability to think. This was, I believe, the beginning of my education as to the value and worth of our First Nations.
I was thinking of expounding on my notions of the proper place of Unions in our work-force. But I suspect my views should be reasonably clear - they have a place, a proper one in seeing to it that management does live up to their side of any agreement - in spirit as well as letter. However, they are out of bounds, when they wish to usurp the proper duty of management - they ought, also, to ensure that their own members live up to the agreements in full - in letter AND spirit. If Unions want to run businesses, they ought to do so openly - buy into ownership, and accept the costs of that, as well. From what I have seen, though, of Unions, when it comes to relationships with their own employees, they are as adamant for the "rights" of Management, as they are opposed to them, for their own rank and file. You cannot "run with the hare and hunt with the hounds" - sooner or later, you will come a cropper, and be broken.
So - what am I really exercised about? I've just read John Ralston Saul's The Comeback. In it, he outlines what he has seen among our First Nations - how they are growing, in numbers, in knowledge and strength, even in our own terms. How they have learned, despite all the roadblocks put in their way, to use our laws to forward their own position - to recover their own understanding of the plain words and overt intention of all the Treaties signed. In short, of their recovery of real power - and of the lamentable mindset of our Governments - Provincial and Federal, that seeks to convert this into a zero-sum game, with winners and losers, when, in fact, it is not. What we will see, with this change (and, will we, nill we, it WILL come upon us) is that there are ONLY Winners or Losers - that either all Canada wins - First Nations and the rest of us - or we all lose, and the results of losing are far worse than those of winning.
Can we live with First Nations as fully integrated, even with their own territories, as any immigrant group? Certainly - for this was how the nation was founded in the first place. This is how we have coped with influxes of non-English-speaking Immigrants since the dawn of the 20th Century. I certainly recall the "fuss" about European DP's in the late 40's and early 50's. I remember, only too vividly, the fears that the fall of Vietnam engendered, about the influx of refugees. The same fear has surrounded ALL such immigrant groups - Chinese, East Indians, Japanese (to our great shame), Ugandans, Iranis - all have met with semi-official suspicion, and quite serious denial of any learning. We gripe about the dearth of physicians - and effectively make it certain that no Immigrant physician could possibly be licensed, unless he (and usually that) had been trained in a very limited number of suitable (i.e. English-speaking) institutions - no matter the qualifications, or the degree of competence. We do much the same with other such qualifications, now, too. This used not to be the case - but now we are afraid - that our own education will be "diluted" - in reality, that our own power, as the Rulers of the Land will be challenged.
We have sown a wind of denial and suspicion, much the same as that of our nearest neighbours to the south, and we will reap the whirlwind of permanent relegation to mediocrity, and poverty, where Canada once punched well above its weight. We will become, like our neighbours, the "poor little rich kids" of the world - pampered, effete, and afraid of our own shadows. This has happened before in history - Rome collapsed of its own inefficiency. Spain drowned in the wealth of the Indies, and was, like the USA, both manifestly the Hegemon of the World (well, at least to Europeans) and a state visibly weakening and collapsing at the same time. (This was the first half of the 17th Century - the period of the 30 Years' War in Europe.) I will not attempt to speak of China's history, nor of any other Asian power, as I am not as well versed in that part of the world, but what I have read suggests that much the same is true there. Britain collapsed - yes, bled white by the War that ran from 1914 to 1945 (despite the truce in the middle) - but managed to do so without completely losing control. The dissolution was orderly, and the new stares succeeding (in general) have stayed on a course of reasonably good terms, reasonably civilized behaviour ever since.
We can be what we were before. We can recover our ability to be a world leader. Butt it must start with a real acceptance of the reality of our First Nations. They are, individually and collectively, no whit less intelligent, no whit less able to use the advantages of our modern age - to dream new dreams, and invent or reinvent ways of living together in real community, of using our land, and wealth for the good of all. If this means we, as "white men", give up power to coerce, so be it. We have not, merely to take a local topic, shown much ability to co-operate and create a community that can police itself, build roads and streets, let alone a comprehensive sewer system. We are mired in "Us against Them". Perhaps - just perhaps - our First Nations (whose individual interests are at least as diverse as ours) would do a better job of organising to build such a system. Perhaps our local cities and municipalities ought, in fairness, to deed back the lands we live on to the peoples we stole it from. No - I doubt we would be dispossessed. They, like us, need the tax revenue to build and maintain our infrastructure. Nor would they (unlike ourselves) seek to boot us out of government - we live here as do they, and do have an interest in our community. The difference would likely be that Government would become rather less adversarial, more a matter of consensus, agreement, and serious search for solutions that will satisfy all.
Will this change come smoothly? No - not unless we admit we have been looking at life the wrong way. But it can come smoothly - once we make that change - once we "convert". I have worked among First Nations for years - had them as colleagues, as supervisors, as helpers. As far as I can see, there is nothing to differentiate us but the mythologies upon which our worlds are built - and theirs is at least as compelling as the standard adversarial one our rational mindset enjoins.
Friday, 17 April 2015
Counter-snobbery on a bike
I've been a cyclist, now, for over 60 years - it seems unreal.
However, despite the ranting of both motorists and hard core (or is it corpse - take your pick!) cyclists, I find it difficult to be angry at all other road users. Why? Well, I suppose the best way to describe it is that old quote from Pogo "We have seen the enemy, and he is us."
The other way to describe it is this: I'm NOT a "cyclist" (some sort of strange sub-species of H. sapiens) I AM a driver - who has, and still does, spend a significant amount of his driving time on two-wheels, entirely self-powered.
There's a real difference. I do not view the driver of that car or truck as my foe - to be feared, to be bested, and to be screwed over at every possible chance. I see him (and this includes HER, always) as just someone like myself, busy doing what I'm doing - getting from here to there as best he can - for whatever reason. I do not, as a rule, cycle for exercise - even though I do rejoice in the exercise I get from cycling. I DO enjoy the experience - the successful surmounting of hills, the effort of working into the teeth of the wind, as well as the avoidance of all the obstacles in my way - cars, trucks, busses, pedestrians, dogs, holes in the road, slick steel plates or manhole castings, even the slippery swathes of traffic paint meant to show me where it is safe to ride. No - it's not really safer on that swath of green paint, in damp weather - it's an invitation to a slippery fall, if you are not careful. It's just that this is a "safe area", where motorists are not supposed to attempt to hit you. Yet cycling, for me, is not about any of that - it's about getting to my destination, as quickly, as easily as I can - for the least cost - at least as I see it.
Let me wander back in history. Imagine a boy - barely ten years old, and rather small for his age - living in a farm-house three miles (or 5 Kms - about the same) from the village, and at least a kilometer from any possible playmate. Get a "lift" over to a friend's house? Not a chance. All the others around us were working farm families - with more important things to do than cater to the whims of small boys. Dad worked in the city - a good hour's drive away - and Mom never did master driving - a badly smashed left ankle as a child made mastering a clutch too difficult. Perhaps Dad was a bit too doctrinaire about the use of automatic transmissions- but maybe not. They were not very effective, in those days. No - the only way I was going anywhere, except with the family on weekends, was either on foot, or on that bike. Once I mastered the basics (I could actually ride a straight line, and didn't fall off every couple of hundred feet.) the bike won out, hands down. I could go any where, at three times the speed of walking, or better. On foot, going in to the village would take most of an hour (trudge, trudge, trudge) while the bike took only about fifteen to twenty minutes - a huge improvement.
What did it matter that I might have to walk up a couple of hills - at first - or that there was little room for me to meet a car, and I might have to stop - I could GO!
Of course, muscles soon grew with use, stamina improved, and I learned how to navigate the windrows of loose, coarse gravel on either side of the beaten tracks. No more stopping for cars - I just rode on.
Here, obviously, is where the love of cycling first bloomed. A few years later, now living in the city, I became even more comfortable with cars around me - and realized that, if I behaved as the drivers did - stopped for stops, stayed to the right as a rule, signaled my turns, and so forth, I'd be accepted. It was fairly simple.
Those were, truly, the "good old days", a time when most drivers had, themselves, of necessity, used bikes beyond childhood. Who could afford a car in the depression era? Not that many. Who could afford to drive everywhere during the war? Very few. So most drivers were comfortable with bikes around them - having had to bike in traffic themselves. Eventually, I turned sixteen - the desired age of all teens, and could get "real wheels". As I started my driver's lessons (eager enough to learn properly, I was prepared to pay, out of my own pocket. It never occurred to me to ask for assistance) I soon realized that I only had half the business to learn - that of controlling the car (Ease the clutch in until the engine starts to slow, then flip the right foot from brake to gas, simultaneously easing up the clutch enough to prevent the car rolling backward down the hill. Damn! Stalled it! Neutral, brake on, restart, wait for the light to change, try again. Damn! - repeat the scenario until you DO get it.) I already knew about traffic, and what to look for - and realized that the faster you go, the farther ahead you had to look. Suddenly, as never before, I saw cycling as "just another form of driving", and set out to act that way. Why should I be afraid of traffic? I WAS traffic!
Of course, it took time - far more than I'm completely happy to admit to - to realize the full inwardness of this. However, it did make it possible for me to accept the fact that we were not flush enough to afford a second car, and keep on riding - now just a form of driving - all through my teens.
Let's skip about a decade, to the late sixties. Better paid jobs allowed me to become a car-owner - but I found the habits of the past were still too engrained. I actually LIKED cycling. Part of it was the fact that I now lived on the Wet Coast of Canada, where the weather made it possible to ride in reasonable comfort 14 months of the year. Contrast this with April icy roads in the Ottawa valley - where the winter had been far too long already. Another part of it lay in the parsimony with which I'd grown up - driving a car - fun as it is - costs MONEY, and I was a "Starving Student". Bikes paid no parking fees, cost no gasoline, nor did I need to pay for "Proof of Financial Responsibility". In a big city, like Vancouver, it was not that much slower than a car - particularly if traffic was heavy. Besides, I didn't need to go to a Gym to maintain fitness. So I rode, and get even better at dealing with traffic.
The bulk of the 70's was spent in a small outport at the north end of Vancouver Island - only sporadically connected with the rest of the world. Roads that were scarce-improved logging trails, a fairly strongly vertical topography, and the distances involved, rather left cycling as a thing I once "did". But then, a change of employment moved us (now four) to Victoria. If possible, I was determined to live where I could easily commute by bike. I wished to avoid the expense of becoming a multi-car owner - particularly if one were used almost entirely to get me to and from work, and that was all. I succeeded, and almost immediately after moving, bought a bike, and began to ride. In a funny way, it was as if the previous decade had not occurred - all my traffic skills were there, and in good shape.
Over the last four or five years, I will admit, the eagerness with which I ventured out into winter rains, just to get to work, has waned. I no longer refuse to see the comfort of using a car in such weather. However, the skills that had me riding are still there, and the sheer pleasure of hustling along, under my own steam, still stirs.
Perhaps I'm selfish - but I don't wish everyone were out there with me. There's no sense in which I want to see others "suffer" as I did (but did I?), nor any notion that I am, for some reason "Better" than all these. I just accept the quiet pleasure that I can still do what gave me such a thrill sixty years ago - and that it IS, still, just as much fun as it was, then. So, when I can, I concentrate on teaching others my few skills, my attitude towards the road, and everyone on it. Right now, I'm working on a couple of grandchildren, who bid fair to be as much pleased with the thrill of independence of movement as I was. The world has changed - but it also seems to have come, almost, in a full cycle. Where, in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, cyclists were seen as something to brush off the road, and were feared, because most drivers hadn't a clue what they were going to do, we have come back, now, to a world where cyclists are seen - more or less - as simply part of traffic, and are rated on their merits, as we do other drivers. The world has become, once again, almost safe for us. That, if nothing else, is a matter of real satisfaction.
However, despite the ranting of both motorists and hard core (or is it corpse - take your pick!) cyclists, I find it difficult to be angry at all other road users. Why? Well, I suppose the best way to describe it is that old quote from Pogo "We have seen the enemy, and he is us."
The other way to describe it is this: I'm NOT a "cyclist" (some sort of strange sub-species of H. sapiens) I AM a driver - who has, and still does, spend a significant amount of his driving time on two-wheels, entirely self-powered.
There's a real difference. I do not view the driver of that car or truck as my foe - to be feared, to be bested, and to be screwed over at every possible chance. I see him (and this includes HER, always) as just someone like myself, busy doing what I'm doing - getting from here to there as best he can - for whatever reason. I do not, as a rule, cycle for exercise - even though I do rejoice in the exercise I get from cycling. I DO enjoy the experience - the successful surmounting of hills, the effort of working into the teeth of the wind, as well as the avoidance of all the obstacles in my way - cars, trucks, busses, pedestrians, dogs, holes in the road, slick steel plates or manhole castings, even the slippery swathes of traffic paint meant to show me where it is safe to ride. No - it's not really safer on that swath of green paint, in damp weather - it's an invitation to a slippery fall, if you are not careful. It's just that this is a "safe area", where motorists are not supposed to attempt to hit you. Yet cycling, for me, is not about any of that - it's about getting to my destination, as quickly, as easily as I can - for the least cost - at least as I see it.
Let me wander back in history. Imagine a boy - barely ten years old, and rather small for his age - living in a farm-house three miles (or 5 Kms - about the same) from the village, and at least a kilometer from any possible playmate. Get a "lift" over to a friend's house? Not a chance. All the others around us were working farm families - with more important things to do than cater to the whims of small boys. Dad worked in the city - a good hour's drive away - and Mom never did master driving - a badly smashed left ankle as a child made mastering a clutch too difficult. Perhaps Dad was a bit too doctrinaire about the use of automatic transmissions- but maybe not. They were not very effective, in those days. No - the only way I was going anywhere, except with the family on weekends, was either on foot, or on that bike. Once I mastered the basics (I could actually ride a straight line, and didn't fall off every couple of hundred feet.) the bike won out, hands down. I could go any where, at three times the speed of walking, or better. On foot, going in to the village would take most of an hour (trudge, trudge, trudge) while the bike took only about fifteen to twenty minutes - a huge improvement.
What did it matter that I might have to walk up a couple of hills - at first - or that there was little room for me to meet a car, and I might have to stop - I could GO!
Of course, muscles soon grew with use, stamina improved, and I learned how to navigate the windrows of loose, coarse gravel on either side of the beaten tracks. No more stopping for cars - I just rode on.
Here, obviously, is where the love of cycling first bloomed. A few years later, now living in the city, I became even more comfortable with cars around me - and realized that, if I behaved as the drivers did - stopped for stops, stayed to the right as a rule, signaled my turns, and so forth, I'd be accepted. It was fairly simple.
Those were, truly, the "good old days", a time when most drivers had, themselves, of necessity, used bikes beyond childhood. Who could afford a car in the depression era? Not that many. Who could afford to drive everywhere during the war? Very few. So most drivers were comfortable with bikes around them - having had to bike in traffic themselves. Eventually, I turned sixteen - the desired age of all teens, and could get "real wheels". As I started my driver's lessons (eager enough to learn properly, I was prepared to pay, out of my own pocket. It never occurred to me to ask for assistance) I soon realized that I only had half the business to learn - that of controlling the car (Ease the clutch in until the engine starts to slow, then flip the right foot from brake to gas, simultaneously easing up the clutch enough to prevent the car rolling backward down the hill. Damn! Stalled it! Neutral, brake on, restart, wait for the light to change, try again. Damn! - repeat the scenario until you DO get it.) I already knew about traffic, and what to look for - and realized that the faster you go, the farther ahead you had to look. Suddenly, as never before, I saw cycling as "just another form of driving", and set out to act that way. Why should I be afraid of traffic? I WAS traffic!
Of course, it took time - far more than I'm completely happy to admit to - to realize the full inwardness of this. However, it did make it possible for me to accept the fact that we were not flush enough to afford a second car, and keep on riding - now just a form of driving - all through my teens.
Let's skip about a decade, to the late sixties. Better paid jobs allowed me to become a car-owner - but I found the habits of the past were still too engrained. I actually LIKED cycling. Part of it was the fact that I now lived on the Wet Coast of Canada, where the weather made it possible to ride in reasonable comfort 14 months of the year. Contrast this with April icy roads in the Ottawa valley - where the winter had been far too long already. Another part of it lay in the parsimony with which I'd grown up - driving a car - fun as it is - costs MONEY, and I was a "Starving Student". Bikes paid no parking fees, cost no gasoline, nor did I need to pay for "Proof of Financial Responsibility". In a big city, like Vancouver, it was not that much slower than a car - particularly if traffic was heavy. Besides, I didn't need to go to a Gym to maintain fitness. So I rode, and get even better at dealing with traffic.
The bulk of the 70's was spent in a small outport at the north end of Vancouver Island - only sporadically connected with the rest of the world. Roads that were scarce-improved logging trails, a fairly strongly vertical topography, and the distances involved, rather left cycling as a thing I once "did". But then, a change of employment moved us (now four) to Victoria. If possible, I was determined to live where I could easily commute by bike. I wished to avoid the expense of becoming a multi-car owner - particularly if one were used almost entirely to get me to and from work, and that was all. I succeeded, and almost immediately after moving, bought a bike, and began to ride. In a funny way, it was as if the previous decade had not occurred - all my traffic skills were there, and in good shape.
Over the last four or five years, I will admit, the eagerness with which I ventured out into winter rains, just to get to work, has waned. I no longer refuse to see the comfort of using a car in such weather. However, the skills that had me riding are still there, and the sheer pleasure of hustling along, under my own steam, still stirs.
Perhaps I'm selfish - but I don't wish everyone were out there with me. There's no sense in which I want to see others "suffer" as I did (but did I?), nor any notion that I am, for some reason "Better" than all these. I just accept the quiet pleasure that I can still do what gave me such a thrill sixty years ago - and that it IS, still, just as much fun as it was, then. So, when I can, I concentrate on teaching others my few skills, my attitude towards the road, and everyone on it. Right now, I'm working on a couple of grandchildren, who bid fair to be as much pleased with the thrill of independence of movement as I was. The world has changed - but it also seems to have come, almost, in a full cycle. Where, in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, cyclists were seen as something to brush off the road, and were feared, because most drivers hadn't a clue what they were going to do, we have come back, now, to a world where cyclists are seen - more or less - as simply part of traffic, and are rated on their merits, as we do other drivers. The world has become, once again, almost safe for us. That, if nothing else, is a matter of real satisfaction.
Monday, 27 January 2014
The Lessons of History
I picked up, this past week, a history of King Philip's War - that little-known, much misremembered rising in New England in the 1670's - a scant half century after the arrivals of the Pilgrims, and their supposedly idyllic relations with the Whampoags, learning how to survive in the very different climate of new England. The result of this rising, and the police action of the New England settlers was to virtually eliminate all the local natives, and do much to set the tone for the actions of New Englanders, and all Americans since then, when faced with opposition by outsiders.
Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, (Viking/Penguin, 2006) writes, as any good historian does, from a slant. Why? Simply because all historians MUST have an angle, an outlook, a reason to write, to tell this particular tale, whether it be, like the late Sir Winston Churchill, at least in part, to validate his own decisions made in the politics of the time, to advance a particular political agenda, or to attempt to make internal sense of the events on the author's lifetime, in light of older history. I first became aware of this, back in the early 1960's, when I devoured CV Wedgewood's opus The Thirty Years War while away from home on a summer job. It was quite apparent that the horrors suffered throughout the Germanies (remember, there was no such unified state, then) over those three decades resonated with her own experiences in England, up to the outbreak of the second World War.
If anything, the horrors in that war, particularly the Holocaust, Hitler's "Final Solution" of the Jewish Problem, find deep antecedents in that time.
She claimed, in her preface to the post-war edition, that any serious historian MUST be a moralist, as well as a relater of facts. I tend to agree - if we do not have a reason, all we have is a dry list of "facts', which may, or may not have relevance or coherence. nor is it enough to tell the reader to draw his own conclusions - for if MY bias is not the same as the writer's, my conclusions, my understanding, will be quite at variance with his, and I will not be compelled to think, however shallowly, about why his, or my, bias should be right - or that we might, just possibly, both be wrong. No, the writer must have his own interpretation, and must not be shy about drawing the conclusions that the facts, and his understanding, lead him to.
So - what has this to do with Philbrick's Mayflower? Quite simply, it is this: that the Pilgrims, and the Puritans, harried out of England in their objection to the policies of King Charles I, and his spiritual advisor, William Laud (both of them, by the bye, far closer in spirituality to the Dissenters they tried to compel into conforming to the uses of the Church of England, than either side would admit was so) were so closed-minded, so God-stricken, that it took great hardship - starvation, freezing, and the loss of many of their companies, to make them aware that things were NOT as they'd left behind, that this climate required a real change of living habits, of diet. At the same time, their motives for planting themselves out here, far from home (A west-bound crossing of six weeks was fast! Many were far longer, if they made it at all.) was not just the chance to live a Godly life (as they thought) far from the interference of Laud and the King, but also a chance to better themselves, to get rich, in the only form of wealth that really counted - land. In part, this was aided by circumstance. In the first decades of the 17th century, New England was swept by disease, am plague, accidentally brought by the European fishermen who'd found the rich resources of this coast, where Arctic and Gulf currents mix foods, and fish, long untouched, throve mightily. These visitors, Cornish, Breton, French, Basque, Portuguese, were all of them immune to the stock illnesses of Europe, including its latest acquisition, the Plague. The American natives, however, had never been exposed before, and the results were disastrous. In the three years just before the arrival of the Pilgrims, up to 90% of the native population were wiped out.
It looked, seemed, as if there were no people here, yet there was evidence that they had been, not long before, and that they'd cultivated land for crops. When the arriving English did meet the remnants of the natives, neither quite knew what to do, how to act. It took a decision of courage from one native leader, Massasoit, to start a process of accommodation.
Yet still, as the record bares out, the English engaged in distinctly sharp practice in getting their way - title to lands - for as chap a price as they could. A generation or so later, by the 1670's, this near-theft, and the unconscionable harrying of natives had not stopped, but rather increased (Families were large, and America, in general, far healthier than Europe) Even attempts by the natives to learn the ways of these settlers (and learn, they did, and soon discovered that they could use the white man's technology as well as the English) brought them no peace. They were distrusted as different, foreign (this, by newcomers!) and inherently deceitful - and this mainly from the intolerable pressure put upon them by the English to sell off their land, and get out.
The notion that the only good Indian (or rebel, or gook, or Arab - strange how the syllogism persists, even when the object changes) was a dead one, took firm root in this time. Consequently, when a rising of one small people - King Philip's Pocassets (Philip was a younger son of Massasoit, of fifty years previously) - erupted, the settlers all believed that this was a general rising of ALL Indians, and if it wasn't, it would be better to deport, or kill, even those who were not involved. This, of course, virtually guaranteed that even the least willing to revolt would do so - if only in an attempt to save their lives, their homes and families, their livelihood. The result was virtually a foregone conclusion - there were too few warriors, too many settlers for anything else to occur.
It was a sad start to the founding of America, but it helps to explain, I think, the obsession with weapons in the United States. This visceral fear of weakness, of Indian attack, must lie buried deep at the roots of their need to be armed at all times, even if it is quite forgotten, and overlain with misunderstood shibboleths about the "right to bear arms". The other thing I draw from this tale is that, over the last - virtually four hundred years, now - Americans - particularly their military leadership, have learned nothing about how to relate to smaller peoples, even those we profess to wish to aid.
The attitude then, as now, is: "Do it MY way - if not, I'll make you do it." When attempts at coercion fail (as the English should have learned in Scotland and France in the 13th to 15th centuries, and never did learn in Ireland) then other ways of getting co-operation must be tried, and one of the first must be real respect and acceptance. The typical response, though, is coercion until somebody kicks, at which point our historic paranoia kicks in, and the only thing we can do is attempt to wipe out everyone, even those we came to assist.
This is not to say that Americans are evil. They are merely human, like everyone else on this planet. Not can I possibly claim that all others have done better. We have only to look at the mess that is Ireland, or Palestine/Israel, at the recurring genocides in Africa. In fact, anywhere we look, we see that we do not treat our neighbours well - least of all those whose goods (resources?) or land we covet. I come away from this volume, not with disgust - there were, even then, fair, honest, just men and women, on both sides - but with a better appreciation of why my neighbours are what they are.
Understanding is central to seeing both sides of the person looked at.
Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, (Viking/Penguin, 2006) writes, as any good historian does, from a slant. Why? Simply because all historians MUST have an angle, an outlook, a reason to write, to tell this particular tale, whether it be, like the late Sir Winston Churchill, at least in part, to validate his own decisions made in the politics of the time, to advance a particular political agenda, or to attempt to make internal sense of the events on the author's lifetime, in light of older history. I first became aware of this, back in the early 1960's, when I devoured CV Wedgewood's opus The Thirty Years War while away from home on a summer job. It was quite apparent that the horrors suffered throughout the Germanies (remember, there was no such unified state, then) over those three decades resonated with her own experiences in England, up to the outbreak of the second World War.
If anything, the horrors in that war, particularly the Holocaust, Hitler's "Final Solution" of the Jewish Problem, find deep antecedents in that time.
She claimed, in her preface to the post-war edition, that any serious historian MUST be a moralist, as well as a relater of facts. I tend to agree - if we do not have a reason, all we have is a dry list of "facts', which may, or may not have relevance or coherence. nor is it enough to tell the reader to draw his own conclusions - for if MY bias is not the same as the writer's, my conclusions, my understanding, will be quite at variance with his, and I will not be compelled to think, however shallowly, about why his, or my, bias should be right - or that we might, just possibly, both be wrong. No, the writer must have his own interpretation, and must not be shy about drawing the conclusions that the facts, and his understanding, lead him to.
So - what has this to do with Philbrick's Mayflower? Quite simply, it is this: that the Pilgrims, and the Puritans, harried out of England in their objection to the policies of King Charles I, and his spiritual advisor, William Laud (both of them, by the bye, far closer in spirituality to the Dissenters they tried to compel into conforming to the uses of the Church of England, than either side would admit was so) were so closed-minded, so God-stricken, that it took great hardship - starvation, freezing, and the loss of many of their companies, to make them aware that things were NOT as they'd left behind, that this climate required a real change of living habits, of diet. At the same time, their motives for planting themselves out here, far from home (A west-bound crossing of six weeks was fast! Many were far longer, if they made it at all.) was not just the chance to live a Godly life (as they thought) far from the interference of Laud and the King, but also a chance to better themselves, to get rich, in the only form of wealth that really counted - land. In part, this was aided by circumstance. In the first decades of the 17th century, New England was swept by disease, am plague, accidentally brought by the European fishermen who'd found the rich resources of this coast, where Arctic and Gulf currents mix foods, and fish, long untouched, throve mightily. These visitors, Cornish, Breton, French, Basque, Portuguese, were all of them immune to the stock illnesses of Europe, including its latest acquisition, the Plague. The American natives, however, had never been exposed before, and the results were disastrous. In the three years just before the arrival of the Pilgrims, up to 90% of the native population were wiped out.
It looked, seemed, as if there were no people here, yet there was evidence that they had been, not long before, and that they'd cultivated land for crops. When the arriving English did meet the remnants of the natives, neither quite knew what to do, how to act. It took a decision of courage from one native leader, Massasoit, to start a process of accommodation.
Yet still, as the record bares out, the English engaged in distinctly sharp practice in getting their way - title to lands - for as chap a price as they could. A generation or so later, by the 1670's, this near-theft, and the unconscionable harrying of natives had not stopped, but rather increased (Families were large, and America, in general, far healthier than Europe) Even attempts by the natives to learn the ways of these settlers (and learn, they did, and soon discovered that they could use the white man's technology as well as the English) brought them no peace. They were distrusted as different, foreign (this, by newcomers!) and inherently deceitful - and this mainly from the intolerable pressure put upon them by the English to sell off their land, and get out.
The notion that the only good Indian (or rebel, or gook, or Arab - strange how the syllogism persists, even when the object changes) was a dead one, took firm root in this time. Consequently, when a rising of one small people - King Philip's Pocassets (Philip was a younger son of Massasoit, of fifty years previously) - erupted, the settlers all believed that this was a general rising of ALL Indians, and if it wasn't, it would be better to deport, or kill, even those who were not involved. This, of course, virtually guaranteed that even the least willing to revolt would do so - if only in an attempt to save their lives, their homes and families, their livelihood. The result was virtually a foregone conclusion - there were too few warriors, too many settlers for anything else to occur.
It was a sad start to the founding of America, but it helps to explain, I think, the obsession with weapons in the United States. This visceral fear of weakness, of Indian attack, must lie buried deep at the roots of their need to be armed at all times, even if it is quite forgotten, and overlain with misunderstood shibboleths about the "right to bear arms". The other thing I draw from this tale is that, over the last - virtually four hundred years, now - Americans - particularly their military leadership, have learned nothing about how to relate to smaller peoples, even those we profess to wish to aid.
The attitude then, as now, is: "Do it MY way - if not, I'll make you do it." When attempts at coercion fail (as the English should have learned in Scotland and France in the 13th to 15th centuries, and never did learn in Ireland) then other ways of getting co-operation must be tried, and one of the first must be real respect and acceptance. The typical response, though, is coercion until somebody kicks, at which point our historic paranoia kicks in, and the only thing we can do is attempt to wipe out everyone, even those we came to assist.
This is not to say that Americans are evil. They are merely human, like everyone else on this planet. Not can I possibly claim that all others have done better. We have only to look at the mess that is Ireland, or Palestine/Israel, at the recurring genocides in Africa. In fact, anywhere we look, we see that we do not treat our neighbours well - least of all those whose goods (resources?) or land we covet. I come away from this volume, not with disgust - there were, even then, fair, honest, just men and women, on both sides - but with a better appreciation of why my neighbours are what they are.
Understanding is central to seeing both sides of the person looked at.
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