Shopping!

I really hate going shopping. Shopping turns people into idiots (I wish to use a stronger word but in fear of being disrespectful to a family audience). Take supermarkets. There are people who stand in the middle of the isle, their trolleys at jointy angles, oblivious to the fact that you would like to pass. Some people will park their trolley right next to another shopper’s therefore making the isle even smaller to get down. There are times you try and be polite and let the shopper the other side of this obstacle go first, they go, and don’t say thank you, then as you are to make this same journey yourself a shopper behind you pushes in front as though they are sickened by your display of politeness and humanity.

If you accidently knock into someone, to them it wasn’t a accident, instead you were assaulting them, assuming you believe they are fat ignorant idiots because they are in the crisp isle, you say sorry and the reply is “no you’re not you ****” (replace **** with your choice of derogatory rant).

The worst one in a shop is the one who stops without any warning when you are behind them, or who stands in the middle of an isle or at the entrance to an isle pondering what to buy next.

This is the same when you are walking down a street full of shops. Some people walk in rows of 3 or more people, not one of them moving to let you walk past. People will cut you up as though you are not there, making you half trip (don’t worry no-one will notice). These people walk expecting you to be the one who moves if you are in their way. If they can’t get past slow walking people (who are also a pain) they huff and puff as if they have just completed a marathon.

The above examples are not just a specific group of people, it applies to everyone. Even when you try and be polite in a shop to another shopper, that politeness will only last as long as your patience holds up from a lack of a thank you, and even if you continue your polite streaks, you are still likely to want to punch slow moving people in the head and huff and puff, or stand in the most inappropriate places when considering your next purchase.

Nope, no-one can escape the self-centeredness that shopping puts in you. And that is why shoppers are stuck up idiots. When you shop you are thinking, ‘what do I want?’, ‘what would I like?’, and ‘what do I need?’. It’s all me, me, me, I, I, I when you shop. Even when you are buying something for someone else you don’t just think what would that other person like, you are thinking, ‘how much do I want to spend on them’, ‘how much do they mean to me’, ‘what shows them how much I think of them’ and ‘what shows them that I can afford decent things and that I live in decadence?’. It’s still me, me, me. So how could we expect shoppers to be anything but selfish? It happens to everyone, even the socialist anti-consumerist, fairtrade buying vegetarian. Shopping, no matter what for is still based around self and is one of the only times you focus purely on your self (for most people).

That is one of the reasons I hate consumerism. Consumerism (and capitalism) are all about the self, screw everyone else. And we are all sucked in, even if our only shopping experience is once a week for fairtrade green-teabags and a bag of carrots, and it is something that is now so vital to our society, culture and economy that will never end.

“Please don’t do this”

I witnessed one of the saddest and most personally distressing sights on Sunday. I was on the train between Portsmouth and Guildford, switching between reading my New Internationalist and the Big Issue. An elderly couple had sat down on the opposite side of the carriage from myself, sat in a two-person row, squashed between seats in front and behind. There was a lack of a window, with a large plastic frame engorging their view and adding to the claustrophobia of the seats.

About ¾ into the journey the old woman (sitting on the isle seat) stood up and started looking through her bag, or taking off her coat- I didn’t really notice as I was reading a piece on children sneaking into a 1960’s cinema. All of a sudden I heard her muttering several piercing phrases over and over “come on”, “please don’t do this”. As she was doing this, she was tugging on the arm of her husband. It was immediately evident that the old gentleman was not in a good state. The gentleman was bending over at the stomach, as though he had passed out.

It was the woman’s voice that struck me though. Over and over those words “please don’t do this”, “come on”. Adding to the feebleness of old age in the voice, there was also a sense of desperation, there was history of love, and the sense of loss she feared was near.

The love between the two was what really hit me. If I estimate this couple were well into their 70’s, then you could say they have spent over half a century together. The events they would had lived through together: the onslaught of Nazi Germany perhaps, the 1966 World Cup, the moon landing, the Cold War, Thatcher, both in each other’s hearts. I imagined the 21 years I have known my parents and what they have gone through together, and imagine this couple have experienced more than double this. The children they would had had, their grandchildren, the holidays, their homes. All this history disappearing in front of my eyes. For a few minutes all this fear was being expressed by the woman in a few small words “come on”, “please don’t do this”. I put down my magazine, my eyes welling up- desperately trying to hold it in. I wanted to go and help, sure others in the carriage were trying to help, but I am a humanist, a socialist, a pacifist, an activist, sad when he sees the pain of others, but I just sat there, witnessing the fear of someone losing their history in front of my eyes.

The gentleman was suffering from heat stroke. I wish I had a bottle of water with me, I should have tried to help, but I felt helpless. Those words still haunting me, “please don’t do this” and the voice that pierced my heart.

The woman wanted to get off at Guildford, to let the gentleman off the train. She took his jumper, his coat, she added it to her bundle of bags, raincoats and umbrellas. I should have helped, should have offered to carry her coats, or give the gentleman an arm to help get off the train, but I just walked off when we reached Guildford.

I do not even know if he is all right.

I had 25 minutes to wait until my next train. I could have carried him, I could have bought him some water, I could have waited with them for an ambulance, I could have tried to comfort that voice echoing those same words, “please don’t do this” “come on”, those words not of sadness, but of desperation, of history, of loss and of fear. But I did not. I walked off. I do not feel human anymore. All those years of helping and caring for others has been eroded because I did not do anything, and I do not know why. I was in no rush, it was not as if I did not care- I was holding in my tears for goodness sake! Now I feel my soul has been ripped out, and replaced by that same feeling of loss, of history, of desperation I felt in those few words, “please don’t do this”.

At work I deal with complaints from farmers- who have a high suicide rate. I read of elderly farmers with poor health, of suicidal farmers, of farmers who are struggling to provide for their families, and what more, I know their names, these entities now have names, they have histories, they have souls. A colleague stated that you start to become thick skinned as time goes on, which helps you cope. Well I do not want to become thick skinned. I want to feel others pain, I want to feel a sense of human bond and compassion, I want to cry when I see others lives being destroyed right before my eyes, I want to keep my love of humankind, and I want to keep all these emotions that help me stay human. If we all become thick skinned then no one would care, and this world would be such an awful place. “Please don’t do this”. I wish I helped. Why did I not help? I want to be human again.

English Fundamentalism

I have just been reading an interesting article on the Guardian website about the documentary film maker Sean Langan who has just recently been released by the Taliban after 3 months.

I would like to quote Langan in relation to his only glimpse of the outside world- a small hole in the wall of his ‘cell’ that was embraced with a view of an apricot tree; “It kept me going, thinking about the outside world and English values that could be lost, like tea and sympathy and tolerance and basic humanity.”

This is a man who has been locked up and psychologically tortured for 3 months, yet he still acknowledges basic English principles: sympathy, tolerance and basic humanity, and the fear that his situation could make him abandon them. It is a shame that a majority of English people are willing to throw these principles away when they are in the warmth, comfort and safety of their own homes and there is the slightest threat of a terrorist attack or they see a group of Polish workers on the way to work.

The article also led me to view the arrogance of those fighting the British in Afghanistan in their views of the West; “Mr C asked me once if it was true that western women married frogs. He had seen a children’s fairytale and believed that it was true.” This is not something confined to just a minority in Afghanistan. The rise in Islamophobia is fuelled by the fear and belief that all Muslim’s want to do is destroy ‘Western values’ and end British lives. [I put commas around Western values, as i believe a majority of those in power in both Britain and America have no dignified values at all]. In reality, this belief is the upside-down version of the truth. In reality, the majority of those who follow the Islamic faith pose no harm to the West at all. There is however a very small minority of Islamic Fundamentalists who appear to want to (i say appear because really the 9/11 attack was not against the West but an attempt to polarise the people in the Middle East into either fundamentalism or secularism- helped afterwards by America’s War on ‘Error).

Johann Hari wrote a brilliant piece on the latest Big Brother and how fundamental and secularist Islam is clashing within the Big Brother house. The point of the article is to explain the reality of the current situation. Islam is not about killing as many people who disagree with you as possible, but at the same time, there are fundamentalists who believe it is. This debate tends to be forgotten by the right-wing media, which wrongly portrays Muslims as a threat. Hari suggests that this clash is finally an example of proper reality television. There are many other aspects of Hari’s article that i could write on, yet to grasp the context of the debate you should read it yourself.

Judging by how some people are reacting to the threat posed by Fundamental Islam and their over the top reactions to immigration into this country, i would suggest that there is a growing sense of English (British) Fundamentalism growing. If they think that all Muslims are Fundamentalists, then it is safe to say that these English Fundamentalists are just as bad as the Islamic Fundamentalists they are afraid of.

To view the Guardian’s article on Langan, click here.

To view the Johann Hari article, click here.

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On a completely separate topic, here is another Langan quote; “I am alive. And I’ve realised that freedom is the air we breathe.” Out of all the things i could say, all i will say is that if the air we breathe is true freedom, then irresponsible oil companies and Governments are clutching onto not only our freedoms, but the freedoms of the next generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that, and on and on. Why, therefore, aren’t more people fighting for our own freedoms if not the freedoms of others?

‘To try to change the world I will plot and scheme’

In my opinion, the only justifiable war (in 99.99% of cases) is a defensive war.

In my opinion, a war unites large proportions of the populations of the nations involved.

In my opinion, we- human beings- are wrongly and sadly divided. By race, nationality, politics, economics etc.

Therefore, in my opinion, to unite the world in the bounds of togetherness, we need to be attacked by an intergalactic alien force.

Of course after a few years i will join Friends of the Aliens, and claim that the aliens are misunderstood and campaign against the war [it's called sarcasm]… But by that time humanity will be exactly that, humanity, united together by the common knowledge of just being human, and not divided by petty concerns as the language you speak or the colour of your skin.

So come on you aliens; come and ‘av a go if ya think ya ‘ard enuf!!