Daram Adam

Protests against the Turkish government have now entered their third week.  After police removed their tent city and re-opened Istanbul's Taksim Square to traffic, activists continued to protest, but often in more creative ways.

The one that's had the most effect recently has been dubbed duran adam, meaning 'standing man' in Turkish. For more than six hours on Monday night, Erdem Gunduz stood motionless in Taksim Square, passively ignoring any prodding or harassment from police and people passing by.

His protest has inspired activists in Turkey and around the world to assume the same pose.  You can see a bunch of photos here showing both Gunduz and a number of other people standing...just standing.  It's certainly a more effective method than burning yourself alive, a protest that began the Arab Spring uprisings, and one that's probably less likely to get you killed.  However, it's a tough call to stand anywhere for six hours.  I find it hard enough standing for an hour and a half at the Sunny Side Up singing practice, and I'm doing something I enjoy at the same time.

Photo courtesy of Petr David Josek/AP

I've begun to have a greater interest in things related to Turkey, of late.  Earlier in the year I did a course in which I trained to be a tutor to people wanting to learn, or improve their English. A couple of weeks ago I finally got a student to work with, and he turns out to be from Turkey.  He understands some things well, other things barely, so the first two sessions have been a matter of discovering what he does and doesn't know.  I suspect that will go on for some time yet!  It's very rewarding. 

UnOccupied

Dunedin's Octagon has finally been vacated by the remaining members of the local Occupy movement.

According to the Otago Daily Times, one of the members, Kieran Trass, said it was unclear whether they would return, or what the next phase would entail.  And he added, This is not a battle to be won in the media. 


I'm not actually sure what he means by that...if it wasn't for the media, the movement wouldn't have had a fraction of the publicity they've had.   In fact, the media have been their protector on a number of occasions, particularly overseas, where it has highlighted injustices done to the members of the movement.

But it was Mr Trass' last statement that puzzles me.  He is reported to have said, I don't know why people seem to think we want to camp here, and why we want to be here for a long time. 

That calls for a 'Huh?' - a very loud one, in fact.

We know why they wanted to camp in the Octagon, surely.  They were 'occupying,' and were most aggrieved when the City Council threatened them with a trespass order.   If it hadn't been that the police somehow aligned freedom of assembly with some alleged right to take over a public place, to the detriment not only of the place but also to the inconvenience of the local users of it, they would have been long gone.

As to why they wanted to be there for a long time, it has surely come from their own statements to this effect.   It's been part of the Occupy movement's approach around the world: to occupy and stay. 


Come on, Mr Trass - many of us agree with what you're protesting about.  Don't treat us like idiots because you've finally decided, apparently of your own accord, to suddenly go home for Christmas.

Sign and prophecy and Occupy

Protest is a form of prophecy, even when the protesters may have no religious or spiritual leanings.  It's a speaking to the society about some aspect of the community that is offensive.    
 

In the light of the Occupy protestings/prophecyings around the globe, and particularly in regard to the local one in Dunedin which for some reason has survived the trespass order set by the Mayor and Council (because the police, for some reason, have not enforced it) I found the following paragraph of interest.  

A sit-in or march is not instrumental but it is significant.  Even when no immediate change in the social order can be measured, even when persons and organizations have not yet been moved to take a different position, the efficacy of the deed is first of all its efficacy as sign.  Since we are not the lord of history there will be times when the only thing we can do is to speak and the only word we can speak is the word clothed in a deed, a word which can command attention from no one and which can coerce no one.  But even in this situation the word must be spoken in the deed in confidence that it is the Lord of history and His Holy Spirit, not our eloquence or artistic creativity, which will make of our sign a message.

John Howard Yoder
The Original Revolution

Some rambling thoughts about incomes

In a tweet sent out yesterday, Steven Croft, self-described as the Bishop of Sheffield and a writer, said the following:

Every person is of equal value before God. So there is something wrong in a world where a boss is paid 300x more than some employees.

Now to me there's a bit of a concern here as to what Bishop Croft is saying.   Certainly we are all equal before God when it comes to being created humans, responsible for what we do with our lives and all equally responsible for our sins.  But I don't think God regards our situation in life to be necessarily equal. Some of us are given power, some are not. Some are given fame, some are not. Some are given obscurity, some skills, some gifts, some a seeming lack of gifts. God may have set out things that each and every human being should have had the ability to make an enormous difference in the world, but it doesn't appear to have been the case in the actual world we live in. That may be a result of the Fall (not the Autumn, US readers, but the theological Fall), and if it is, it's something we have to live with. (Things may be altogether different in that regard in the New World to come.)

That's the first point about this tweet. The second is 'there is something wrong in a world' etc. Steven, we know there is something wrong, but it hardly just consists of somebody being paid an enormous amount of money compared to other people. There are innumerable inequalities in this area: in the last century film stars have invariably been paid extraordinary amounts by comparison with the extras in the same movies. This is because their talent is highly regarded. We may think they're overpaid, but I haven't yet seen anyone setting up tents and protesting about the money film stars receive.*  

In other areas of the arts, we find top musicians highly paid for the talents and for the gifts they offer to the public.   The man who moves the piano on the night of the concert is important, but he doesn't get paid an equivalent amount, and wouldn't expect to.

Some top painters, sculptors and others are well paid. Those who supply their materials are not. I think Steven Croft seems to be promoting a kind of evening out of income with an issue that's only partly related to it.

And then there are footballers, rugby players who get extraordinary amounts of money, often, it seems, for a small amount of actual work. But are we to decide that the linesmen, the referees should also be paid in the same way?  Unlikely. 

I don't disagree that we're all appalled at the arrogance of bankers and those in the high-flying money-transacting fields. But it began because somebody felt it was right to pay these people for their expertise. It's got well and truly out of hand, and I don't disagree that from my perspective they're exceedingly overpaid. (But then I think many film stars are exceedingly overpaid, too.)

But even that isn't the issue. The issue is that having begun by rewarding good work in the financial field it has become a race to see who can be paid most. In the interim, those being paid these fantastic amounts have done what many people who come into a great deal of money do: expect more money, and thumb their noses at those who have no means to expect more money - those who are paid '300x' times less than the one at the top. And in thumbing their noses they also begin to do illegal things, wrongful things, sinful things - and not just under the cover, but out in the open where everyone can see. This is their arrogance, and this is as much what people hate about them as the fact that they get a great deal more money than the average worker.

This hate has turned to protest. But the protest is more about the kind of 'Old Boys' Network' that seems to encourage the greed and arrogance, and helps out those who have got themselves into financial straits with other people's money, never their own, rather than about the fact that some people get far more money for what they do than others. 

One of the difficulties at the other end of the scale is that if you have no talents, no experience, no skills, you have nothing in particular to offer to an employer except your body and what it might do for that employer. Consequently your employer is entitled to pay the 'minimum wage' because he or she is not getting any great value for money when they employ such people. For me, this is perhaps a bigger issue than trying to rationalise why talented people get large amounts of money. How can the employing world help those who start off with nothing in the way of employable skills gain them? We used to have a strong apprentice system; before that there were guilds that took on young people and trained them. (Now, too often, we train the young people separately from the employment situation and then expect them to find a niche for themselves in the world.) But apprenticeships are few and far between; many employers can't fund them and the Government, in this country at least, seems to think the apprenticeship system isn't worth putting money into. 

I could go on and on. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that Bishop Croft is being too simplistic (perhaps Twitter encourages that). Even the protesters out in their tents are being simplistic (they're focusing mostly on one aspect of the problem). I suspect finding ways of lifting those at the bottom of the employment pile up and out of their catch 22 situation is more important than getting angry at those at the top. Their day of reckoning will come - and has been seen to, more than once.


Photo by Images of Money from Flickr.com

*Since I wrote this there has been the occasional female actor complaining that male actors in the same film get far more than she does. How valid the case is, is another story.