Having re-read yesterday's musings, I realise it doesn't make much sense. This may be typical of the archetypal armchair activist who raves on about putting the world to rights, but who doesn't actually do much. That's me. I never feel I do much.
It's all very well living by your beliefs but especially when you become a parent, it's hard to believe that you may be having any impact on the world at all, because your time is so fraught. Your life is suddenly full of the practicalities, childcare concerns, so the latest demonstration against suffering is a minor issue when compared agianst having enough money to buy milk for breakfast. Yet is exactly because we want to protect the future, protect our children, that the activist ever has an involvement in being an activist, in the first place.
I remember an ironic story told to me by Charlotte Wild, an east London-based activist who was part of the print workers movement in the 1970s, when the big corporations starting moving in on the newspaper industry, buying up the nationals, trampling on the smaller publications. Charlotte told me about the long meetings they'd have around her small flat, drinking tea etc completely oblivious to the fact that she was a single disabled mum on benefits. The guys would rant on for hours about the unfairness of the system (as so many of us do) but would think nothing about eating the childrens' yoghurts from the fridge and leaving no milk for the following day.
At least one of Charlotte's daughters folllowed in her mother's footsteps as an activist. When I mentioned "young people" yesterday, I was talking about teenagers, so many of whom don't seem to have any interest in changing the world for the better. The education system doesn't seem to allow for question and choice. In fact that's the irony of the GCSE system - multiple choice answers when the system only allows for one correct answer. There's no consideration given to possibilities.
Hmmm....have to sleep on this now....I think I'm making more sense but writing a blog isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Be patient with me. Practice makes perfect.
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