I queued up today in a shabby building that houses the West Belfast Festival, in order to get free tickets to see Noam Chomsky. It was a lovely day here, still is, the sun is shining, and the tickets would start been given away at 1 in the afternoon. I have to say, I never expected to see a queue. I thought I lived in a country where people queue to get into stupid clubs (usually drunk and/or scantily dressed), pick up things from the post office, or pay their bills. But I guess I was wrong, as I also live in a country, or a city to be more precise, where people queue up to see Noam Chomsky, the world's most important intellectual alive. This made me smile and filled my heart with hope: people queueing up to get tickets to listen to a most uninspiring speaker talking for an hour on political issues. The funniest thing is that the people that queued up were various kinds: old and young, working class and well-dressed, women with dyed hair and old men with canes, young men with hoods, girls dressed in black with oversize glasses (that was us) and all other kinds of people. And everyone was there in advance, waited patiently, went in and picked up their tickets and went out with huge grins. People here grin because they got Noam Chomsky tickets. Beat that!!
I think that this made me realize what is I like about this city: people here have a strong political conscience. They have to, sure, this part of the world is filled with politically troubled past, and perhaps this is the only good thing about the troubles: they nurtured generations of politically active citizens. So politically active that people were, until very recently, willing to die for what they believed. How many places in the world still are there that can say that, I wonder.
1 comment:
Over half of the world. If you think that corruption fuels political instability and vice versa, riots are going to soar and have been all around the world. We are fortunate to live here. According to CPI [corruption perception index].
Citizens of the developed countries are patient and know a few things on manners. They will attend such speeches without a second thought because they have the ability to do so. He knows where to go.
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