Tuesday 1 November 2011

To Occupy or not to Occupy...

A couple of weeks ago I said (only a little seriously) to Gábor that I would like to use all the student loan money to buy tickets to New York to join Occupy Wall Street (or somewhere a little closer like London). Gábor wasn't happy. I think I caught him in a particularly bad mood. We got into an argument. 

Gábor felt (feels actually since I don't think his possition has really changed) that if we are going to do something we should do it here, here in Finland, here in Oulu. He argured that it would be more than a hint of irony (hypocrasy) in using money borrowed from the bank to join a protest againd corporate greed (I can't really arque with that, he has a point). He was also against flying to be part of the protests (we are generally trying to reduce the amount that we fly) arguing that it was somewhat contradictory to the aims of the movement (again, he has a valid point). However, there is very little happening in Finland, let alone in Oulu, and I am not prepared to be a leader (I'm chronicly shy and I'm too polite handle direct confrontation) but the Occupy movement ins something that relly could be something big in our time and I want to be part of it. 

Gábor may not be entirely convinced by his own arguments, a day or two afrter our argument I caught him checking flight prices to London.

Somehow he managed to push the issue asside again, this time the argumet was to with keeping the kids entertained. I don't think he even heard me when I said our (extremely) social kids would be in their element amongst such a group of friendly and energetic people (I doubt we would see them for most of the days since they would be too bust making new friends). I almost had him last week. It was a holiday week here for both my Uni and Lily's school, we could go on Wednesday and be back on Sunday but then I started arguing against myself. How offended would my family be if we managed to scrape together money to go to London for a protest when we have't been to visit them in Scotland in a year and a half? No, I couldn't make myself do it. We agreed that we wouldn't go (and siletly agreed not to talk about it again until after the holiday).

The temptation came again today after watching this BBC report:


 but again I talked myself out of it. I think I was shocked to realise that when it comes down to it I 1) am reluctant to give up my own comfort and 2) am concerned with what people will think. I think my parents sometimes think of me as a (slightly brainwashed) hippy (that they love dearly of course) but I guess I am, after all, just like everybody else.

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