Occupy Vancouver: It's Coming!

The following is a letter I sent to my elected officials at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. If you read this and stand with the 99%, I encourage you to get in touch with your elected officials as well.

With your postal code, you can

- find your MP here

- find your MLA here

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Katherine C. <######@gmail.com>

Date: 11 October 2011 23:36

Subject: Please read my letter regarding Occupy Vancouver

To: hedy.fry@parl.gc.ca, s.chandraherbert.mla@leg.bc.ca, gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, christy.clark.mla@leg.bc.ca

Dear Gregor Robertson, Spencer Chandra Herbert, Christy Clark, Hedy Fry, and Stephen Harper,

Everyone supporting Occupy Wall Street has at least one reason. Many people even share the same reasons. I'm asking you, my elected officials, to please read my story below, and listen to your other constituents joining their voices to the 99%, with an open mind and a willingness to move forward in a way that benefits us all.

The Short: A brief Summary

In 1995, I lived in Singapore and Indonesia. I watched President Suharto get re-elected and learned how precious democracy is; I thirsted for news and gained new appreciation for freedom of speech.

In 2001, I learned a language that helped me understand my dissatisfaction with the world. I tried to talk to my parents about ideology and oppression in the western world and was told to just accept the way things are because nothing's gonna change.

In 2005, I interned at a very influential Board of Trade and had to write a paper about the experience. I incorporated a central theme that explored how my "hippy heart" ideals are not a good fit for the hypocrisy of the business world.

Now it's 2011 and I find that I am in agreement with 99% of the population and that we are all dismayed by the way things are. The world and our understanding of it are changing but our leaders insist on governing as though society is static. I will proudly stand up on Saturday in solidarity with the 99%, challenging the 1% to rethink our relationship with the economy, with the environment, and with each other.

The Long

In 1994, my family moved to a rural pulp-mill town on Sumatra. The nearest city, Pakanbaru, was 80-120 minutes away, depending on the reckless skill of one's driver. Upriver from the mill, families lived in one- and two-bedroom huts anchored to the riverbank.

People fished in the roots and reeds at the edge of the jungle by the opposite bank, their small canoes little protection from the jungle's predators. Signs on dirt lanes pointed the way to family-planning clinics where Depo Provera has been doled out since it began clinical trials.

When election campaigns were underway, the three parties running were distinguished by three colours: red, yellow, green. I can't remember which was which, but it doesn't matter. My dad laid it out to me pretty clearly: The election was just a sham. Suharto was essentially a dictator who operated under a pretense of democracy. Little wonder that Indonesia was the world's most corrupt country at that time.

This was my summer home, my holiday home; there was no high school in Kerinci so my parents sent me to Singapore for grade 11. In Singapore, they'll fine you for selling chewing gum but you can sell your body if you have a work permit; they'll serve you alcohol at 18 but you have to be 21 to see an R-rated movie; they'll turn the latest developments in government-funded housing into breaking news but you have to find out about the policeman who was murdered with an axe just down the road via the maid's grapevine.

In Singapore, one of my best friends was dying of cancer because her Arabian father didn't think girls were worth the expense of medicine. Needless to say, when I moved back to Canada for grade 12 I wasn't the same girl who'd left.

When it came time for me to vote for the first time, I'd just returned from being abroad for four months and excused myself from the voting process. A quick foray into my options had revealed a lot of muck to wade through in order to make an informed decision; three days wasn't nearly enough time! With subsequent elections, I did make the effort, but was so dissatisfied by what each of the parties stood for that I told myself that not voting was, in a sense, still voicing my view.

Meanwhile, blinders that had started to shift when I was in Asia were slowly opening wider, but I was at a loss to explain what the brightening light revealed: I didn't know the words to express my increasingly negative thoughts about the way the world is run.

In 2001, I took a class called Ethnography of Vancouver's Downtown East Side, taught by the inimitable Dr. Michael M. Ames. Through him, I was introduced to writers and thinkers like John Ralston Saul, Antonio Gramsci, and Paulo Friere, among others. Words such as 'ideology' and 'hegemony' blew away the blinders; light flooded in and broadened my reality. Greater knowledge of things like capitalism, socialism, nationalism, oligarchies, deregulation, and trade gave definition to what I saw. My attempts to discuss this with my parents were brushed aside; the ideals I was leaning towards held no place in the "real world". Nor were they interested in a metaphysical discussion on the nature of reality.

Four years later found me interning at a Board of Trade (BOT). I looked forward to putting my new writing skills to use and to influential business leaders reading articles with my byline. I was even more stoked when, upon starting, I learned how actively and emphatically BOT promoted the Triple-Bottom Line. They hosted guest speakers, they penned books, they did a whole song and dance.

It took little time to reveal that every business maneuver they practiced and at least 80% of every word I wrote for them boiled down to one thing: The bottom line. The actions of BOT's business members were, for the most part, little better. Having clung to my ideals, I wanted nothing to do with that kind of hypocrisy. Coincidentally, this is the same year that I realized my non-voting stance was contrary to my ideals, and I stopped spoiling my ballots.

Now it's 2011. My dissatisfaction with the way the world is run has only increased. Questionable wars fought over false pretences; the increasing demand for finite and environmentally damaging energy sources; blatant abuses of power by elected and corporate officials; blatant abuses of trust by the media; rising illiteracy and childhood poverty rates; economies that eclipse both society and the environment...the list is long, and from Occupy Wall Street to the Occupies that have sprung up and continue to do so, we will all hear so many, many reasons that 99% of us are not happy with the way things are.

The pound, the dollar, the yen and the euro -- none of these are more precious or important than we the people and the earth that nourishes us. You cannot put a price on health and wellness; the results of a quality education; or a healthy environment. Sadly, too many leaders have proven themselves inept with their stewardship of land, citizenry and the economy, which is why the 99% are speaking out.

I will proudly stand up on Saturday in solidarity with the 99%, challenging the 1% to imaginatively and radically rethink our relationship with the economy, with the environment, and with each other.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.

With hope for positive change,

Katherine C.

Vancouver, BC

######@gmail.com