Laugh it off!

The Consequences of Benign Acceptance of the Status Quo

Pussy Riot, feminist shit-stirrers, a Protest and Performance Art Collective based in Moscow, speaks from bitter experience of their country’s oppressive regime.

Nadya Tolokonnikova says this about the leader of “Free Russia”:

“You cannot play nice with Putin. He is insane. He might open fire on his own people.”

The same goes for many regimes worldwide.

Musicians, artists, thinkers, journalists, and academics have a platform to expose the evils politicians and power brokers commit. Some who do raise their voices speak for us. We know their truths because we share the same lived experience they describe. But unlike most in government, we have only one vested interest—the well-being and security of our families and communities.

Yet time after time, a handful of political nutcases throw us into chaos by conning and manipulating us to their will, and shockingly, time after time, it is we who elevate them to power in the first place, with our votes!

Why do we do it? Even as the reality of their deceit and incompetence stares us in the face like the bloodshot eyes of a raging bull stomping for the charge.

Even as the dreams of our sons and daughters evaporate in some tricky political manoeuvre. When a comfortable retirement becomes a luxury most are denied. When education, healthcare, water, energy, and food are provided at the whim of corporate profit.

It feels like our right to a carefree life is a commodity. For sale to the highest bidder.

Why don’t we hit the streets, vent our rage? Surely the system cannot be so rigged that its singular purpose is to nourish our addiction to apathy.

Maybe the millions of us who are sick and tired of the status quo don’t turn out because we’re too damned preoccupied with the day-to-day struggle for survival: work—eat—sleep—work—eat—sleep—repeat. No time or brain space to make a fuss.

Or have we willingly become drone citizens of a mythical kingdom, where our so-called leaders package then repackage the delights according to whatever ideology they want to push, and sell as a brand-new Utopia? A new prosperity achievable only by our submission to their contrived plans and policies. So long as we vote for them, everything will be just fine. So long as we give them the mandate to press on, pretending they really do work tirelessly for us. For the good of a country that exists only in their imaginations.

When we cast our votes to induct MPs into the great Hall of Self-Interest, do we honestly believe the pencil we use to put a cross in a box is a personal tool of power? Do we truly believe our vote makes a difference? Is it our national duty to vote for the lesser of many evils? Time after time.

That’s not how a society should be. Well, is it? Our country, our safe haven, the Mother of our communal pride. We, everyday people, know the system has been butchered, so tell me: why do so many of us do nothing to change it?

Why do we just laugh it off?