Caught in immobility

Comment to Marc Garriga, in one of my Edgeryders mission reports:

It would be the ideal thing to do, to collaborate with authorities who demonstrate willingness to act (ie ‘explicit support’ regarding open government), where there would be no need to push them in the back, or to send them a staggering number of letters to convince them of making the slightest move.

Time passes and nothing happens. Whole years go by. While others around you explore and bloom, you look in the mirror and there is nothing there to see. At some point, you realize that it could probably go on like this for decades: trapped in a kind of protected floating bubble, isolated from information and innovation, in part because of the language barrier. Citizens do not even know what they are missing, because they are kept in the dark. The society of silence extends to traditional media, who talk about everything except what is important.

Sometimes, some citizens get angry and try to protest. 200.000 of them, even 300.000 sign petitions. But petitions are ignored. People know that their actions were in vain. Therefore, they get less and less likely to protest at the next opportunity. Officials continue to do as they are pleased.

I found nothing better to do than run away, in order to continue to do things that I love and hang on to my dreams. Otherwise, I'd be dead inside. At home, that I observe from my distant observatory, everything remains frozen in near immobility. This inaction is recognized and condemned by all. Not a week goes by without a significant take to lament the matter publicly.

What is it we need? We need some form of cataclysm - to act as an adrenaline rush. Because simple rationality seems powerless to provoke the people, to the point that officials could accept such a vague concept as change. While change is synonymous with evolution, with its tendency to move slowly, what is desired by many, including myself, is speed.

"The bond of trust between politicians and citizens is completely broken, and they want change," said MP Bernard Landry. “Citizens want politicians to cease to be "in [their] bubble." (ref)

We need fresh air. We need to change stagnant water. The attraction for individualism is strong, while the solution - you totally understood it Marc - is inexorably toward its opposite, solidarity. However, collective identity has become faulty: it fails to win the greatest number and, therefore, it is unable to unite us in action.