7 minute read
On obligations
Scapegoating solves nothing
shae sackman
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In the middle of last week, amidst the never-ending emergency alerts and constant flow of updates about the stabbing rampage that occurred in Saskatchewan, a short piece on cbc.ca1 caught my attention and I have been thinking about it ever since.
The article was titled with a quote: “‘My boy, turn yourself in,’ says mother of fugitive suspected in Sask. mass killing.” The words have echoed around in my mind as I have gone through the motions this week, meeting my obligations, completing tasks on my to-do lists, and talking with friends and family. I tried to focus on why my mind kept being drawn back to the sentence I had read, and I have now realized it is the first two words that have made me reflect.
These two words had been floating up into the forefront of my mind as I did the work I find to be the most important and meaningful I get to do in my life. Two words that were subconsciously causing me to consider where my obligations to people ended, exactly. And to think about where my obligations even begin at all.
“My boy.”
Two words that work to establish an important connection. Words that can be seen as a call home. A demonstration of recognition, stewardship, and love. Words that mark the person as belonging, as having a place in the world. Words that are a reminder to all involved. Claiming words.
The statements in this article from the parents asking their son to do the right thing and turn himself in, apologizing for the horrific harm caused as if they themselves had played an explicit role in the attacks, are deeply ingrained in my mind. All week while I interacted in my community, made decisions that would affect others, and considered my own roles in the world, the words kept taking up space in my life.
In their words I saw a tremendous amount of understanding, responsibility, and a deep undercurrent of the knowledge that a person’s obligations in life do not end as neatly as we all walk around pretending and hoping. That our collective tendency to deem a person causing harm as an individual aberration is not the whole picture. That our work to dismiss someone as bad, evil, or ill may not be as complete an answer as it could be. That any efforts taken to exile, punish, and extract an eye for a proverbial eye do not work to address the problems we keep encountering as a collective. That these strategies of passing the obligations we have to each other as far away from us as possible ensures we will never meaningfully understand, let alone address, the problems out there.
We all have a responsibility to and for each other. Whether directly or not, we all contribute to the situations we all find ourselves in. Passively, actively, implicitly, explicitly – we are all involved in the building up and the tearing down of our families, friends, communities, and the world we find ourselves in. This is difficult, messy, impossible feeling work.
But, I feel that these parents of these men displayed with just a few words that walking forward with this approach is possible. That we can be deeply and meaningfully engaged with this kind of understanding of responsibility for and obligation to each other. That we must be committed to the welfare of all, even if we cannot see exactly how it is that our choices are shaping others. Even when it feels impossible.
I encountered a favourite song of mine by John K. Samson, and it brought a much-needed way forward from the words in the article that had been haunting me. Postdoc Blues is suffused with Samson’s characteristic prairies pragmatism and stubbornness, and it includes adapted lines from the book Active Hope by Joanna Macy, painting a picture of how we may become strong enough to do this work:
To focus on individual fault is to neglect the community’s experience and the place all have in working to heal, whether or not they appear to have harmed.
Photo: David Stobbe via The Globe and Mail
Public transit in Regina – a rant
Public transit is a great option, but far from viable in Regina
hammad ali op-ed editor
One of the best student benefits provided by the University of Regina Students’ Union, for me, has to be the subsidized bus pass. For the approximately two years of the pandemic when the U-Pass was not being offered, it was a substantial inconvenience for me. While classes were online and I did not have to be on campus all that often, I also use the bus for pretty much all my commute needs, and not having an affordable unlimited rides pass was difficult. With the gradual return to a pre-pandemic life, URSU has been offering the bus pass regularly for the last few terms. In the last issue, one of our writers wrote about the benefits of taking public transit in lieu of using one’s own vehicle to commute to and from campus. While I agree with all her points and do in fact use public transit almost exclusively myself, I personally fear that students at the U of R, and even residents of Regina, are still quite far away from a reality where they could fully opt for public transit and not feel the need to have their own vehicle or pursue some carpooling option. I find the frequency of service for most bus lines inadequate. Currently, most buses run twice an hour, most of the time. This is cranked up to four times an hour during peak hours in the morning and afternoon, but on the flip side, there are express buses that really only run during those peak hours. I remember being in a lecture that went from 4:30-7:30 p.m. One of my peers in that class needed bus line number 18 to get home. Now, for some inexplicable reason, this bus which had the university campus at one end of its commute loop ran consistently only until 6:00 p.m., with one final trip four hours later at 10:00 p.m. Thus, this peer of mine had to find ways to use the nearly three hours after the end of the lecture before she could take a bus home. I am not sure what time she had to get back to campus the following morning, but I am sure it got old pretty soon. I would not be surprised if she caved in and switched to using a private vehicle. Further, all bus lines switch to only once an hour after 9:00 p.m. Regina is a small city, and it is true that there is not a whole lot going on right into midnight. But, at least for the university bus lines, I think it makes little to no sense to have buses that really only run till 9:00 p.m. – especially during exam season, when some of us study in the libraries much later into the evening. If you are someone whose schooling or work needs have you commuting close to or after 8:45 p.m., public transit in Regina is not a viable option for you. This is before we even consider the social reasons why someone might want to take a bus somewhere later into the evening, especially on weekends. Which reminds me – most of these already few and far between bus lines become even less frequent on weekends. On Sunday, the buses run from around 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. So, if you are making dinner plans with a friend on Sunday, never mind gloating about your U-Pass. It is not going to get you anywhere – literally. One final grievance I have about the public transit in Regina are the bus shelters. For a city where it is nearly -40 C for months at a time, and where one often has to wait half an hour for the next bus, there are just not enough heated and/or covered bus shelters. In some locations, this could have been made bearable by waiting inside a building. But, as many of my peers have attested, one really has to balance that decision with the risk of missing your bus because you did not hustle to the bus stop fast enough. After all, the next one is not for another half hour! Those are all my complaints about the public transit in this city. Despite all of these complaints, I still use public transit. That is precisely why I want to see it improved. These days, it is fashionable to talk about electric vehicles and renewable energy. We would do well to keep in mind that while all those things sound amazing and cool, a good public transit system remains a boring but real and attainable solution to sustainable carbon footprint reduction.
