Soon it was getting towards that time. The guy I was talking to engaged this other guy who was sitting across the table from us who was staring intensely at a TV mounted on the wall above the bar. The TV was playing silently a news item about Syria. We started to talk about the news item and I gathered that he worked in some form of humanitarian/foreign aid-type job. I made a comment about how I thought it wasn’t good that China & Russia were abstaining from a Security Council vote on action against Syria. This turned out to be the wrong thing to say, Intense Guy turns on me asking pointedly why I think they should have voted. It was a good question, previously I hadn’t considered it how it could be a negative thing. So I say Well, you know, it sends a message. Intense Guy says that the vote they abstained on included agreeing to sanctions and also, if it came to it, NATO action. Gamely I decided to try & continue the conversation by saying that actions like that sounded like a good thing. Whoops, this drew the dismissive ire of Intense Guy, he forcefully asked me how I knew those things would help. Management-consulting Guy tried to make peace. But I had to go and gratefully made an exit.

Sitting on the train home I reflected on how I was feeling. Yeah, I was feeling a bit ignorant about international affairs. And a bit resentful of being made to feel stupid. But I was also feeling uneasy, Intense Guy’s attitude had been very familiar. You see, for a long time I was the intense guy. I still probably am the intense guy to a great extent. For years I would turn the most casual of conversations into accusatory debates where I would seek to hang the problems of the world on some poor person’s innocent lack of information, or their misunderstanding, or maybe their ignorance. I thought, foolishly, that what I was doing was fighting the good fight of truth, justice & ideology on the ground. In retrospect it had a much more to do with my own guilt, insecurity and ego.

And now the tables had turned, the shoe was on the other foot. I thought about how I was feeling and realised that making people feel defensive, wrong and stupid is ultimately unlikely to work. And might even make that person even more likely to retreat to their points of view and stereotypes. And even then that is not enough, it is also really important to remember that capital-T truth is a multi-faceted shades-of-grey beast and unlikely to be in the possession of one person (or one judgemental man, in my case).

I sympathise with Intense Guy. I know what that feels like, you want people to understand, you want them to have, I don’t know, read journal articles and subscribed to humanitarian email updates. I don’t even know how you’re supposed to do know What’s Really Going On In Syria. I don’t know what is happening there, and who the real villains are. Some days I don’t recycle, I don’t read the Terms and Conditions. And now I realise that actually treating people with grace & dignity is probably more likely to lead to them listening to you.

I need a word. I think Taika Waititi’s film ‘BOY’ deserves more exposure, because it is a good film, and because it is “telling the world our story”, and I would like to tell the world more about New Zealand.

Currently there is a Kickstarter project running to get $90K worth of funding to give BOY a USA release. Wouldn’t that be cool? Right now it has 11 days to go before the opportunity to fund the project ends…and it still ends $60K to get across the line.

So – would you consider donating? Maybe you don’t have a lot of dosh right now, well consider sharing about it on Twitter or Facebook, or emailing it to friends who you know might be open to donating to the project. Doing any of the former would be really cool.

Thanks for listening :-)

Love,
Dave

Source: YouTube

Links: Wikipedia, Book Depository

Links: Wikipedia, Book Depository

Links: Wikipedia, Amazon