Looking beyond TransCanada’s summer of discontent
Why excluding opponents to resource development is unwise
September 01, 2011
You don’t often see men wearing loincloths in downtown Calgary which, when you stop to think about it (and thankfully you don’t have to very often), is a good thing. As a fashion statement, the loincloth clearly belongs to other, warmer countries where the weather is good and the living is easy. A loincloth simply isn’t going to cut it in a windy December where we live.
As a political statement, the loincloth is also similarly limited to other countries and other times, with Mahatma Gandhi probably being the best known example. He wore one for years in his non-violent campaign of civil disobedience against British control in India and many of us grew up with the image of the mostly naked, frail little fellow deeply implanted in our brain.
While we have thankfully left the garment behind, Gandhi’s methods of civil disobedience remain with us today, realizing their latest incarnation in none other than the American actor, Danny Glover. Glover is perhaps best known for his Lethal Weapon film appearances in the late 1980s and 90s. He’s also become somewhat of a serial activist – donating his time and star power to support union workers, Cuban political prisoners in the U.S., and lately, climate change.
The latter cause is why Glover, along with a bunch of high-profile fellow travelers including American green activists Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry and the Canadian trio of David Suzuki, Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow, the chair of the Council of Canadians, planned a campaign of civil disobedience in Washington, D.C. this summer. The disobedience is of interest to the Canadian oil patch because it was staged in opposition to TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline project in particular, and the continued development of Alberta’s oil sands (make that “tar sands” if you’re a friend of Glover’s) in general. Glover wanted us all to join him.
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