In Memory of Prigov’s Militiaman
Imagine a kind of people who do not have a concept of property. You may call them mentally ill, if it helps you — they don’t mind. Even though they do not understand the concept of property itself, they know that some things are not shared. Some learned it the hard way and some learned it from tales.
Their lives are not our lives. They passed the digital ocean. In the cities and in the countryside, they live on islands that no one owns. They build tech that supports life, working on social structures that benefit all. Uprisings paved their way; now they raise the white flag: not for being defeated, but so as not to interfere with the kingdom of the capital.
They are known as experts at sharing, as sharing is all they know. As they don’t know owners either, their understanding of sharing differs from ours. Every rule they make, to bring order to the open world of theirs, floats on a fragile general acceptance.
They are known as experts at caring, as they are taught that way. They sense the suppressed need, they make those heard, that are afraid to talk. When someone is in need for help, they support whenever possible and never look at the clock; they do not know neither leisure nor work.
Their rules are adjusted to local circumstances and the residents’ traditions. When they gather, they make their gathering well known among their kind. Their methods are shaped over generations: to listen and be heard, to deal with their anger and their fears, to solve their conflicts and to celebrate a new way once settled.
See the free rider. He treats every common good as if it were his own. He wants to be cared for, but cares for no one. The free rider claims that every restriction takes away his freedom and rejects every comment on his behavior. See this kind of people showing him out, taking his hate on their shoulders.
In my darkest hour, worrying about the world, desperate about our times, I met them. That night they taught me the bliss of ignorance and how to live a life that is not here yet: how the media could be taken as fiction and politics as play. That night, I was their student, but had every right to shake them: wasn’t it their own way of life that was at stake? I did not, for they are children in their way, as we are in ours.
It was their time, before history was written, before civilizations arose and the life of humans on this earth became complicated. And it will be their time, when history ends and we will live as one again, being siblings to the river and the deer, living safe and not looking for progress anymore. We lost that dream; they did not.