“Boycott Tradition – Make Every Day a Holiday”
The Upper-Galilee Anarchist League
Leaflet, mid-90s
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BOYCOTT
TRADITION
MAKE
EVERY
DAY A
HOLIDAY.
Lucky is he, who never was castigated for not taking part in the vulgar Friday night nightlife, be it in dirty city clubs or shabby pubs on Kibbutz. “Why are you such a fool, come join the gang- we’ll go out, drink and dance, don’t be such a nerd”. We that hear that kind of talk time and time again, part of the minority happy to give up the “joy” of crowded streets, thick smoke, smell of booze, or the “joy” of the stifling, violent, and somewhat claustrophobic crowding of the entertainment consumers. We give this up in favor of self-realization, true learning, practicing of our worth be it what it may.
We do not protest that our “entertainment” be it viewing, reading or any variation of self-realization, is under valued and discriminated. We do not protest the existence of a (pretty axiomatic) consensus on what entertainment or joy means for youth, as we are aware from observing our surroundings that in industrial society nothing exists without consensus. No culture, no life, nothing.
We are protesting the face of that consensus, the face of entertainment, which lifts us up with the world at our feet, as long as we lose our singularity as individuals for our vulgarity as consumers. We have to ask ourselves: How did entertainment time in all of modern Western culture become reduced to weekends out? We don’t doubt that the wheels of capitalist consumerism that set the public on course to the reduction to a single or a couple of nights, did it for material interests for spreading out always makes life more difficult for traders, chain-stores and suppliers.
This, however, is not the motivation embedded in the public sentiment: “The whole week is crap- work, domestic strife, money, trouble, so you pick a single day and enjoy yourself all the way”. This is how we forget, just for a moment, the problems of the week. This is the answer of most if not all of the consensus supporters. But we can’t help but notice a thorn in this rose that would make any sensible person wonder. Are people not entertaining themselves for the rest of the time they suffer? Can we not see that the rational motive for entertainment is the lack of it in everyday life?
Weekend entertainment stands strong as an ironic homage to the repressed suffering of those caught up in it. It is no wonder that Nurit Galron (pop idol) offers the alternative to dealing with the Intifada as “getting lost in the crowded streets of Tel-Aviv”, as there is no wonder in Danny Sanderson’s (pop idol) statement “the secret of Rock’nRoll – it eases sadness”. All this is a contradiction of the essence of the search for joy and moments of happiness, as it inverts the concept of joy.
Joy or entertainment, public or private, are an expression of an internal joy, an image of a positive mental prototype. “I’m singing in the rain, for I’m happy again” sang Danny Kay, meaning that singing (for that matter entertainment) is a result of internal joy, therefore positive and creative forever. The weekend situation is quite the reverse and makes no sense. Yehuda Poliker (pop idol) sings of weekdays being “superfluous and never ending” and then “it’s the weekend you know, there’s a party in town”- the logic being I’m mentally down so I’ll pretend to be entertained. This is the logic (or lack there of) of weekend entertainment- perverse and deceiving. Flavorless booze and choking cigarettes are nothing but layers of illusion to cover the reality- an escape. We do not despise joy and entertainment for if we were we’d be removing the very spine from our existence. All we do is present reality for what it is and it is so easy to see that any teenager can see through it.
What we wish to do is not to raise criteria and norms for the joy of others but raise the awareness that entertainment and joy are human needs as long as they manifest the human spirit. Then they serve as a safety valve for the fears and stress in our lives. When entertainment is purely schematic it is like whitewash on the crack of a crumbling ugly reality. Then it is not just worthless but rather it is counter-productive, as it pays tribute to a negative status quo by denying the present.
Part of the awareness of our singularity and power as individuals that serves as a function of our ability to live life to the full, is our ability to distinguish individual from collective acts (by act we mean choice). Our world that is inside us, the world that’s truly illuminated without electricity is in perpetual danger if we do not watch out for the Trojan horse that is “social life”. This is not a call on youth to build up defenses or to form armed gangs to shoot clocks to try and stop time to make the present relevant once again. Our call is simple:
“boycott tradition – make every day a holiday”
Content from It’s All Lies
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