This time of year, it seems everyone’s coming down with a serious case of affluenza.
We all know the symptoms of the afflicted, glassy-eyed yet strangely hyper, hitting the malls like heroin.
‘Tis the season for consuming. And consuming is contagious. From the anonymity of office “secret santas” to the intimacy of something French and frilly, holiday joy is expressed not in verbs and nouns, but in dollars and cents. Never mind the flu epidemic, it’s the mindless consumerism that’s making me wish I’d gotten a shot, as holiday greed spreads faster than holiday cheer.
Yet somehow, “Jingle Bling, Jingle Bling” just doesn’t have the same happy ring to it.
Buy Nothing. Be happy?
Every time I walk into a mall, I feel like I’m walking into a commercial; as if the mall is really one of those crazy snow globes. The whole scene is unreal and for sale. From the parking lot to the check out line, the message is the same: You can buy anything to make anyone happy.
It’s easy for people in the developing world to be happy, when 20 percent of the world’s people consume over 80 percent of the world’s resources. It’s a global affluenza epidemic.
In an attempt to curb our consumption over the holidays, the Buy Nothing Day (BND) movement was started in Vancouver in 1992, facilitated by the magazine Adbusters. This year, Buy Nothing Day fell on November 23rd in North America and November 24th internationally.
The action is not simply about a date, though BND is strategically placed on the Friday after American Thanksgiving, which is one of the top ten busiest shopping days in the United States.
Chris Martin, a BND activist, sees the event as his way to take action “when no one is willing to make a stand at Christmas time against poverty. It is so easy for people to buy into the hype of the holiday season and blow 1000 bucks while ignoring the homeless person, watching them suffer, but buying a 170 dollar swimsuit, anyways.”
“BND should make you stop and think, so that you can be more aware the rest of the year in regards to smart consumerism. Everyone has a responsibility to acknowledge their part in consumption within our society, but that responsibility is being largely ignored. That is why BND still has an important role,” Martin said.
Holiday Hype
All the bright holiday hype obscures the often painful reality of the forgotten have-nots in our society. Issues like poverty and homelessness are only visible to consumers through the donation bin that stands at the back of the store âe” or the security guard standing at the entrance. Store managers don’t want their customers to feel uncomfortable, as it might distract them from following their naughty-or-nice list.
Among the holiday crowds on the streets, it can be easy to forget the thousands of Canadians who are currently homeless. The reality is painfully cold and clear.
For instance, according to a 2007 Street Health Report concerning Toronto, the nightly count of people sleeping in homeless shelters has more than tripled, from about 1900 in 1996 to about 6500 in 2006.
In this time of grace and giving, anti-poverty activists in Toronto are alarmed at what they see as the city’s current strategy for dealing with the homeless. Geatan Heroux, an outreach worker and a member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), describes a situation where a client had received 27 tickets last week from police under the Safe Streets Act, totalling $2000, for such offences as littering and encumbering a sidewalk.
Mike Desroches, also a member of OCAP, is critical of the excessive ticketing and harassment of the homeless by the police. He outlines what he sees as Toronto’s poverty plan in action during the busy shopping season: “The primary response from the city on a daily basis to panhandling is the poverty workers wearing the yellow jackets and the stripy pants, who will be going along, handing out tickets to people and moving people along.”
A Home for the Holidays
The solution to the current housing crisis across Canada is simple: Give the gift of housing!
At a recent Toronto anti-poverty rally, Heroux from OCAP was quick to point out that the federal government has to get involved in housing. Giving some history on the housing crisis, he notes, “The Minister of Finance, Mr. Jim Flaherty is the same guy who made all those cuts in 1995 [as Ontario’s Finance Minister]. This is his mess. We live in this shit every day.”
“And now, this guy is in Ottawa and we ask him for housing and he says ‘we don’t have the money for housing.’ He told us that in Ontario, too. And what’s he doing now, with billions of dollars in surplus? Nothing. Nothing about housing.”
In this time of contagious holiday madness, I try to avoid catching affluenza with the same diligence I try to avoid catching the common cold. It’s simple, really. Think before you shop. Wash your hands of high retail expectations. Don’t over indulge.
I might seem cheap, but my friends don’t get Christmas gifts. They don’t expect any. And I don’t expect any in return. Just friendship wrapped up in ribbons of laughter, a smile like a big red bow. That’s what I want for the holidays. Happiness and a holiday season where everyone has a home of their own.
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