Amid the grilled sardine sandwiches, mural painting, and live music of last Sunday’s Harvest Festival, emerged an important protest. This demonstration, I submit, had far greater implications than many of the events in Queen’s Park or on Parliament Hill. Of course, most people weren’t aware they were protesting and it certainly wasn’t why people came to Kensington Market. What sprung up from these twelve hours of creativity, passion and fun was not a challenge to any particular problem-American/British occupation of Iraq, tit-for-tat suicide bombings, or the lack of affordable housing, etc.-but a very real and concrete protest that struck a blow to the root of these problems-absurdity.
Most of the things we normally protest are the result of absurd ways of thinking. For example, it is ludicrous that in a country and city with so much wealth, we still have homeless people. It is crazy to think that a not-actually-elected head of state can fabricate legitimate reasons for demolishing a sovereign country. It is stunning to think that while these injustices occur, we spend our time struggling with the difficult decision of whether to go out for dinner and drinks or to stay home and watch commercials. Yes, my friends, we are living absurdly.
Thankfully, this is where the Harvest Festival comes in. Kensington was packed on a Sunday afternoon. Every “group” in Toronto was represented. Bellevue Square Park was crawling with kids painting, playing, listening to stories, and laughing their heads off. And while the merchants peddled their wares, the bands did their thing. The coldness that we often project to one another on the subway or at work seemed to melt away as fast as ice cream in the hands of the five-year-old who was sure she could lick and paint at the same time.
What I saw in Kensington was fun-loving people acting very sanely. The Market became an absurdity-free zone. And the thing that capped it all off and struck the hardest blow to the root of the world’s problems? The Samba Squad. At about 7:30pm, this band of about thirty drummers played with incredible enthusiasm, precision and intelligence as they were led by a conductor who blew his whistle and waved his hands. Though not all of us were willing to dance our way into the middle of the circle, it was impossible to stand still. I guarantee that if Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon were standing side by side near this circle, they too would be swept up in the energy and would be hard-pressed to even think about continuing in their absurd ways. Perhaps what these fellows need is a little toe-tapping and hip-shaking!
To sum up the entire day at the Harvest festival I would use three words: creativity, passion, and fun. The organizers who put this event together undoubtedly embodied these qualities. And it had a ripple effect. We all felt the enthusiasm, we all shared in the joy that exists when people come together-attracted by interest, not agendas-and share in something. And to my mind, this is exactly the type of thing that undermines the root cause of what ails us as a group.
Alone, of course, events like the Kensington Harvest Festival will not end the world’s problems. But we should not dismiss these gatherings as mere entertainment. For twelve straight hours on Sunday, human beings came together and struck a real blow to absurdity. We demonstrated a concrete alternative to violence, greed and separateness. And by becoming examples of legitimate alternatives to conflict and hate, we made a real-though modest-contribution to ending the problems around us.
