In a post I wrote in Russian I reflected on the fact that in one superstore in Moscow city centre the till operator didn’t even attempt to give me change. It was only 10 kopeks, one tenth of a ruble, but let’s face it: it’s still the money, and it is my money, after all. When I asked her to give me change, she was kind of surprised. Later I found out that there are some citizens who do not take change as small as 10 kopeks. They leave it either in the till or on the table where it is hunted after by tramps and alcoholics.
I wasn’t going to share the story in English, but Seth Godin came up with a post Voting, Misunderstood. Taken at face value, it is a reminder to us how successful advertising can be. Politicians “are all bums”, we’re told, and the electorate is carefully discouraged from ever attending the elections. Nobody believes in the system, so they think the best way to oppose it is by ignoring it. “Voting is free. It’s fairly fast. It doesn’t make you responsible for the outcome, but it sure has an impact on what we have to live with going forward”, says Godin.
The entire life is constituted of rights and duties, and when we claim to possess a certain right, it is our duty to exercise it. What happens when we withdraw from exercising it? We’re relegating our power to whoever wants to seize it, or else we’re indicating that we don’t really need to have this right. And whoever has seized it, has then got the power to make us follow their rules – because they have the right to do so. Claiming that they don’t will no longer work: after all, we willingly gave our power away.
The question of being able to vote and to make one’s voice heard has been ever so important in Russia for years. However, the story with the till operator and the different reactions to it show one curious thing. It is our right to earn money, pay money, and receive change. And it is the duty of the till operator to give us the change. When she doesn’t do so, she effectively usurps our right to our money. Would you let a till operator decide what to do with your earnings?
The situation is aggravated, for me, by the fact that, by allowing the operator to keep my change, I either maintain the numbers of alcoholics and tramps, or I enrich the superstore. Will you blame me for not wanting to do either? If only the superstore was participating in a charity program to alleviate poverty in the capital, I would be among the first to put my ten kopeks in the charity bucket. But there is no such program, and I refuse to abdicate my right to decide where to put my money.
I wasn’t alone on that occasion, so I didn’t pursue the change. I’m glad I didn’t though, because I now have a range of responses to the story, some of which prompted me to contemplate our worthiness of certain right we claim for ourselves.
The problem is in the obvious incongruity between our image of ourselves as politically savvy citizens and the real state of things. For, if we could indeed understand something about politics, we would know that big changes start with small things. If we want to make our right to vote be taken seriously, we’d better show how serious we are, as far as our everyday rights are concerned. If we can let a till operator decide whether or not to give us money, what makes us think that we are worthy of more important rights, like the right to vote? If we can so easily abdicate our power in an everyday situation, what confidence does it give in our abilities as citizens?
Image credit: Ucoin.net.
