When I was growing up there was a cute cartoon about two little boys.
One of them was Ohh (an interjection indicating disapproval, regret and a negative view), and the other one was Aww (an interjection indicating a positive surprise, excitement and admiration). Those two lived their young lives full of adventures, and all of their reactions were polar no matter the circumstances.
Aww was a joker and a jolly boy, and Ohh was a grumbler. Where Aww saw beauty, Ohh could not get his eyes off spider webs. What Aww saw as opportunities, Ohh saw as challenges. And even though Aww tried helping to make it better for his neighbour, Ohh remained miserable in everything he was doing.
The cartoon was an exaggeration by design, like most educational entertainment products for young kids, just to make sure they get the message. But what was an exaggeration in 1975, became a reality in the 2020s in the sense of polarization of people's views.
We've been watching the U.S. splitting somewhere close to the middle over the past few years. Their split wasn't comical by any means, but rather dangerous and fuelled by anger. Similar tendencies were developing in other parts of the world, but often to a lower extent.
The issues over which societies split are different, but I think at the bottom of that split is the opposite nature of views. What some people consider the growth potential, others see as outdated relics, and their approach to the future just takes them further and further apart.
I was watching the world getting more and more furious, but for a bit, I felt "safe", allowing myself to believe that the problems were "over there", and we would never see something similar here.
I was wrong. Estevan is no different than any other community facing challenges, which break people apart and push them towards poles on many issues.
We've been through a lot. As humans, inside, we prefer to avoid changes and even more so instability. The pandemic kept us steadily on our toes for two years. Conflicts flaring up here and there add to the sense of uncertainty. Discussions around climate change and major transformations further shake and split the communities. Economic challenges accompanying any kind of changes stress us out even more, since unlike conflicts "somewhere there", they end up directly affecting every household.
Estevan stood strong for a while, but I think we've become more split lately as well. We made it through the pandemic and after. Of course, people always view things differently. It's natural to disagree, but Estevan used to stay united in its disagreements. There wasn't as much finger-pointing within the community, and while often not agreeing on some things, people here seemed to work as one body, fighting their way through outer obstacles and challenges.
The latest discussions of the downtown revitalization, based on a video trying to "catch" the local government on something they didn't do, became a good example of that change. And that situation also reminded me of the cartoon characters described above. While the original video sparked some "Aww" reactions, with people looking forward to seeing the community blooming, the edited version of it resulted in an "Ohh" wave, in which a lot of citizens got concerned about unnecessary spending during difficult economic transformation times.
I'd say it's a great discussion, which should have taken place when the city was horning about the idea of revitalizing downtown to make it more attractive for people and businesses. It didn't happen then. The city started working towards some changes, trying to bring in federal funding (yes, federal money is still our taxes, but if we don't use it here, people somewhere in Ontario, B.C. or elsewhere will be happy to see the revitalization of their communities).
We are far from seeing a new Estevan downtown with some, if any, of the suggestions from the George Harris Collaborative implemented. It may not happen at all if money doesn't come through. But if we keep going with the "Aww" and "Ohh" split, we might get stuck where we are at. Which means that we may end up being lost in the flow of the fast-changing world.
You probably saw the tiny songbirds known as starlings. They flock together in thousands. Their shifting movements are called murmurations. Grouping offers safety in numbers as predators like falcons can't target one bird in a hypnotizing flock of thousands. It also helps keep warm at night and exchange information about good feeding areas.
We are a small community standing on the verge of big changes, which are coming from the outside. I feel that if we can work like those birds, not allowing our "Aww" and "Ohh" reactions to divide us, we'll make it out of these challenging times more prosperous. But if not...
