The Solitary Protester

 

                   Portrait of Eddie Carvery, pastel on paper bag from Hennigers Market, Steven Rhude

 

 "The man most directly — and rightly — credited with keeping the spirit of Africville alive is Irvine Carvery." - Stephen Kimber

 

What constitutes a protester? What constitutes a protest? When crowds gather in serious numbers they are often referred to as peaceful protesters, or conversely, an angry mob - we live in the post modern age of the  chronicled "mass protest", a physical scene of  protest transformed into a digital format, where individuality is suppressed by political branding, and the virtual collective expression. It is the time of massive change, and, as Bruce Mau so once described - the era of the "Spectacle." The strength of the spectacle is found in the original tangible numbers that bring leverage. That is the foundation. Eventually, police presence invariably results in tension, opposing forces, and subsequently violence. Media and its progeny, social media coverage, relish on the spot interviews that allow for repeated soundbites, tweets, and coercion, but the interviewee usually remains anonymous; a human being caught up in an event spiraling down into a brief moment of human consciousness, and eventually a digital black hole. Historically, the shelf life of a spectacle can be relatively brief, but its documentation is a different story. And there are exceptions.

What of the protester that conducts a mission mostly alone, for a long period of time, possibly a life time? Ironically, a single protester isn't anonymous, even though the crowd has dispersed, and so has the coverage. And yet,  Eddie Carvery, who knows all about loosing his home (twice) may be an enigma to some, he is not to the month of February - AKA, our shortest calendar month. Eddie Carvery still has a dream of a home, and don't we all. Except for Eddie, it's the same home that was taken from him years ago. 

Carvery’s Africville would include a comfortable mix of private homes, co-ops, public housing and senior citizen’s units “for our elders.” He even has devised a complicated scheme for a trust fund that would allow former residents to swap the houses they now own elsewhere for homes in the new Africville while building up a pot of money that would be used to build community halls and services in the new Africville.[1]

In an era where protest flares and then dies, is then covered and subsequently dissolves, Carvery refuses to give up. He is ostensibly alone ( though really he isn't). He is a thorn in the side, a burr under the saddle, of  political Black history in Nova Scotia. His ideas are round in a municipality's square equation. One gets the feeling he is just getting started.

 Notes [1]: Stephen Kimber, https://stephenkimber.com/books/reparations/africville/irvine-carverys-a-born-optimist

Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS   

    

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