May 1 was a fine day for barbequing. This year, while some workers of
the world celebrated International Workers’ Day, Israeli marked its 77th
Independence Day. With the long weekend, Thursday to Sunday, one would think that
joy dominated both occasions but many felt the exact opposite. As in most impressions,
each person viewed the event through personal lenses, pessimistic, fatalistic
or even optimistic.
The negative thinkers among us noted that beyond the Potemkin village
celebrations and fronts of joy , the situation is rather depressing. At
this moment, Trump is doing his best imitation of Atilla the Hun and ruining
the US economy and wiping the savings, not to mention the financial and job security, of workers in the United States.
Of course, when the United States sneezes, the whole world economy, including its
workers, gets a cold and starts to worry. Israeli’s celebration was physically
darkened by a serious fire in the Jerusalem area as well as other areas, which
required a callup of all firefighters, meaning that all local events were cancelled
due to lack of fire protection. Symbolically, many Israelis feel that that the national situation is just as dark with
the continued war with Hamas and never-ending captivity of the hostages. For
many anti-Bibi voters, the political situation does not provide much hope. Thus for
many, neither event was “an ode to joy”, as Beethoven would say.
Those fatalists that view local events as mere parts of larger systems
shrugged off the holidays and the circumstances. A holiday is an arbitrary date
determined by pollical organizations. Thus, there is no correlation with the
date and any events that occur before, during or after it. The world seems in a
mood for certain extreme solutions, back to the future if you will. Trump
is merely an oversized example of this type of populism. Employment levels ebb
and flow to one degree or another over time. Wars usually end long after they
have lose any reason to continue just because of personal and national pride but
they do eventually run out of gas. Unfortunately, this superfluous period
merely creates more tragedy. As is written in Book of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new
under the sun and, therefore, no reason to get overly emotional.
However,
it must be noted that many people, possibly the silent near majority, do count
their blessings on these holidays. Marx would have been shocked if not entirely
overjoyed that so many workers in the West actually own shares of those capitalist companies. In the West, the vast majority of the populations enjoys some kind
of safety net when facing unemployment and even profits from two days off a week.
Quite a few can even send their children to college so they can have better
jobs. In Israel, despite the challenges of the last two years, and more
importantly the last 77 years, Israel stands strong in terms of having an army,
a democracy and a strong identity. Admittedly, the war and the period before it
have challenged those elements but they have stood up to the test. The world
may not be pink but it is not black either and will improve, hopefully soon.
Optimists follow Kate’s (of Kiss Me Kate) advice and “accentuate the
positive”.
So, as
I was cooking my steak on the barbecue in the garden of my house talking to my
friend and drinking a beer, I thought to myself, or at least choose to, “life
isn’t bad at all”. In Hebrew, the expression is
יהיה בסדר [yehiye besder], everything will work out. May 1 can be a happy
day.