Toronto has just witnessed the largest police funeral in Canada’s history, with 12,000 in attendance and a 2 1/2 hour procession through the downtown core to mark the death of Sgt. Ryan Russell who was killed a week ago when a man ran barefoot through the snow, seized an idling snowplow, and went for a joyride through the city streets.
To put the sheer scale of the funeral in perspective, there were almost as many officers in the procession as provided security for the G20 Summit. And like the G20 Summit, this event resulted in the closure of many streets around the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (where both the Summit and the funeral were held).
If I were to write in the spirit of Roland Barthes, I might ask questions about the social meanings of this very public display. We can all understand the private and more personal meanings. We empathize with Sgt. Russell’s wife and young son. We empathize with the widening circle of family, friends and colleagues. We empathize because we, too, have experienced loss, and we know what that means even if we can’t articulate it.
But because Sgt. Russell held a public office, there are public demands which that office must satisfy. And because the office survives the officer, those demands must be satisfied even in death. The inarticulate private meanings are co-opted by the demands of public office and are invested with equally inarticulate public meanings. I say that these meanings are inarticulate because, in the midst of mourning, words fails us, and so we let social forms do our talking for us: we wear black, we send flowers, we give to charitable causes, we refrain from smiling. That isn’t to say that with time and reflection we won’t find the proper words. Eventually we have to go beyond social forms and use our words to tease out the meanings embedded in those forms.
If I were to write in the spirit of Roland Barthes, I might pose questions about some of the forms present in this public funeral, paying particular attention to the 2 1/2 procession composed almost entirely of police officers. I might ask: Why here? Why at this particular time in our city’s history? Why such a para-military display following so closely on the G20 Summit? I might ask what this means in relation to authority and social order? What does this mean just as Toronto elects its most conservative mayor in history and the federal conservatives are poised to win a majority government?
However, I can’t write about such things because I have to answer a prior question: is it even permissible for me to write about such things? The law of the land says yes. But if it is nevertheless imprudent, then, in practical terms, the answer is no.
I don’t know what to think.
Surely the presence of thousands of para-military personnel marching through the streets of downtown Toronto deserves critical comment, if only to ponder its significance. But the press is silent. Even alternative outlets like rabble.ca have nothing to say. Why bother? The display was for a funeral. It wasn’t as if these personnel were engaged in crowd control, not like we witnessed last summer. And yet a social symbol doesn’t require action in order to deliver its meaning; in fact, it may be more effective for its presence in a context where nothing appears to happen. A funeral is an ideal pretext.
Where are the critical thinkers who will interpret for us what these things signify? as there was in France with Roland Barthes? as there is in Italy with Umberto Eco? as there continues to be in America with Noam Chomsky? Who will interpret for us what these things mean here in Canada?
I turn to Umberto Eco’s list: the fourteen features of a phenomenon whose name I shall not mention because it has grown tired from overuse. I don’t read Eco’s list as if it had the force of unshakable Biblical authority; I read it more like a mechanic’s manual to gauge whether the machinery of state is humming along.
I note number 7: “To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, [the unnamed phenomenon] says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism.” Nationalism seems irrelevant to a funeral, even this funeral, and yet there it is in the flags waved all along the procession route.
I note number 4: The critical spirit makes distinctions. A vibrant culture is one in which disagreement is welcome. As divergent points of view bounce off one another, they refine themselves. The result is that all points of view benefit. This is the reasoning which underlies both the adversarial process of our legal regime and scientific method. But as Eco notes: “For [the unnamed phenomenon], disagreement is treason.”
Perhaps it is these two features in concert which account for an absence of critical reflection. In the face of grand displays, those with divergent views (or even tiny questions) grow fearful and remain silent.
Finally, I note number 11:
“In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in [the unnamed phenomenon’s] ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangists was Viva la Muerte (“Long Live Death!”). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the [the unnamed phenomenon’s] hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The [the unnamed phenomenon’s] hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”
How often we have heard the word “hero” this week. But we aren’t really celebrating the precise manner of death for a particular officer. After all, Sgt. Russell was run down by a snow plow. Instead, we seem to be celebrating a more abstract heroism. If we were to describe this heroism in a pamphlet, we would probably include words like “duty” and “obedience”.
Are we there yet? Based on Eco’s list of symptoms, can we make a diagnosis? I doubt it. As with all cultural shifts, we lag behind the Americans. But there are some surefire ways we can hurry along this descent into a fearful lockstep. Most notably: we can say nothing. At the least sign of intimidating displays, we can bite our tongues and pretend that the meaning of our silence is merely self-censorship.