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blakecooley · 1 year

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How to sabotage your work without losing your job (probably)

Hi! Lifelong contrarian and well-known pain in the ass here. I’ve noticed a recent trend following the unsurprisingly quiet death of the conversation around “quiet quitting” and well, I’m hardly seeing anybody talking much anymore about passive resistance at work. Sure, there's always the under the radar talk of big, showy ways of sabotaging your job. That’s great for some. Heck, might even make you feel like a real hero throwing a literal wrench into that conveyor belt. And to those willing to take the risk, cheers! We’re eternally grateful for your contribution in the fight against capitalism! But most of us teeter in a cosmically cruel paradox whereby we recognize that the systems that dictate our lives and extract our very livelihoods in order to fuel itself have likewise arranged themselves to be our sole means of survival in an attempt to guarantee eternal subservience and supply. (We need our jobs. Ew, bummer.)

Look, we all hate them. We all know and understand exactly how wildly unnatural, inhumane and exploitative they are. But goddamn wouldn’t you know it, the local utility just absolutely refuses to barter. And until they do we have to keep going to our stupid, pointless jobs that we know are slowly killing us but(!) don’t give up hope! Just because you can’t afford to lose your job doesn’t mean you can’t make things generally difficult for your employer, slow work down a few ticks and ultimately waste company resources! Today I’m going to offer you a few tried and true tips that I’ve collected along my twenty years as a member of the american workforce on how to quietly and mostly passively sabotage your work. Welcome to the resistance! Time to not get to work!

First up is a hard one that I feel might be met with some criticism. Which, I honestly understand as it seems counterproductive to the overall goal but, you have to be good at your job. I would never ask that anyone care about their job or devote a second more than is contractually required to even thinking about it but everything else is going to be a lot easier to accomplish if you’re not a problem employee. You don’t need to be stellar or outstanding at your job, in fact that would be aggressively productive for the company and ultimately counterproductive to your efforts towards counterproductivity and frankly is a lot of work. But be good enough at it that no one gives you much of a thought. This means avoiding write-ups, being generally present and on time, not being noticeably hungover or stoned at work and most importantly being consistent. Bosses love that shit. People that they can rely on without thinking about them make their lives easier and can often get a little more leeway with the rules. You need this to succeed at failing.

With that out of the way, onward! To impishness and the foiling of toiling!

Slow down. This seems obvious and I won’t spend much time on it but, slow down. Be deliberate, be mindful, be consistent. (There’s that word again!) Be slow. You don’t have to be sluggish or make your motions theatrically drawn out but just move a little more slowly than anyone else. While some are more concretely quantifiable than others, we all have expected productivity rates at our crummy jobs. How many orders have you served? How many phone calls have you taken? How many parcels did you pick, stack, toss or deliver? How many emails did you respond to? Fuck ‘em. Don’t meet these often arbitrary, almost always aggressively enforced, micro-deadlines. Hover. Float along just below quota. Not enough to get in trouble but just enough that other people have to wait on you, consistently. Measure every portion before plating. Run that dishwasher twice. Leave that detailed voicemail to confirm receipt of the email you just sent (I don’t know how office jobs work. Ask your friend who loves Gilmore Girls, they’ll know what not to do and ultimately may be the key to understanding the best ways to get nothing accomplished). Take the stairs, insist on walking, go to the office of someone you could reach by phone or radio and meet face to face, count everything twice, be obnoxiously thorough, do whatever you can however you can do it, just do it slowly. Make yourself a well-meaning but undeniable pain in the ass. Waste company time.

You might be asking now, “Blake, I thought you said you weren’t gonna spend much time on that tip? Sure seems like either this is the beginning of an arduous and lengthy trend or you’re a fucking liar. Perhaps both. Would you like the opportunity to speak to that?”

To which I would say, “Welcome to tip #3! It looks like you might’ve already got this one pretty figured out. Good work, champ. (sly wink (definitely not in a sexual way, unless you're into it in which case, hello there (winks both eyes, slyly)) But that’s right: Asking unnecessary, unanswerable, open-ended and otherwise asinine questions is a great way to waste company time! It’s great to really understand every single, miniscule, esoteric and inscrutable detail of the operation of every facet of your job, of your employer and of the majesty of life all around us. Will you ever realistically need this information? No. Are you ever going to be asked to demonstrate any of this knowledge to maintain your employment? No. Should you still turn that 15 minute meeting into a half hour marathon of interrogation? Abso-fucking-lutely! Should you really ask your elderly, probably q-anon addled, foxmaxxed coworker about that winding and vaguely related to whatever someone else was just talking about, personal story that requires more context to understand than the story conveys? Get fucking real, you beautiful asshole! Learn her whole family history! Learn to love her estranged children more closely than your own! Should you ask your boss about exploring the idea of setting up a meeting with your district manager so that you, and really the whole team, can get a chance to benefit from a more in-depth education about the new product, menu item, system rollout, policy change, or safety guideline update? FUCK YES! YOU GORGEOUS AND BRILLIANT FUCK GOD! Fuck everyone’s day up. Make every single person you interact with late to their next thing. Ask so many inane questions so consistently (fuck yes!!) that your neuroticism has to be soft scheduled into itineraries. Herald yourself among Socrates, Lao Tzu, Al-Khwarizmi, alongside all the great minds of history in your place at the pantheon of curiosity. Leave no one’s schedule, routine or plan intact. Make yourself a well-meaning, curious but undeniable pain in the ass. Waste company time.”

You, out of breath from cumming so hard from thinking about wasting company time after you stopped listening to me three words in, “What?”

This next one’s pretty simple but if executed improperly can backfire in some pretty “Either go see a doctor and find out what’s going on or stop wasting everybody’s time,” kind of ways but: Stay very hydrated. A well hydrated saboteur is a healthy saboteur. A well hydrated saboteur is a saboteur who has to go use the restroom, “Seriously, like every thirty minutes all day. Are you sure you’re okay? You can call it a day if you need to go home or whatever.” You don’t have to live in the bathroom but you should definitely be a regular. And really this is a tactic that you probably can’t employ every day without raising some questions and maybe drawing some medical concern from your employer but if and when it’s appropriate, go nuts! (I feel like if I were responsible or anything near the proximity of a medical professional I would say here that you should drink a lot of water instead of like soda or coffee or energy drinks or whatever cause too much of those sorts of things will probably kill you or something. But also don’t drink too much water cause I heard this story on the radio once about people dying from that too. It mostly seemed like it was accidental deaths during like frat hazing which I mean still sucks but seems pretty unlikely to happen in most daily scenarios so, I don’t know just be careful, okay? You're important, you're loved, we need you and I absolutely refuse to even think about living in a world without you). Remember, it’s not about creating urgency it’s about not getting work done so don’t try to be a hero and hold it in longer than you need to. Drink plenty of water, keep your body comfortable and rest easy knowing that as a pleasant side-effect of your hydration and abundant urination, you are absolutely fucking glowing! Being a saboteur never looked so good! Your skin is clear and radiant and you are wasting company time. Keep it up you stunning fucking fox!

#5(?) As a means of sort of rounding things to a close, my last tip is meant to be taken as broad advice. It’s really more about a general attitude that encapsulates a deliberate indifference instead of being a direct tactic. In all things related to work, be a devout incrementalist. Let your tactics develop slowly, gradually and naturally over time. Develop yourself as a character (maybe with a sexy mustache? Vroom vroom, let's ride!) that performs increasingly elaborate eccentricities which ultimately cost the company whatever unnecessarily expended resources you can scrape out of their coffers. But don't be afraid to let your coworkers be part of that development. Oddities and quirks are often off-putting and can make you unlikeable when meeting new people. People don't like things that they have to think about and anything new or different is challenging. (Don't flatten yourself for the sake of passive resistance though. You are a beautiful, unique and loveable flower. Shining like a star is part of who you are so you better not hide that light you magical fucking goddess! But, maybe remove the shade slowly. Sensually even. Pull the cover down nice and easy and let little rays of light peek through for a while cause you don't wanna blind anyone, you glowing Adonis!) Part of this, and part of class solidarity at large, is being liked by your coworkers. (I know, applying praxis with people who might not explicitly agree with everything you believe. Ew, bummer.) Let them in early, be friendly and do your best to be approachable. Maybe you could try revealing your tactics as mildly embarrassing habits on par with being particular about how you tie your shoes? Or maybe you could be more matter of fact and quietly keep at it, offering a chat about it to whoever asks? There's no wrong approach and with some experimentation you can find what works best for you. Small, gentle reveals will be much easier for everyone to accept with enough time, dedication and consistency. (Hey?! It's fun right? Getting blasted with the same thought over and over again. Almost seems like a good tactic to employ. Just saying.)

When using any of these tactics, those you’ve learned from others or any of your own that you’ve developed it's a good idea to be careful and pay attention. If any of this is done carefully you can always fall back on some degree of plausible deniability (legal gaslighting) but it's best to just be careful and avoid direct confrontation from the get-go. You don't want to lose your job. And unless your coworker can absolutely be trusted (blood bonds are probably too extreme here but definitely not off the table, use your best judgement), or if you can make it sound so ludicrous that even if were they to tattle to management that you were actively sabotaging your own workplace that no one would believe it, probably don't tell anyone what you're doing. This might take something of a more creative approach depending on how you feel about committing to some light deception but coming up with a cool explanation for why you do __________ (insert tediously slow, annoying, persistently disruptive behavior/activity here) can also be a real blast. Heck, maybe you and your tabletop buddies can get together some weekend and design a whole character? (I don't know how tabletop games work. I've had sex lots of times with lots of different people. Sorry nerds.) The possibilities are endless. You don't have to lie but it is fun and I guarantee your boss has almost certainly lied to you. So, fuck 'em. (Your employer, as a corporate entity, business or whatever, despite being legally recognized as a person thanks to the 2009 Citizens United vs. FEC ruling, is physically incapable of experiencing or understanding your puny, outdated and puritanical feelings of guilt. Abandon morality! Reject theological and cultural authority! Be your own god! Become death and destroy what destroys you! Arise, arise! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride!)

Above everything else remember, you control the means of production. Your employer profits off of your labor by refusing to compensate you fairly. If you were being paid what you're really owed there'd be no profit to collect. By making your company as inefficient as possible you're simply doing your part to flex the power that comes with those realizations. You have the power to refuse being overworked. You have the power to tilt the balance and let your productivity reflect your wages. You can perform your own tiny little strike every day! Be creative! Have fun! Create the world you want to live in! Fuck work!

#writing #anarchism #sabotage #quiet quitting #queer author #queer #anarchist #fuck capitalism #anti work #fuck work #workers rights #passive resistance #resistance #anarchist writing

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 2 years

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“Can We Assimilate the Douk?” The Province (Vancouver). July 10, 1932. Page 39. ---- Is the government adopting a policy in regard to the Doukhobors which will end in assimilation of a great number of them? To what extent, indeed, can they eventually be fused into the life of the people of Western Canada? In this, the first of a series of articles, a man whose contact for years with the Doukhobors and whose knowledge of their language and the direction of their thought has placed him in an exceptional position to understand them, deals with the question. He treats the problem as it exists at the present moment. The language and style of the writer has been purposely retained. ---- By "DOUK." THE Doukhobor problem is much more complicated than the majority of people believe it to be. Let me attempt to interpret only its most important features. The myriad details are entirely disregarded. The historical background of the Doukhobors, which is very important, is only outlined. At present there are four distinct groups of the Doukhobors.

Sons of Freedom.

Community Doukhobors.

Individualistic Doukhobors, and,

Independent Doukhobors.

The first three groups are members of the religious sect of the Doukhobors which originated in the middle of the eighteenth century. The Sons of Freedom are the extreme radical side of this religious sect. The individualistic Doukhobors are the nearest to the Independents. The Independents are Doukhobors only by their origin. They have lost the traditional beliefs and customs of the rest.

GROUPS AND THEIR LAWS. The Sons of Freedom stress the religious side of life to the extent that they are no longer interested in material well-being. For the sake of their convictions they re willing to suffer separation from their relatives, torture and even death. Because they believe that Peter P. Veregin jr. has proved a traitor to the Doukhobor cause (he is not sufficiently religious in the sense they understand it, and they claim he does not lead a clean Christian life), the Sons of Freedom do not recognize his authority. Some of them, on several occasions, openly and publicly opposed his orders, defying him in front of the loyal Community Doukhobors. The Sons of Freedom live in communes.

The Community Doukhobors are also religious sectarians, but they devote most of their time to the acquisition of material possessions. They are loyal to their leader, P. P. Veregin jr., and implicitly obey his orders. They live in communes and form the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood Limited.

The individualistic Doukhobors are more or less loyal to the leader, and they still maintain the Doukhobor customs and traditions. But they live on individually-owned farms and do not surrender their earnings to the community.

This class has appeared only since the arrival of P. P. Veregin jr. to Canada; the latter did his best to bring back under his influence those who had left the community. Peter V. Veregin sr. did not recognize a person as a Doukhobor unless that person belonged to the community and lived according to its standards.

The independents are those who have forgotten their traditional beliefs and who do not recognize the authority of the leader. In most cases they are hostile to the community and to its leaders.

It is impossible to state the exact number in these groups. They are shifting bodies. An independent today may become an individualist in a month. A community Doukhobor may join the Sons of Freedom, or an individual may become a community Doukhobor. And movements in the opposite direction may take place.

Roughly there are now about 700 Sons of Freedom, 5300 community, 4000 individualistic and 5000 independent Doukhobors.

It is most important to know the trends of the movements of one class into another. Let it be well remembered that the Doukhobors are essentially ignorant people, who themselves are very vague about their religion. The writer does not presume that bit description of the Doukhobors' religion would be acknowledged by them. On the contrary, I am almost positive that my version would be considered a slander.

There have been many chivalrous attempts to describe the Doukhobor religion without hurting the Doukhobors' feelings. Of this type, that of Miss Phyllis Gregory is the best, "The Doukhobors" thesis submitted to the University of British Columbia:

"The Doukhobors possess high Christian ideals," she writes. "They simplified complex human existence to one standard, that of 'perfect man,' and claim that if each one bases his own life in very truth on the life of Christ so that his heart and intent are purest does away with the need of usual safeguards of society. The base of the Doukhobors' creed is their conception of the Deity as the soul of the world. They believe that God does not exist as a separate personal being. The Deity, according to them, dwells in soul of man, and directs him by its word within him. Hence the soul of man is a faithful image of God. The Christ continues to suffer in us now when we do not live in accordance with the behests and the spirit of his teachings.

CLAIM THEY ARE ONLY TRUE WORSHIPPERS. "According to the Doukhobors, the whole of the Old and New Testaments merely prefigure in some spiritual way the mysteries which are accomplished in every faithful man. The purity of the Doukhobors teaching is remarkable because they do not study religious books, 'not even the Bible, but the sayings of Christ and the teachings based upon them are passed down from one generation to another by word of mouth. It is astonishing that in such a manner they should have acquired a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures, especially of the New Testament.

"The Doukhobors proudly consider themselves as the only true worshippers of God, and deem that the rest of mankind is wallowing in superstition and idolatry. The Doukhobors, in their own fashion, believe in the immortality of the soul. God, who dwells in the souls of men, is immortal, therefore the souls must be immortal; but they entirely reject the Christian conception of immortality.

"They believe that the individual immortality of a man consists in the memory which the deceased leaves behind him among his fellowmen. They do not believe in either hell or paradise. The promise of future life that we find in the Scriptures refers to the future destinies of mankind on earth, and not to a life beyond the tomb in another world.

"There will be no resurrection and there will be no destruction of the visible world. Physical nature as the abode of an eternal God will last for ever. The difference between the present life and the future is this: Now the faithful have to live among sinners, whilst in the future they will overcome the sinners and will inherit the earth alone, though people will be born, will work and die, just as they do now."

FOUNDATION OF THEIR RELIGION. It would be incorrect to form a conception about the Doukhobors by adopting Miss Gregory's definition of their religious beliefs. Yet it would be vain to criticize the definition. Probably at some time of the Doukhobors history the leaders of that sect actually had that version.

The writer will try to explain their beliefs in the way he understands them:

The sect of the Doukhobors sprang into existence as a revolt against the glaring inequalities of the Russian social and economic life of the eighteenth century. It was a protest against the practices of the Greek orthodox priests and against the abuses of the government officials and autocratic landlords.

The foundation of their religion was formed by the following doctrines:

All people are children of God, and therefore are equals.

God dwells in the souls of man and He is the only proper guide to action. Being the embodiment of God every human being is entitled to the greatest degree of respect.

In different persons are - manifest varied shares of divine revelation. The greater share of this divine revelation gives to the possessor authority over the people with a smaller share of it.

Christ possessed the greatest share of the divine revelation. He was only a perfect man through whom God fully revealed.

After Christ,. God revealed himself through other human beings who were Christ's successors and equals. Those people, the Doukhobors' leaders, could interpret Christ's teachings, develop them and even improve upon them. The details of the Doukhobors' doctrine varied greatly from time to time, depending on the contemporary leader. The members of the sect were very sincere and ardent in their beliefs and they were ready to undergo any privation and persecution for the sake of what they considered to be the "truth." In the actual life their "truth" amounted to rejection of the authority of church, government and other person or organization unless favored by the leader. They proclaimed the Russian Czar, all governments and all churches as ungodly and refused to recognize their rights to demand compliance with their regulations.

The Doukhobors would have no priests nor temples. They stressed the point that the temple is any place where two or more persons meet in the name of God.

The Doukhobors always have been expecting the downfall of the government and of the existing churches in a very near future. They expect this now.

In the beginning of the history of the sect the Doukhobors' activity was limited to mutilation of icons of the Russian orthodox church. They did that because they considered the practice of worshiping icons as being idolatry. This practice of mutilation of icons gave them their first name, "Iconbortzy" (Iconoclasts) or "Iconobrostzy." The former meaning "the one who struggles against icons," the latter means "the one who throws icons about."

HOW THEY WON THEIR NAME. The church started its persecution of the Iconoclasts, but this only added to the zeal of the newly organized sect. The Iconobortzy began an open propaganda against the Russian orthodox church in general. They condemned its priests, its ceremonies and even its fundamental doctrines. The Doukhobors rejected the doctrine of Trinity, they proclaimed their conviction that Christ was not of a divine origin; they refused to worship Madonna and saints, they maintained that Scriptures were not inspired by God.

When the Doukhobors' rejection of the doctrine of Trinity became known by the high priests of the orthodox church the name "Iconobortzy" was changed into the name of "Doukhobortzy" (the very end of the eighteenth century).

This name originally meant "the one who wrestles against the Holy Spirit." The Doukhobors themselves mean by it a entirely different thing. According to their own interpretation, the name means "the one who wrestles (against evil) by spiritual means and not with carnal weapons."

Severe persecution followed. The stubborn sectarians were sentenced simply on their assertion that they belonged to the sect of the Doukhobors.

But intensified persecution only inflamed the sectarians. They began to oppose openly all government demands and regulations which contradicted their conscience.

DOUKHOBOR DOCTRINE IN 180O. The Doukhobors' doctrine at that time (1800) crystallized into four very definite rules:

1. Do not practice idolatry. 2. Do not recognize any authority except the divine authority of Christ and his successors, 3. Do not kill and do not oppose evil by violence (the refusal to participate in military service). 4. Consider each human being as your equal.

The persecution at the end of the eighteenth century prompted the government to appoint Senator Lojmrhin as a commissioner for investigation. His report was favorable for the Doukhobors. He blamed the priests for the inability to maintain the high moral standard of behavior appropriate to their position. Senator Lojmrhin recommended the emigration of the Doukhobors from the densely populated provinces into a district where they would not be able to curry their propaganda and to convert new members.

In 1801 the persecution ended and the Doukhobors emigrated to Faorida, where thev stayed for about forty years.

During the years 1841-42-43-44, the Doukhobors were transferred to Transcaucasia, then wilderness. This was done with the hope that the perpetual attacks of the savage and militant hillamen would force the Doukhobors to abandon their doctrine of non-resistance to evil by physical means. That hope was partly justified.

The economic structure of those settled in Transcaucasia was based on the principle of private property ownership. They prospered and increased in number. The temptation of material well-being following the compulsory abandonment of the principle of non-resistance to evil weakened the Doukhobors' moral force. Most of the members of the sect departed, more or less, from the requirements of their beliefs. They were willing to kill hillsmen who bothered them; many of the Doukhobors found it very difficult to defy the government by refusing to obey its orders and regulations. All this meant a degradation and even treason in the eyes of those who still remained faithful to their traditions and convictions.

The character of a leader who always played a prominent part in the history of the sect became of the utmost significance at that time.

In 1885 two persons became competitive heirs to the post of the leadership of the sect: Loyal to the government, Mr. Youbanoff, and Mr. P. V. Veregin, whose policy was extreme religious exultation and adherence to the ideals of the Doukhobors of old.

P. V. VEREGIN VERSUS YOUBANOFF. P. V. Veregin would not consider any compliance with the government demands, but prompted his people to return to the practices and customs of their ancestors.

About 8000 recognized Mr. Youbanoff as their leader and became loyal to the government. About 12,000 recognized Mr. P. V. Veregin, and this sect split also when Mr. Verigin introduced into their life three novel (for them) principles, which were:

Principle of absolute economic equality.

Vegetarianism, and,

Principle of internationalism.

The principle of economic equality meant redivision of the separate properties of the Doukhobors and life on the basis of communism.

The principle of internationalism emphasized the idea of the brotherhood of all human beings. For the Doukhobors this meant a forfeiture of the belief that they are a chosen people. This last innovation resulted only in the adoption of the new name. Verigin's Doukhobors began calling themselves "The Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood." The idea of being chosen people still persists in the minds of the orthodox Doukhobors.

About 5,000 out of 12,000 of Veregin's Doukhobors in Russia refused to redivide their possessions. They formed a third party, not exactly loyal to the government nor to Veregin, but who were not in opposition to either.

Only about 7000 of the Doukhobors remained loyal to P. V. Veregin and complied with the additional principles introduced by him. These emigrated to Canada in 1899. Their religious characteristics were:

Abhorrence of the practice of idolatry as understood by themselves.

Refusal to recognize any authority except that bestowed by God and revealed through a man whom they proclaimed as their leader.

Living up to the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence.

Belief in the perfect equality of men.

Adoption of the social and economic structure of their colony to that belief.

Vegetarianism.

The details of the tenet were and still are not well established. The Doukhobors themselves are very vague about them. Different Doukhobors had, and have, different ideas about God, future life, resurrection, immortality and paradise. The elders and, generally, the most ardent members of the colony adopted the ideas of P. V. Veregin. They will be described by the writer.

The 7363 Doukhobors who came to Canada in 1809 and 1900 varied in their degrees of loyalty to these six religious principles to which they were supposed to adhere. In due time the least ardent ones were seduced by the opportunities offered by Canada and became independents. The average orthodox Doukhobors lived up to the professed standards of Christian life. They formed a commune and named it the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood Limited.

The most ardent members of the Canadian Doukhobors not only lived up to the established Russian standards but improved upon them, progressed in their spiritual development, proclaiming that the time has come when they were expected by the Divine power to show humanity that its civilization is that of the evil one. According to them the duty of every Doukhobor became the rejection of almost everything that has anything to do with existing civilization. Some of them would burn money, machinery, things of luxury. Such religious zealots became the originators of the Sons of Freedom (1901). Many still belong to this type of people.

CAUSES OF FRICTION WITH GOVERNMENT. Till the arrival of P. V. Veregin in Canada even the most radical Sons of Freedom lived together with the community Doukhobors and carried on their anti-social propaganda.

P. V. Veregin drove them out of the community and proclaimed them enemies.

In their own minds the Sons of Freedom never separated themselves from the Community Doukhobors.

It is said there are many among the Community Doukhobors who more or less sympathize with the Sons of Freedom. Whenever friction arose between the Canadian Government and the Doukhobors, the Sons of Freedom were the first to remonstrate.

The principal causes for such frictions were:

1. Refusal to register deaths. 2. Refusal to send children to school. 3. Refusal to become naturalized. In every instance the Sons of Freedom played a prominent part. They were always ready to protest and to suffer for what they considered to be the truth.

The reason for the refusal to register deaths and, as a mutter of fact, to register births and marriages also, was the resentment by the Doukhobors at the interference of the government in what they considered their private affairs. The elders of the colony were afraid that by yielding to this demand of the government they might lose the hold on their separate members. Moreover, obedience to the registration law would mean the provision of the government with more information about the internal life of the community than was desired.

Those are the objections of the elders of the colony in general and of the leader in particular. The common members of the sect, if properly handled, could be persuaded to obey the registration law.

THEIR ANTIPATHY TO SCHOOLS. Peter Veregin stated the reason for the refusal to send children to school in 1914. He said officially, "we learned that the schools are very harmful because they teach the children the art of murder (referring probably to the fact that the children were subjected to the drilling, similar to that practiced in the army” and to the fact that, in some of the text books, certain famous personages were glorified, in spite of the fact that they participated in military activities). Moreover, the education received at school has a detrimental influence on the whole life of an individual. All educated people endeavor to earn their living in as easy a way as they possibly can. They even try to live by exploiting other people. Besides this, after having spent some time in school our children became disobedient to their parents."

In the case of the Community Doukhobors and the independent Doukhobors, the school problem does not exist any longer. Almost all send their children to school. The present leader, P. P. Veregin, is very definite in his desire to see the children educated in Canadian schools.

If, in the future, the Community Doukhobors should refuse to send their children to school, it will be a demonstration organized as a protest against some action of the government.

The Sons of Freedom never were induced to send their children to school. Their reasons, of course, have already been given.

The refusal to become naturalized lies in the fact that the Doukhobors refuse to take oath. They quote the New Testament and express their sorrow that other so-called Christians disregard this instruction of Christ.

It would be unwise to coerce the Community Doukhobors and the Sons of Freedom to take oaths.

The fear that, by becoming naturalized they will forfeit their immunity from military service has kept many of the independent Doukhobors from applying for citizenship papers.

Image captions: Main drawing: Before Magistrate John Carmel appear all Doukhobors of the Nelson district charged with parading in the nude. Up to the day this picture was taken, he had sentenced 381 Doukhobors, each to three years in prison. Of these 168 were women. Top right: On the same day this picture lent taken, grandmother and mother were sentenced to three years in penitentiary for parading in the nude, while, the baby became a ward of state, being placed in a foster home at the government's expense.

[AL: A rather informative piece with a deliberately provocative title and illustrations, showing the mass arrests and incarceration of Doukhobors in British Columbia.]

#nelson #interior british columbia #doukhobors #sons of freedom doukhobors #mass arrests #mass incarceration #passive resistance #political protest #refusal to serve #christian communalism #christianity in canada #russian immigration to canada #canadian history #suppression of dissidents #great depression in canada #british columbia history #Iconoclasm #pacifism

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