In the autumn of last year, the world found itself confronted with the disfigured reality of politics in the post-Economic Zombie apocalypse era. The UK (mostly England) and the United States are still poised precariously on the edge of oblivion, staring with horror into the yawning, rotten abyss day after day, waiting for that last push. But in the UK, at least, we have also been witness to the passionate response to the ideological equivalent of having the marrow sucked from your shin bones as you brandish a rusty apple-corer in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitably violent death that looms in your very-near future.
In many countries across the world the last six months have seen the people finally stand up, wrench their dismembered limbs from the slobbering gobs of the undead, and proceed to beat the political zombies roundly about the head with them. Some are still embroiled in that struggle.
But this kind of response itself actually contradicts the diagnosis of political zombieism. No, if you want to see a rising horde of political zombies, you need look no further than the maple-syrup guzzling, beaver-ridden, hockey-playing, Tim-Horton’s-chugging, apologising, baby-seal-clubbing nation of Canada, my beloved motherland.
Perhaps the quietest zombie apocalypse took place here. There was a skirmish or two, and there existed secret pockets of survivors, cuddled up next to their laptops with only Facebook groups and the odd hashtag to spread their message of hope. But across the nation the majority seemed to have watched the decaying jaws gnawing on their fibulas and tibulas and thought “meh” before helpfully salting and offering up their juicy rumps as a suitable entrée.
"The best meat is in the rump, Mr Prime Minister. Help yourself."
It wasn’t so much that Canadians were violently oppressed, or even threatened into compliance. For almost six years it seemed as if most of them just couldn’t be bothered. They watched as the Conservative government gnawed at the Achilles tendons of Canadian women and carried on with their sudoku. They shuffled their feet awkwardly as that same government disembowelled the Kelowna accord, a $5 billion, 5 year plan to improve the lives of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit peoples. They toyed absently with their Martini olives as their elected government went all corn-on-the-cob on the sternum of global climate change efforts (a move so dastardly and low that the country risked being suspended from the Commonwealth).
And, most bizarrely, when that very government was finally given a vote of non-confidence after having been found in contempt of parliament (this is some heavy shit), a nation which should have been infuriated actually played with the possibility of giving those monsters even more power.
I had to stare at Harper's face for a gut-wrenchingly long period of time to zombify him. If he wins the election, I am going to break something.
The truth is that the number of Canadians who actively support the prospect of having their giblets roasted in the parliamentary ovens has always been the minority. But the number who have remained silent, who have holed up in their political bunkers with their tinned spam and baked beans and travel-sized Connect-Four to wait things out is disheartening to say the least.
The last six weeks, however, have finally seen a turning of the tides. The zombie hordes are not, by a long shot, defeated yet. But the number of those willing to pry their half-eaten dignity from the cold, dead hands of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper &co. has risen, and continues to rise. It should be no surprise that the more active people became, the more the polls started to swing away from a Tory majority. The Harper Government may not be licked yet, but at least we have hope. And most of us still have our spleens.
And when the ballots are cast on Monday, 2 May 2011, we’ll just have to hope that that’s enough.
