Yesterday, I was introduced to a Canadian figure. His name is Norman Bethune. There is a very good biopic made by Donald Brittain, which is hosted for free on the NFB’s website. The movie which runs just short of 1 hour, covers Bethune’s awesome life up to his very unfortunate demise. It was enough to make him a personnal hero of mine.
When the movie was over. There was a quiet silence in the small room where the Bethune Cell, a new communist group, was presenting the work. Some people were trying to cry while making as little noise as possible, including I. There was something so poignant and true about Bethune’s life and actions, that the movie managed to cleverly put that forward in a blend of humor and drama. The movie, simply called ‘Bethune’ displayed with simplicity and profoundness, a mind aspiring for something fundamentally good, and striving for it with one definitive motion. I have to say, this movie was very inspiring for me.
The movie is a good example of how single individual can place themselves in a position to exercise a great influence on their environment. It is a very good demonstration of a ‘philosophy of action’ which I believe to be quite important for me, and that I want to apply to my own life even if the current society makes it very difficult.
There was something genuinely groundbreaking in Bethune’s philosophy and actions, which I believe everyone aspiring to do good can take inspiration from. It shows that a single person with a lot of inner strength, willpower and tremendous energy, can change the world for the better. It is the kind of figures which are missing from our history books and classes, and the lack of these figures creates apathy in us and makes us unproductive.
We have to go out of our way to find stories like this one, which is unfortune.
That Bethune was an unlikely person, makes no doubt.
The movie shows Bethune under many lights, including those of a painter, a teacher, a guardian angel, but also doesn’t shy from displaying his darker angles: his overindulgence, his harsh manners, and some of his hurdles in matters of love. This is what makes the movie very special.
Since the ‘truer Truth’, is that there is a Norman Bethune within all of us. At once an angel and a devil, which inspires in us a capability to do more, to transform reality, to manage between chaos and order.
A speaker, whose name escapes me, followed the movie with a presentation, remarking that Bethune was indeed a ‘hero of our time.’ As a type 1 diabetic, I am deeply concerned about access to healthcare, especially in light of recent Canadian news reports that highlight the growing difficulty many individuals face in securing timely medical attention.
For example, lengthy wait times have become an all-too-common issue in Canada’s healthcare system. Patients can wait for hours in emergency rooms or spend months, if not years, waiting for elective procedures. A study from the Fraser Institute found that Canadians experienced an average wait time of 20.9 weeks for specialist treatment in 2020, a significant increase from previous years.
Additionally, rural communities face unique challenges in accessing healthcare, with fewer doctors and medical facilities available. In some areas, residents may need to travel long distances to receive essential medical care. This problem is exacerbated by the ongoing physician shortage in Canada, which has left many without a family doctor or access to primary care.
Social work is under threat
The story of Bethune has made me reflect on the role of social workers and activists in general. One parallel that comes to mind is the history of Quakerism and the life of John Woolman, a man known for his influential journal. Woolman lived in incredible simplicity during the mid-1700s as part of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, a Christian sect that established itself in some American states after being chased out of England due to their beliefs.
Woolman is special in his own right, as he ascribed to a very unusual philosophy for his time and was one of the first to advocate publically for the end of slavery. He described slavery as a ‘dark gloominess hanging above the land,’ among other peculiar views at the time. Like many of his contemporaries, Woolman also offered many services including health care and ‘last rites’, and traveled the United States preaching a gospel of love. It’s quite an interesting read, if you happen by a copy of his journal. I have two, one from the Harvard Classics series and a second, older edition I’ve acquired recently.
In the last 40 years, there has been a total engineered destruction of personalities like Woolman and Bethune by global rulers. This massive destruction of social systems, combined with new pervasive and isolating technology, has resulted in a human civilization that is both catastrophic for the common man and utterly unsustainable.
This systematic and engineered destruction can be partially attributed to the vilification of ideologies which are ‘socially oriented’ such as religion and social-communism. Society has destroyed religious belief and practice without replacing the significant contributions religious institutions made to social order, such as in hospitals and education.
We often blame religious people for the harshness of colonial education and health care but forget the difficult battle they wrought with little resources (for one, Tuberculosis, which is no concern today).
Similarly, social-communism has been demolished as a belief system, with governments dismantling social-communist efforts in numerous ways. The speaker of yesterday’s movie highlighted the defunding of local health centers (known as CHSLD in our Canadian province) in favor of funding massive centralized hospitals and their boards of doctor-administrators.
These ideologies, which once promoted a ‘culture of giving’ and ‘philosophy of action’, have been more and more discouraged in modern times. Furthermore, revolutionary movements have been replaced by a ‘fake’ internet-based cancel culture that prevents people from directing their anger towards their real adversaries, creating scapegoats instead. By systematically destroying faith-based and social-communist outlooks on life, capitalist society isolates itself under the pretense of being the only solution. This new tolerable ‘anger’ in the form of cancel culture allows capitalist elites to maintain and reinforce their grip on society’s throat, leaving society gasping for air.
What to do now
The movie ‘Bethune’ sparked a lot of new ideas in my mind. I always feel like I don’t involve myself enough. This might be the push I need to start something new.
Although I don’t have any medical skills, the answer to what I can do personally lies in following my own inner passion and using it for good.
I’ve spent the last few years studying creative programming, which might not be the most useful skill in our collapsing world compared to food farming or medicine. However, code is very empowering and it can be a tool for imagination. It can lead to countless avenue, that go well past the initial domain in which you might learn the tool.
Recently, I’ve picked up more and more teaching, and seeing the kind of positive impact it can have on student has been empowering. However, school is very expensive for most students, and I’ve been considering other ways to give knowledge to adamant learners: like putting together a few written tutorials and/or creating some videos and possibly creating some sort of club where I can teach for free.
I also want to try to help people in the street more. It seems like there is more and more of that, and we could all respond more gently to this rising concern.
There’s also the matter of my illness, T1D. So I was thinking about how it might be beneficial for other people in the same boat as me to see how I pulled through with this annoying illness. Maybe I will share some information about that in the future.
Anyway, that’s all for today. Thank you for reading.
It’s been a while since I used this blog, but I’ll try to post more regularly from now on.