The best-kept secret about the revolution just revealed is the third chapter of the book Glimpses into the Year 2100 by Ilan Shalif.
The best-kept secret about the revolution just revealed
Ri got up a bit earlier than usual on the second day of the 5-day end-of-year festival. He had an important schedule because of his mandate as member of the district assembly of delegates. The first thing was a meeting of the educational committee. The meeting was hosted by a neighbouring community. During the morning, they edited the final draft of their yearly report to the assembly of delegates. Immediately after the midday meal they shared at the host community’s dining room, they joined the other members of the district assembly for the accountability meeting.
Though the draft reports of all the committees were already available on the communication system, there was a non-redundant discussion at the assembly as nearly all committees were proposing some points to deliberate and to put on the agendas of the district grassroots communities for decision. The main point raised by the educational committee was to intensify the relations and visits of the older teens with the various city polytechnics so the passage to higher education would be smoother. The idea had been discussed the previous year by the city educational committee and a few district educational committees had accepted the challenge to be the testing ground, if approved by their district and grassroots communities.
The decision finally arrived at was that the new approach would be approved by the district grassroots communities, and a special programme would be developed for the two higher age-groups of the district’s high school. When the district assembly finally ended, they had a surprise waiting for them: they were invited to the 80th birthday party of Gil, a veteran of the city spokespersons at the time of the uprising that eventually became the 2050 revolution. He was a member of one of the grassroots communities of the district and had even participated a few times as guest at the district committee.
However, throughout the years he participated as a welcomed non-delegate at meetings of the city and district assemblies committees, though he refused to be formally delegated to any of them. It was a mystery all those years why he refused to be delegated to the district or city or any higher-level assembly of delegates. Though he was not a delegate to any inter-city assembly of delegates he was twice proposed as a special delegate to the world assembly of delegates, but even then he declined the offer. Rumour was he might use this birthday party to reveal the reasons for his strange reluctance to be delegated. And indeed, when the party was drawing to an end Gil called for a moment of quiet, and started to speak:
“You all know that before the revolution I was a member of this country’s specific anarchist federation for years. In the spokespersons’ assembly of the mass uprising of 2049, I was often delegated by my district collective to the spokespersons’ meetings of the coordination committees of various social struggle movements. The day when events in our city proved to be the turning point in the revolution has been written about in the history of the revolution. There was even a movie about the critical hours preceding the explosion of the bridge that prevented the last efforts of the State forces who were trying to disperse the spokespersons and suppress the uprising.
The movie, and all the other texts about these crucial moments, vividly describe the moment when I put forward a motion calling for a vote whether to continue the discussions and polemics or to block the State forces from entering the city. Some ‘consensus people’ objected to any vote as long as there was strong objection from the Leninist left and other reformists and the chairperson, who was also the head of his party’s central committee, just refused to put the motion to order to the vote. And, of course, you all know that I and a few other comrades forced him out of the chair. I replaced him and put the call for a motion to order to the vote.
The over-whelming majority supported it and discussions at that point ended. Immediately afterwards the usual two speakers in support and two against made their cases briefly, followed by the vote on the decision to block the State forces from entering the city. There was overwhelming support for blowing up all the bridges leading to the city, and this was immediately implemented. It was the point when the 2049 uprising turned into the full-blown 2050 revolution... But what you do not know, and what was never revealed, is that I did it on my own initiative — without any collective decision or deliberations... Because of this —and not as a form of self-punishment or guilt-cleansing, but as a precaution against any repetition of power-taking by me, on my own initiative — I refused, from that moment on, any mandate for any post involving decisions about other people — not even a specific mandate, if included the tiniest amount of power or authority.”
Making his way home after the party, Ri could see how fast these sensational revelations were spreading over the information system — first the district one, then the city system, quickly reaching the news headlines of the world main language feeds. As he entered their dwelling unit Ti, who was still up despite the late hour, excitedly shared the sensational news with him...