United Nations (and more global citizens)
A quick addendum to my recent post asking Who are the global citizens?
I find it somewhat amusing, but also more than a little appropriate, that a local drug gang apparently calls itself the United Nations.
It’s amusing in that you can just imagine these guys thinking they’d thumb their noses at powerful formal institutions such as the (“real”) United Nations. It’s like: “Look at us! We’re the United Nations now!”
But it’s also appropriate. Not simply because the gang was indeed multiracial and international. But because surely (like Haitians, tourists, and terrorists), drug smugglers are also good examples of global citizens, seeking to traverse national boundaries, indeed to leave the orbit of the nation state.
3 Responses to “United Nations (and more global citizens)”
“Senior prom – class of ’09 – WOO!”
That’s what runs through my head every time I see this pic right now.
Your point about drug dealers being global citizens is well taken. They might be the most global of citizens in that their universally illegal practices lead to them ignoring borders more than anyone else.
Yeah, a couple of them clearly didn’t get the memo about the dress code, but most are duly outfitted in jacket and tie. It’s as though they’re looking for a strange kind of respectability.
Meanwhile, I’m obviously trying to be a little provocative by calling drug smugglers “global citizens.” Just as they’re trying to be provocative, I think, by calling themselves the “United Nations.”
But the point is also to think much more carefully what might be meant by the concept of “global citizenship.”
Abbotsford bred the UN, like Surrey but with rich and poor highly seperated. I would not laugh at this picture. I would like shut the fuck up