A new era: Appalachia rises
By Danny Mayer
The banner headline Saturday morning in the Herald-Leader read “Egyptians welcome new era.” The accompanying photo appeared to be a close shot of photographer Hussein Malla’s hand flashing the Peace/Victory sign as he looked down on a celebratory crowd at Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The lead line to the lead story noted that the revolt against dictator president Hosni Mubarak was “led by the young people of Egypt.” Inside the paper, journalists expressed concern for Israel and pondered which Mideast country would fall next to people power. On TV, analysts wondered if democracy would jump the Atlantic, spread to Mexico and topple Felipe Calderon.
In Frankfort, Kentucky, at the capitol building, a group of between thirteen and twenty Kentucky residents woke up Saturday morning with stiff backs, having spent the previous night on the floor of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear’s outer office while staging an act of (semi-condoned) civil disobedience. Some of the civilly disobedient are pictured in the Saturday Herald-Leader, a smaller front page photo below Malla’s hand, under the headline, “Protesters told they can spend the night.”
The picture’s caption reads: “Gov. Steve Beshear, hands clasped, listened to an anti-coal statement by author Wendell Berry, right, on Friday in the Governor’s Office reception area in Frankfort. Dissatisfied with the meeting, Berry and his group vowed to occupy the office until arrested, but Beshear said they wouldn’t be ejected and could stay the weekend.” Their backs are stiff this Saturday morning because the majority of the occupiers top fifty years of age. Their bones are no longer young. Sleeping on the floor in your clothes ceases to be fun at thirty. It ceases to be fun for all ages on night two.
The group, called Appalachia Rising, eventually spend three nights in the governor’s office, leaving around noon Monday to join the crowds at I Love Mountains Day. As a result of their direct action, the governor has promised to travel to Eastern Kentucky to view mine sites with area residents. The coverage has allowed regional newspapers to keep a steady focus on Beshear’s cretinist lawsuit against the EPA. Reporters for the Kentucky Kernel, a publication long suffering from apolitical detached reporting, became embedded in the Governor’s office and informed, and have begun exciting reports on mountaintop removal that now keep their student peers (and their faculty and staff) informed. People from around the world sent expressions of solidarity.
It would be easy to call the activists holed up on thin cheaply-carpeted floors in Frankfort this weekend heroes, but they are not. They are not graced with superhuman skills. They are not blessed with superior intelligence. They are not even particularly young or hip.
So let’s say it straight. Appalachia Rising are teachers and nurse practitioners, retired coal miners and state police radio technicians, filmmakers and students. Their backs stiffen. Their bladders fill quickly. They miss their loved ones and homes, must go to work, attend to other life things. They are you and me.If they are exceptional, it is only because they, like the Egyptians who took to the streets demanding change, take serious their commitments to democracy.
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