It must have been a quarter of a century ago, probably more.
I was in my early teens and we were living in a small town in the center of France. My father and I went to the supermarket near our home.
We parked on the southern end of the supermarket and walked toward the entrance. As we were about to walk into our town’s biggest lifeline to the world of consumerism that was the local Carrefour at the time, I noticed men standing by the revolving doors holding clipboards and stopping people who were walking in and out of the supermarket.
There were about three of them gravitating around the entrance, and, as we approached, I noticed that the closest one to us was receiving a few francs from an old woman, after talking to her for a few moments and letting her sign a paper from his clipboard. Once the transaction was over, the man, who seemed to be in his late twenties or early thirties, approached us and said: “Bonjour messieurs, we are gathering funds to support children who are victims of anti-personnel mines”.
Anti-personnel mines was one of those media’s darling subjects at the time. Before the mad cow’s disease, or even the Y2K bug were even a cause for nationwide concern, the media reported extensively about the tragic fate of children from faraway war-torn countries, from Cambodia to Subsaharan Africa, who, decades after war was over, would still step on antipersonnel mines and lose a limb. Campaigns had been launched calling for people to give money to get rid of the mines, which seemed like a daunting feat, as certain areas were filled with more hidden mines than there were humans populating them. As a teenager back then, I was appalled at the thought that such a reality could still exist for a child born in modern times. And yet, it did. And the media was there to remind us of it.
Back when news cycles were longer than our current internet-induced ADHD era’s 24 hours, media outlets could really milk a topic like that for a solid month or two. Back then, the news were left to professional journalists, who knew how to guilt the populace at its heart, with prime time images of amputated kids that made the well-to-do bourgeois middle class choke on their dinners. It was professional guilting, on another level from what we have today: none of those opinionated activist-for-a-day, self-serving concerned-citizen Facebook posts about global warming.
And so that day, smack in the middle of that antipersonnel mine news cycle, it felt like providence to be approached by a man who cared about such a pressing issue, and actually gave us a chance to make a difference. After all, it wasn’t everyday, in a town like mine where nothing ever happened, that you were given the chance to make a change. It was actually the first time I’d ever seen people rallying for such a cause in our town.
It was only natural then that I would be drawn to the man as he approached with a compassionate voice and pleading eyes. I wouldn’t say I was ready to contribute financially, especially not given my personal financial situation, but I was ready to hear the man.
But before I even had time to slow down and stop to listen to the activist, my father stopped right in front of him, and, with all the assurance in the world, and the loudest voice anyone has ever spoken in that temple of consumerism that is Carrefour Vierzon, he replied, wholeheartedly:
“Antipersonnel mines, you say? Well, I heartily support them!”
I felt my heart sink down to my stomach. I stopped seeking that soothing eye contact with the man in front of us, and stared down at my shoes as we passed by the turnstiles leading to the supermarket aisles.
As we walked deeper into the supermarket, I heard the man berate my father: “You support them, do you? Well, that’s just great! Shame on you, sir, shame on you!”
I continued following my father through the supermarket, staring down as I felt the gaze of an entire small town weighing upon me. My father talked about practical things, going through the shopping list. It might have been eggs, it might have been milk, it might have been bread, it might have been all of the above or something else, I don’t remember. All that I remember is that I wanted to be anywhere but there. All that I remember is that I wanted my father to address what had just happened.
The ten minutes we must have passed in the supermarket felt like an eternity, and as we approached the cashier, I started dreading the very thought of having to pass by those activists again. Were they going to call on us again, would my father retort something again? Why couldn’t we be like that old woman, and give a couple of francs, or even just respond with a polite “thanks but no thanks” and get on with our day? It’s not like those men were hurting anyone.
As we were packing the groceries into plastic bags, my father finally addressed the issue. I forget exactly how it came up, but he started with something along the lines of: “It’s like those guys, there at the entrance earlier. They’re crooks, hypocrites, who guilt clueless old women into giving money, piggybacking on the misery of others. I guarantee you those guys are con men.”
We walked by them, and, just having heard my father’s explanation, I already felt a lot more confident about facing their potential outrage as we walked by them.
It turned out they didn’t say anything. And I soon found out why.
As we stepped just a few yards onto the parking lot, we heard police sirens drawing closer. I turned back, and noticed that, in a matter of seconds, the men had disappeared. It was a thing to behold, almost worthy of its own Vegas magic show. Now you see them, now you don’t.
“See?” My father told me, looking at me, laughing. “Those idiots just disappeared, just like that.”
He opened the door to the car. We loaded the groceries into the trunk, and we drove away. But as we did, I felt a certain sense of pride for my father. He could have just said no, but he decided to call their bluff. He decided to fight back on those people’s terms. The whole scam was based on playing people’s guilt, and by saying something that outrageous, he just showed them that guilt wasn’t something they could exploit.
The rest of the day was ordinary as could be, just another day in our boring, peaceful little town.
Meanwhile, on that day, halfway across the world, if the statistics are correct, at least one innocent child stepped on a landmine.
Today, thousands of people a year are still killed or maimed by land mines, in Cambodia alone.
But the media have long since moved on.