Fahrradsozialismus

Or One Got Fat, a 1963 propaganda film on bicycle safety.

I’ve never been much of a fan of the horror genre apart from perhaps enjoying them as period pieces in terms of production design & nostalgia for nostalgia sake. I can honestly say, however, that it is by far one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen – and I am including Turkish Star Wars & the 1962 Live action version of Astroboy, despite the fact that I was entranced by its frighteningly mesmerising albeit macabre narration by Edward Everett Horton (not to mention a plethora of good bad puns). You are hereby forewarned.

The messages are of course all perfectly sound, most of which you would expect today from any cycling advocacy campaign or a seasoned cyclist. Its realisation, resides in an entire different dimension of believability.

What construed as friendship or even fundamental human emotions (of course they are monkeys, after all) to the makers of the film is beyond one’s imagination. Just like many a classic horror movie, the members of the gang meet their gruesome demise one-by-one (including being flattened by a steamroller & falling into an uncovered manhole, naturally accompanied by sound-effects of hilarity) through their negligence of safety issues, the rest ride on with steady resolve, seemingly unconcerned towards their destination. The only child arrives safely without harm by following road rules, sits down, and devours the lunch of his companions, hence the title. Upon discovery that this child is in fact human, one probably shouldn’t be surprised at the capability of such cold-heartedness, but I don’t think social commentaries were part of the original intention of the filmmakers.

It really recalls the casualness with which pro-modern fairy-tales portray scenes of unspeakable violence, cruelty & general flagitiousness such as in Hansel & Gretel, The Little Mermaid & Little Red Riding Hood, as allegorical as they maybe, and as it is arguably in this case. Regardless of contemporary sensibilities towards such issues, the inherent experiential difference between the media to me would make the latter far more horrifying, especially as a child.

In addition to what one must be forced to interpret as humour, though undeniably morbid, again we see fear being used to punctuate the message of the film. Exactly how successful it was in enforcing the explicit message is unknown, and I can’t help but wonder just exactly how many children were traumatised & terrified out of cycling forever by this psychedelic Dantean journey through cyclic purgatory.

A spectre is haunting the road – the spectre of cycle socialism. All the powered vehicles have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Holdens & Fords, Nissans & Hyundais, moms in 4WDs & truckies with Semi-trailers. Not too distorted an image sometimes, especially if you are a commuter cyclist in one of the larger cities in Australia. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why only 1.3% of Australians cycle to work[1].

Comrades! Let us rebuke the inherent contradictions of motorised transportation and embraces indefatigably the virtues of cycling!

…or something like that. Politics, like most things in life, it is probably conducive to the general well-being of the individual not to take it too seriously (a sound advice so easily given but so difficult to follow for the hopeless romanticists). There certainly isn’t much - if indeed any - clear political motivation behind this site. The word socialism is used here most carelessly and in its most apolitical & confused sense, interpret it any way you will, for any ideological conjucturalities will be entirely your own.

Being an avid admirer of socialist realism, constructivism and the art of propaganda in general, I have always found the motivation behind, or at least what I interpret to be what should be the motivation behind, propaganda art strangely alluring. There is a sense of conviction that makes the statement, however crude, contradictory or even at times cruel, empowering and empathetic when done successfully. Such sensations are felt throughout life, but are more frequently encountered in religion & radical political movements. Like many, I tend to take a confused, idealistic, and thus often erroneous perspective towards the things I like, so most things I say won’t hold up against logical scrutiny or scientific facts, but to me that alone is a reason to embrace them, simply because of the fragility of what they might represent to an individual. But I digress - if a digression can be made without having establishing any point to begin with. It’s clear by now that I don’t tend to write neither very clearly nor very consistently, or indeed grammaticatedly, and what little sense should have existed often dissipates further as the paragraph progresses amidst random oscillations between bursts of goofy sincerity & torrential wanky cynicism.

So let us try again.

Initially a novelty amongst the social elite, bicycles played an instrumental part in early women’s liberation, and significantly extended man’s mobility without increasing the energy input. With the advent of the affordable automocar however, cycling as a mode of transportation has been on a gradual decline in most English-speaking world, with occasional spikes in usage when petrol prices sky rockets. It is true that cars furthered man’s mobility even more, and at the same time offered far better shelter against the elements with significant increase in cargo capacity, but are essentially very inefficient in terms of output & consumption, though it is difficult to compare figures when many conversions must take place to reach the same unit of measurement, let alone consider other extra-numerical factors. It is not for a humble mortal such as I to deliberate on the sublime that supposedly divides necessity & greed, but in a consumption-obsessed society, it is at least refreshing to even just consider whether such opulence is really necessary for reaching happiness or even just contentment - after all, that’s what we’re all here for right?

A bald man riding a water buffalo once said that excess dulls the senses (or some vague crap like that), without over-analysing what some old geezer supposed to have said thousands of years ago, there is some truth in such moralisations. Being literally reclusive (and increasingly so) at times, I often suffocate myself with useless data, be them from google, youtube, wikipedia, books, movies, etc, and in the end often feel drained & frustrated by the very things which were meant to enlighten, entertain & relax me. Yet when I cycle, even the sight of new buds on a tree, rabbits hopping cautiously away from the bike path, a kangaroo with a joey poking out of its pouch, even reflexive aggressions from magpies & ducks generates a sense of contentment seldom felt through all those artificial complexities. Of course different people will generate different associations from different things, but the sensation is essentially the same.

Through one of those random explorations into eclectic communist propaganda, I found the notion of Juche strangely appealing (in truth, I just liked the sound of the word, it has a certain vitality in the way it is projected, but I feel that way about most Korean words, perhaps one of those cyclical self-reinforcing processes). Regardless of how it is used (or misused) to reinforce the monolithic Kim regime, the “spirit of self-reliance” does describe one of the major motivations behind and indeed the very act of a commuter cyclist quite well, though perhaps experienced more as a passive, personal outlook rather than an active, collectivised ideological movement. Indeed to me there is also something intrinsically elegant about the way a bicycle optimises the usage of human power output.

Of course I will be criticised for not going nearly far enough, and should commute bare-footed & live in a cave (you’ve had it lucky! I’d've settled for hole on the ground!! Luxury! We dreamt of living in a hole on the ground!! and so on & so forth..). Indeed that is the problem with the so-called retro-progressivism, as with all ideologies, is exactly how far (back) do you go? That, I am afraid, will always be a personal question. To me, trying to do what you believe is right is a good start, and there really can’t be too much more to it.

I seem to have great difficulty in forming a single coherent paragraph of any relevace. So here’s another go. If I were Al Gore or Michael Moore, it might’ve gone something like this:

[sombre music, footages of smog/traffic congestions/oil drills]

For the year 2003 the global annual energy consumption per capita was 1,674.4 kgoe[2]. With Qatar topping the list at 21395.8, while an average Bangladeshi uses less than a hundredth of this. Most of the developed world consumes 2-4 times as much as the global average. Well I’m no scientist, and there isn’t an universal standard to measure what is over-consumption. I believe that there most probably never will be in a culture which actively endorses over-consumption. But one must start somewhere.

If I don’t kill myself operating this stats generator, here’s some stats:

In 2000-2001 41% of total energy consumption of Australia went to transportation[3].

In America 35% of the transportation sector consumption is by automobiles[4].

52% of all Australian car journeys are less than 5km[5].

For most people with even below average fitness, 5km means 20 minutes on a bike. The reduction won’t be much statistically, even in percentile terms. But imagine if populous nations like China & India, where amongst other things, air quality & traffic congestion are already near melt-down, were to reach even half the statistics of Australia, it simply would place unimaginable pressure on environment & energy production. It is however hypocritical & unfair for developed nations to caution against the pressure placed by developing nations on fuel supply[6], as it is only natural for those people to desire for a better standard of living with the West as exemplars of prosperity.

While the dinner-table socialist cum environmentalist belonging to the morally superior intelligentsia and bohemian bourgeoisie debating whether it is more environmentally friendly to use organic butter knives or I-can’t-believe-they’re-not-organic-butter-knives knives, whilst planning what to do with those blasted frequent flyer miles[7], it might be nice to know your self-justifications are just a little less contradictory.

[ note to self - forgot to insert joke about the Bush administration; need more buzzwords like eco-sustainability].. and so on

However, my aim is not to promote cycling for environmental or political reasons, for I don’t know nearly enough to make any comment on things like the impact of further mass motorisation on climate change, let alone the wider socio-economic ramifications of cycling as the basis for an grassroots movement of post-anarcho-syndicalist neo-pacificism. Besides, they are far too serious (read overly self-righteous & kinda boring - not that they are not good reasons though) as justifications for cycling. If there’s a definite purpose at all for these verbiated logorrhea, it is to show that regardless of whether you prefer lycra or laces, cycling can be done in style and is enjoyable. But wait, there’s more - at no extra cost, good health is thrown in, and as a compromise between speed & efficiency, it is indeed one of the more optimal[8] [9]. Particularly for Canberrans, with cycling conditions many in Australia and indeed the world could only dream for, it’d seem like a waste not to give it a go.

If this site evoked for just one more person some ridiculously romanticised imagery of cycling, or rekindled that nostalgic ride down memory lane, and made him/her want to hop on a bike (again), then we are a step closer towards our cycle socialist utopia, as much a mirage as it might be.

Cyclists of the World, Unite!

e-mail me at: fahrradsozialismus{.a_t;}gmail.com

[1] Australia Cycling - Bicycle Ownership, Use and Demographics – July 2004 (draft)

[2] EarthTrends, World Resources Institute - Energy Consumption: Total energy consumption per capita

[3] Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet - AUSTRALIA’S ENERGY SECTOR

[4] Energy Information Administration - Transportation Energy Use I can’t locate comparable Australian statistics, but it should be similar.

[5] Cycling Promotion Fund - CYCLING > Moving Australia Forward

[6] CNN.com - China factor driving oil prices

[7] Royal Commission on Environmental Poullution - The environmental impacts of aircraft in flight

[8] Ira Woodhead & Frank Keller - Degrees of Self-powered Mobility

[9] World Watch Institute - Matters of Scale - Bicycle Frame