Pedro | λ retweetledi
There’s a story from Václav Havel about a greengrocer living under communism.
Each day, he places a sign in his shop window: “Workers of the world, unite.”
He doesn’t believe it.
He barely thinks about it.
He puts it there because everyone else does.
Because refusing would cost him.
The sign tells the system what it wants to hear:
“I am obedient. I am safe. I will not disturb the lie.”
Havel understood that regimes are not always held together by belief. But by millions of small performances of compliance.
The same is true now.
But our signs don’t look like communist slogans in shop windows.
They look like pretending the economy is healthy while families cannot afford homes.
Pretending platforms connect us while they atomise and surveil us.
Pretending politics offers choice.
Pretending institutions will save us, even as they prove time and again that they do not keep their promises.
To stop putting up the sign is to stop lending your obedience to the lie.
But refusal is not enough. We must build.
Parallel economies, education, mutual aid, communication.
Parallel systems of trust, coordination, and exchange.
This is the work of the parallel society.
Not escape. Not despair. Not waiting for permission.
But a refusal to live within the lie, and a commitment to build what comes next.
Stop putting up the sign.
English
