About Apricots for Dignity and Democracy!
Apricots for Dignity and Democracy!
All proceeds are donated to Democracy Now!
A great gift for anyone who believes that democracy and dignity are a more positive way to work together at every level! Place your apparel order by clicking here.
Illustration by Ian Nagy
Fifty years ago, this fall, I was studying Russian history, and also anarchism, in my years as an undergrad at the University of Michigan. I was drawn to the subject not because I admired the way Russia was run, but rather because I was both fascinated and inspired by the people who pushed back against the autocratic regimes that have ruled the country for all but a few years out of the last five hundred. With my history degree in hand, I ended up washing dishes in a local restaurant. What was meant originally as a way to kill time while I figured what to do next, turned out to actually be what I would do with my life. In fact, I have spent all the years since my graduation working every day with artisan food. As our small business grew larger, I began too to study leadership, and what I quickly found is that running companies is not all that different than running countries. Finding inclusive, dignity-based ways to lead is what we’ve been doing in our organization for the 44 years since we opened in 1982.
In hindsight I have come to realize that the way we were running our business was, very imperfectly, a creative way to bring democracy and dignity to life in down to earth, meaningful ways.
Over the course of recent years, I have, as you likely have as well, become increasingly anxious about the rise of authoritarian governance here in our country. And with that I have begun to understand what the people who resisted autocracy in Russia over the centuries we’re facing. I started to understand with ever greater clarity what author Lauren Grodstein, who has spent a good deal of time in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus says, “The fight for democracy is not the work of a month or two, but of years—of, perhaps, a lifetime.”
Sometime last spring I started to realize that while many people were opposing autocracy, there was really no positive symbol around which people who cared about dignity and democracy could come together. On the one hand a symbol is just a symbol. When I read the work of author and writing coach Susanna Barlow, I started to understand that a symbol can come to have great significance. Barlow writes,
Symbols help us make sense of the world around us. We use symbols all the time. But usually in an unconscious way. Choosing to create symbols that have meaning for you particularly can be useful in managing all sorts of difficulty. … symbols have long served to help us make sense of our place in the world, to give meaning to our lives and help us deal with fears. It creates a sense of purpose.
As I considered what might work, I was reading the work Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk. Yakimchuk, who fled her native Donbas region with her husband and young son back when Russia invaded in 2014—a few months after what became known as the Revolution of Dignity—wrote a line in one of her poems that has stayed with me since I first read it:
Where no more apricots grow, Russia starts.
As soon as I first read that sentence, I had my answer. Yakimchuk’s opening line—from a poem entitled “The Apricots of Donbas”—did a lot of what poetry can make possible for me. Those seven words gave me understanding, hope, and an image of what I want to steer clear of—and of what I am committed to creating. Last spring, I realized that her words helped me to see what symbol might help me hold course in these challenging moments: the answer is apricots.
I have been working with apricots ever since. Thanks to the beautiful scratchboard illustration by Ian Nagy and the skill and generosity of the crew at Underground Printing, we now have these great t-shirts!! Having already worn one—and had a lovely apricot pin in my jean jacket all summer—I will say from experience that the images of apricots regularly catch people’s attention. The fact there are no words, invites the most common response: “Oh wow! That’s nice! What is it?” Which in turns creates exactly what democracy is all about: conversation and a calm sharing of ideas.
All the proceeds from the shirt go to Democracy Now!!
If you like the idea, you like Ian’s illustration and you like the shirts, please spread the word!!!!
They make great gifts and are a wonderful positive symbol that honors nature, brings beauty to the world and gently spreads the message. Democracy Matters!
ari weinzweig, author, "A Revolution of Dignity in the Twenty-First Century Workplace"