Pistis reclaims the Post (weekending October 10th 2020)

 

‽istis reclaims the Post (weekending October 10^th 2020)

This week ‽istis thinks again about ‘international days’[i] and finds plenty to choose from:

·        World Teachers’ Day

·        World Habitat Day

·        World Mental Health Day

·        World Migratory Bird Day

…much to ponder there but ‽istis is drawn to World Post Day, with October 9^th declared such by the Universal Postal Union Congress held in Tokyo, Japan in 1969.[ii]

 Apparently warranting a capital letter ‘the Post’ has a network of 650,000 offices and 5.3million staff globally and, as the UN webpage notes: ‘as Covid-19 spreads line wildfire… Posts have stepped in to offer everything from delivering critical personal protective equipment, testing kits and medications, to ensuring children receive their educational materials to continue their schooling from home.’

 And the ‘facts and stats’ are legion (first known postal document dating back to 255BC in Egypt; the ‘Penny Black’ – the world’s first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system issued in 1840 perhaps representing something of the British relationship with taxes…?), but a focus on postal communication perhaps, possibly, maybe reveals some important fault lines and questions for our times?

‽ public or private 

‽ monopoly or competition

‽ who pays: the sender or the receiver; pay up front or cash on delivery

‽ wanted or ‘junk’

‽ paper (plastic-wrapped extra) or digital

‽ the connecting personal power of a letter or card

‽ brown envelopes: in the red or in the black

‽ ever-swifter delivery of the desirable - or timely delivery of the necessary; immediate or delayed gratification

‽ manually processed or automated; delivered by ‘bots’ or drones

‽ stamps issued by nations alone or a united global body (the UN is the only organization in the world which is neither a country nor a territory that is permitted to issue postage stamps)[iii]

‽ the very nature of what is a ‘post’ (a ‘Tweet’, an Instagram shot, a Facebook upload, for example)

And, as may become particularly significant in the coming few weeks for the apparently ‘most powerful nation’, what is in the envelopes sealed and sent today (and perhaps contested later) could seal the fate of a President and so much more…

But for now ‽istis needs to ‘post’ this and ‘tweet’ about it - and also genuinely find a stamp for that birthday card for a relative!

© Pistis   

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders

 

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[i] https://www.un.org/en/sections/observances/international-days/

[ii] https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-post-day

[iii] Ibid