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Issue Number 13
In the beginning we had Corina, with her vision. She fell in love with this place and this people because it was free. The people who hate Corina say that she was just a dilettante, a bastard, a whore, and a power hungry person looking for worshipers. She may have begun that way, but that is not what she became. She began as a noble, a rich woman, someone with power. Then there was a wreck. It was as if it had broken loose some wellspring of change within her; it began deep inside and flowed out to change other people and perhaps this place too. But perhaps as Corina built freedom on Regina, Regina built Corina too.
When we talk about Corina, let’s talk about the things that she thought were important. Corina worked for social change and justice, not just by government decrees and writing a charity check. She talked to people about what they really needed to have a better life. Sometimes this involved changes in the government, like her reforms of the police department and the minimum wage law. But she not only worked to change the way things were, she listened to what people said about the way they should be changed too. Like when she heard that an honest cop couldn’t live on his salary, much less raise a family, she knew that was wrong. So she managed to get not just a raise for them, but a wage increase that doubled their salary, without raising taxes. But mostly change was Corina, there every day at the office, handling out food, medicine, a chance to train for a real job, a place to stay, air tax bracelets, listening to people talk about their real lives on Regina.
Corina didn’t spend much time talking about God, or what was going to be left behind her after she was dead. She talked a lot about responsibility though. That was the one thing that she had learned from her life in the navy as an officer and an addict. The buck always stopped with Corina. When she wanted you to do something, she told you exactly what she wanted and what it cost and then she tried to make it worth your while to do it anyway. Although she was trying to do the right thing, she understood that most people had more pragmatic motivations. That was O.K. with her too, "people have got to eat:" She stood up for truth and spoke for the people that she thought had no voice of their own. She didn’t demand that we think or say the same things she said, she just demanded an open dialogue about the future of Regina.
From her balcony she said "I believe that responsibility must accompany freedom, and I am willing to pay that price. That higher power has taken me down my people’s roads and because I followed them, I have come to receive the affection of men, women and children as no one else has. That is a reward greater than the ambitions of men for money, power and honor will ever achieve." She was happy with us, she believed that we were worth her trouble. She also believed that we were making lasting changes on Regina that would help ordinary people. She had no regrets.
Corina believed that the path to change was by working with people, not by violence. Time and again she told you that if the revolution resorted to violence, people would laugh us off and we would lose what we have gained. She was both wrong and right. In the end there were forces that she couldn’t persuade or change, that used violence against her. And she resorted to violence herself. Corina was taking personal responsibility for moving us forward in the only way that she believed was open to her. But perhaps she had been right all along about violence: our revolution is weaker without her vision.
We must not lose by resorting to violence. First of all, we will not win with force; the Regina Police and Imperial Marines can never let a mob win; they will keep raising the level of force until they win and we will be dead. The whole point of what Corina did in the park was to keep the rest of us alive and in the fight for reform. We must live to condemn them with our truth. Remember Corina said "Having witnessed what you have done to me, they will not make the mistake of opposing you openly, in ways that are easily crushed."
Corina’s fondest hope was that Regina would not be transformed by a government, but by an idea: that we are all personally responsible for making this the place we want for our children to live. After all, I can survive on many planets, but what kind of a planet do I want for my children? We were all Corina’s children. The most powerful thought that should guide our actions now is perhaps "if Corina could see us now, what would she say?" When she told us it was our revolution now, she also promised "I will be with them, and they will be with you, waiting and watching."
I’ve spent a lot more time talking about what Corina was trying to do, than about Corina herself, because she would have wanted it that way. We know that she loved us. For those of us that loved her, let’s make sure we don’t disappoint her.