How two planter pots tell the story of the scourge of smoking at Southgate

A human battle recently ensued outside of Southgate’s upper-level atrium as centre management sought to enforce its no-smoking expectation. There’s no argument from me.

Southgate is entitled to administer its property as it wants, while at the same time smokers should be free to smoke with a minimum of inconvenience. What draws me to this battle is the role that trust unavoidably plays in this and many other human encounters.

Good, productive relationships don’t result when battles end and one party or another wins. Instead, it is when trust is either established or restored.

Southgate management made serious efforts to prevent smoking. It removed outside ash trays and sent staff to move smokers on. Weeks later the smokers remained, and an impressive symbol of their defiance appeared.

Two planter pots that contain large palms were littered with cigarette butts. The smokers never gave in and the planter pots, since cleaned, became a cultural installation that bore testimony to the most basic human drive, “I’ll do as I please”.

The planter pots captured and communicated bold human stories. Stories about the freedom to choose, and the freedom to gather with others who value those same choices. Those freedoms were enacted in the planter pots, ready to stimulate our reactions and draw us towards participating in the conflict. Whose side might you take?

With the smoking continuing and the planter pots now cleaned it looks as though one group has won, but what lasting good was really achieved? I assume that centre management still wants its no-smoking expectation to be respected, and so it seems that its only option is to either escalate the conflict or give in. Both these options come at costs that likely far outweigh any benefits. Are there other ways to resolve this?

In an article published in Intereconomics Erik Clanton explored how the European Union sought to leverage positive and progressive social capital in ways that focused on inclusivity and sustainability. This led to outcomes that were good for everyone.

Those outcomes, according to Clanton, were grounded in trust shared among all concerned. He wrote, “popular support for the social contract breaks down when … trust is diminished.” Responding that “you’ll do as we please,” is not the opposite of “I’ll do as I please.” They are variations of the same sets of authoritarian values and actions. They rarely lead to any common good.

So, instead of pouring costly resources into defeating opposition or transferring the real costs of a conflict to palms and planter pots (as in our local case), Clanton suggested co-constructing (and not legislating or imposing) trusting relationships that have the capacity to imagine and create sustainable outcomes that are good for all.

What would it take for people to freely gather and smoke while also respecting the wishes and responsibilities of those who own and maintain that space?

Trust is more than negotiated compromise. It comes when people enter into the struggles and lives of those they consider opponents and commit to their good. Within the Christian tradition this begins with what we give up, not with what we win for ourselves.

Jesus said, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43). Committing to our opponent’s good is the “other” way to manage the human conflicts and dramas that this article wonders about.

Our Southgate planter pots and palms told our story. Was it the story we wanted told? What would be good? •