Right, Left and Centre: The Politics of Some Canadians by Dave Jaffe. Chapter 31, Part Three.

         The Saviour And His Disciple; Chapter 31, Part Three.


    Gerry Coser was rescued from despair and hopelessness by Henry Afflick. Yet soon circumstances drove them apart.
    Gerry was a social democrat who belonged to the New Democratic Party. When Dave Barrett's N.D.P. government went down to defeat in the December 1975 B.C. election, Coser fell into a two week depression. "How can a government that did so many good things, be turfed out of office?' he would ask people. "It just isn't fair." A few years later he realized that maybe Barrett's government  had done too much in its three year three month time in power.
    Yet Henry Afflick wasn't a social democrat. He was an anarchist who didn't vote and didn't care to.
 He agreed with the anarchist writer George Woodcock's opinion of Barrett's government. "This brief N.D.P. government," wrote Woodcock, "did no more to shift British Columbia in the direction of a balanced socialist economy than its predecessor the Social Credit Party had done.".
    Afflick was a revolutionary who'd organized and led demonstrations against social injustice and the Vietnam War. "Social democrats like the N.D.P. bring in some good social programs," Afflick said. "But they don't change much. And when they meet up with strong opposition they cave in.
    "I'm  a revolutionary. I want to see capitalism overthrown, not reformed."
    Coser didn't want revolution. He saw them as violent, bloody and destructive affairs. Also Afflick criticized much of Coser's politics. Nor could he save money while Coser was  a fanatical cheapskate.
Meanwhile Afflick went through a mild nervous breakdown that Coser couldn't deal with. Yet in the end it was their politics that drove them apart.
    In late 1979 Coser went back to volunteer and then to work on the Downtown Eastside. The Downtown Eastside back then was a gritty impoverished area of Vancouver which had plenty of tough drinking places. Afflick on the other hand went back to school and then to university. He ended up in China while Coser remained in Vancouver.
    Many decades later Coser reflected on how Afflick had changed his life and helped him become a better person. "He saved me," he told a woman who had also known Afflick. "He taught me many things that helped me. Yet his politics weren't like mine and this was the main thing that ended our friendship."