When pedal power gets a new handle

Socialism, observed Ivan Illich, proceeds at the pace of a bicycle, implying that this mode of transport provides an equitable median between an underprivileged walkabout society and one prodigally dependent on fossil fuel-guzzling automotive propulsion.

While it is neither socialist in ideological inclination nor particularly mindful of environmental or health issues, the central Asian nation of Turkmenistan — which boasts of not having a single case of coronavirus infection — celebrated International Bicycle Day this week when several thousand government officials, led by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, took to the streets of the capital city of Ashgabat riding velocipedes with no thought of maintaining a sanitary degree of separation from one another.

The show of jam-packed solidarity was facilitated by the fact that Turkmenistan has the distinction of being, after North Korea, the most repressed polity, with its citizens informed by dictatorial decree that their tongues will ‘shrivel up’ if they say anything against their leader.

However, in what might be called a cycle of change, both dissent and social distancing are voiced by the singer who turns down her fiance’s nuptial travel arrangements with the refrain, ‘To hell with your stylish marriage/ If you can’t afford a carriage/ But I’ll be damned if I’ll be crammed/ On bicycle made for two.’