Category: Prison

Home. Choices. Or not.

WELCOME: SHALOM: AHLAN WA SAHLAN: DUMELA:

GOEIE DAG

This is heavy.

This is serious.

This is long.

This is challenging.

This is a conversation that roars in my head so so often.

(See “Home” below written in 2016.)

But I notice, I only raise with very very selective friends.  

Fearful of the backlash. 🤐

It seems to me we live now in a world where the fear of ‘saying something someone may not like’ means we say nothing, about anything that isn’t mundane and ‘safe’ 

Long gone are the days of my youth in South Africa where politics

(and the other taboos of sex and religion🤣) was a constant topic. 

 A debate round dinner tables, in the street, everywhere.   

We talked, shouted, railed,

but we also listened.

I remember clearly Desmond Tutu talking, cajoling and shouting out for us to hear, reminding us; 

Share the Joy- Desmond Tutu : admired and loved by many

to remain silent in the face of injustice is to take the side of the oppressors 

(See “Cry My Beloved Country” below)

Hiding behind ‘what if I offend’ is to compromise who I am and makes me feel like a sheep being led to the proverbial.  😏

So I Lean on the courage of a remarkable woman, Claire Thomas,

whom I am lucky enough to call a friend; and share one of her posts.  

It is long; it will take commitment and time to absorb,

perhaps shared with a coffee or stronger.   

It may challenge a perspective, or not.  

 That’s okay.  

It may open a conversation.  

That’s great.

It may highlight how we condemn and condone.  

That’s good. 

It may make your eyes glaze as you pass by it.   

That’s sad.

Regardless, I am sharing.  

Acknowledging that my bravery is only partly mine,

I ride on Claire’s shoulders

(I was going to post this to a global privacy setting,

and at the last minute, didn’t.)   

Not THAT brave 🙄 – anticipating a backlash.

So in a safer space, I share it with my friends,

who know me,

in the hopes it helps us all with perspective.    🙏

P S, And of course if you don’t open the link

this will mean nothing,

so thank you Claire Thomas

and to my friends – have a read. 🙏

SILENCE AND BIAS IN THE FOG OF WAR

Silence and Bias in the Fog of War

 

Cry My Beloved Country
“Home”

I was Wondering….. if by A Simple Twist of Fate

I was wondering…….If by a Simple Twist of Fate, 

I was her instead of me.   

asimpletwistbokAnd I was born to drug addicted parents,

Not by choice, you understand, none of us have a say in our birth.

Just by

A Simple Twist of Fate

And I was wondering, what my life would be like, if by

that Simple Twist of Fate

I survived that first year or two, or even three.  

childYears, of neglect;

nappies not changed,

random feeding,

occasional washing,

And even more rare, moments of affection.

I was wondering if I was her instead of me

By that Simple Twist of Fate.drug

Would I have survived having my body sold ‘on the street’

By my parents to feed their addiction.

I was wondering if I was her instead of me,

Would I too have drowned my pain in the only escape

I knew – the same one they used to drown their demons.

By that Simple Twist of Fate if  I was her instead of me.

Would I have her strength, feel her pain, know her fear,

Sense her isolation as she crawls through her adolescence,

Not free of her childhood and yet with no childhood,me

With no ground beneath her feet,

With no one there  for her

With everyone there to take from her;

From her body, from her soul.

A Simple Twist of Fate  puts her and not me

Behind bars;    

handsThat fate of birth;

That fate of opportunity;

That fate of nurturing;

That fate of belief;

That fate of security.

That fate of birth

And if I was her instead of me, I was just wondering, would I harden my soul against the world as I sat for seven years, contemplating the Simple Twist of Fate and faced my

‘Rehabilitation’.

I was just wondering, if I was her instead of me,

would I emerge bitter and fuelled with anger or would I, if I were her instead of me,

emerge like her, with hope despite the pain or rejection by her family ,

with thoughts to a future in spite of her past,

with humility and wisdom despite no ‘schooling’

images

I was just wondering, if,

by a Simple Twist of Fate

I was her instead of me, if I could now,

Speak of the pain of the past

Speak of the rejection of the present

Speak of the hope for the future

As my friend does.    

My friend, who instead of me by that Simple Twist of Fate

Walked a journey so different to mine, and not because she, when she was young decided:

“When I grow up I want to live on the streets, be an addict and end up ‘inside’

Rather because of that Simple Twist of Fate.friends

My friend,

Did her time for her crime

And finds now, in my world,

That the time for her crime is eternal.

That women pull their handbags closer to their bodies when they learn about her past.

That no one will give her a job.

That accommodation is almost impossible to find.

That she may not volunteer.

That men assume her body is for sale.

That my world sees her as a curiosity, always an outsider, never to be trusted.

images-1

That the only place she feels welcome is the place of her past; the place that will put her back

Where she started life;  by a Simple Twist of Fate.

By that Simple Twist of Fate,  I am me, not her.   

And I wonder if it is I who needs the rehabilitation.   

The courage and grace to forgive the crime, served by time.

To practice what I ‘preach’: the belief that everyone Really Does Deserve a Second Chance.

And then the strength to live by that code;

To believe it; to work it; to support it;

For surely I know that if she were me, by that Simple Twist of Fate,

She would offer the hand of grace;images

For she, not me, by

That Simple Twist of Fate

Has walked a road of pain so great, that she, not me,

Is filled with love for her fellow man,

Not because they are wealthy,

Not because they are smart,

Not because they are clean, have teeth, combed hair,

But because they are Human;

Almost always doing the best they can with where they are at;

Because of  that Simple Twist of Fate.

I was just wondering…………

A Simple Twist of Fate – Joan Baez