Rolihlahla - First Draft

In the summer months of 1918,

far south in the depths of winter 

a baby was born named 

Rolihlahla - troublemaker.

In the Yuletide month of 2013, 

far south in the warmth of summer 

an old man died 

named Nelson. 

He was named Nelson by a woman who was not his mother 

or grandmother 

or sister 

or aunt 

or cousin

or friend. 

He was named Nelson because his skin was dark.

Because his skin was dark they painted his name white.

A teacher painted him Nelson 

And the world liked the colour- a nice, white name for a clever black boy. 

But underneath the layers of lacquer, Rolihlahla lay 

quietly (at first). 

Troublemaker. 

Nelson Mandela, Mandiba Mandela was a hero, a great man
And so much for than that.

He was Rolihlahla - troublemaker. 

Today I remember the whole man. 

I strip off the layers of polite speech and sound,

Benevolent words from world leaders, 

Who wanted him wiped away when he was trouble

But who rub what's left of his life into their own suited skins 

Now he is Nelson.  

I strip away the thickness of quaint image,

Smiling with the Spice Girls,

Soft white hair, soft hands, soft folds of skin around his eyes,

Smiling, always smiling. 

And slowly,

As the paint is peeled back

There is a gaze of steel, 

Forged from his iron name

in the flames of division. 

Rolihlahla.

The one we don't want to see. 

We don't want to see the whole man. 

We don't want to see the fighter, the work, the anger, the pain.

So we look at an old man's smile,

bask in the comfortable shade of his painted name

and avoid the steady stare beneath

That challenges us to stand up 

For that which we know to be true

and change the world. 

That challenges us to to stand up 

For that which we know to be true

and be destroyed.

That tells us that we must stand

We have to stand

If we want a better world. 

But we are afraid to cause trouble, to wash away the layers of paint and find what burns below. 

We are afraid. 

"A great light has gone out in the world. Nelson Mandela was a towering figure in our time: a legend in life and now in death - a true global hero." - David Cameron

We call him Nelson - a nice, white name for a clever black boy.

We call him hero, champion, a great light. 

But his name is Rohlihla. 

Today I remember the whole man
And challenge myself to stand.

******

Rejected verses that I quite like, but haven't found a way to fit in... yet!

Nelson Mandela was a great man.

No. He was so much more than that. 

He was troublemaker, aggressor, adulterer.

He was stubborn, determined, inspiring, powerful. 

Nelson Mandela was a man who did great things.

But great deeds are so quickly destroyed in death

Not in the loss of life but in the passing of the flame. 

His legacy burns white-hot.

Don't dampen those flames with empty sentiment and heroic language. 

Don't dampen those flames by calling him a great man 

As if what he did could only be done by him and not by us because he was great and we are not, so we can go to bed at night in the comfortable knowledge that he had something that we don't have and because he was great, and we are not, we don't have to act or move we can just stay at home and watch television whilst riot and revolution rage outside.

Copyright Abigail Palache 08/12/13

Some Collected thoughts

The Universe begins with the breath.

Inhalation. Breath in.

Cold air warmed by the fire of the heart.

Breath in.

And the universe is born on the outgoing breath; once upon a time and the colours form - yellows and greens and blues....



***


The land remembers much; the mind of man forgets. Listen to the trees - they have wonders to tell.


***

Us and Them

What does it say about Great Britain that within hours of a brutal murder, everyone turns so quickly on their neighbours? Why is it that if a white man goes on a shooting rampage we single him out as a lone nutter, but if it is done by a man with dark skin and who might have said something Islamic it is terrorism and we must all be afraid?

Have you stopped sending your children to Catholic schools because of the extensive child abuse committed by Catholic priests? Have you stopped your daughter going to art classes because of Rolf Harris’ arrest? Do you judge white Yorkshire men by the acts of the Ripper or British people because of the horrific acts of oppression in India during the occupation?

It’s incredible how quickly people are prepared to shut their doors on their neighbours. How this is a terror attack instead of a brutal murder seems to me an inflammatory act by a weak and flailing government. Children are systematically stabbing each other over postcode territories, but we don’t start shutting out our nieces and nephews; they are not classes as terrorists although they are using terror to get what they want.

To those of you who are liking the RIP Woolwich Soldier page on facebook, please look carefully at who you are joining with. This poor nameless man was murdered a few hours ago. It is not fair that his death is being hijacked by racist nutcases who think that being British is synonymous with religion and skin colour. Nick Griffin has already asked people to wear Help for Heroes badges to ‘resist Islamist terror’ instead of supporting Help for Heroes to HELP soldiers! Hate doesn’t help anyone and it is disgraceful that a wonderful charity is being used to imply that soldiers are standing up for racism. This poor man’s family now has to stand by helpless while hundreds of thousands tell his son to Rest In Peace whilst preaching hate. How can he rest in peace with this tirade of violence from the mouths of strangers?  

Muslims aren’t terrorists and, if these two men considered themselves Muslims, it is as irrelevant as it would have been if they were Christians. I know Catholics who do not consider paedophile priests to be Christians and we seem on board with that – my Catholic friends have never felt the need to apologise for their community and have never been shut out because of the acts of their religious leaders. Why should we see these murderers as Muslims? Islam is a religion, just like Christianity, that can be manipulated to violence or to beauty. Why do we see two men committing a murder for their own twisted reasons and blame an entire religion?

This is how it starts every time. The acts of the few stains the many because, if we are honest with ourselves, we realise that (just like has happened before) it only takes one act of horror and barbarity by The Muslims to make us believe that all whole of ‘them’ are against the whole of ‘us’.

We have to be better than that.

A thought for an old school friend who I haven't seen for many years and who I won't be seeing again and old friends in Dorking, Australia and around the country who are feeling heart-broken today.

Too many good people have passed away too soon in recent times and, although I understand that loss is a sad fact of living, I sometimes find it difficult to accept that the world just keeps on turnin...g. Even when you are not close to them, even when you are far away and even when you have not seen them for many years, it seems like the world should stop and take stock.

We would only need to pause for a minute - to take a collective breath and breath a deep sigh.
A moment to remember and a moment to be sad.
A moment to witness another's sadness and our own sadness and to remember that deadlines, data, bills and the need to buy and sell and buy and sell is not what life is really about - it is not what life is really for.

Maybe one day the world will stop and the cars will stop and the people will stop and we can breath and be calm and stand together in peace and quiet and remember those that can no-longer be with us.

Love to old-friends.

They were just like us, but we don't have to be like them.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2013

I have a picture like this from when I was at school. Friends, laughing and joking and squeezed together to CHHEEESSEEE for the camera.

They were just like us, but they stand in the shadow of the Holocaust.

The shadow of shoes,

                                 of hair,

                                       of clothes,

                                                  of bags,

                                                         of broken, twisted metal that was once a building, that held people that looked like shells of people that were once bodies of women and children and men and doctors and surgeons and shop-workers and rabbis and wives and husbands and aunts and uncles and teachers and writers and chemists and artists.

I say "Never Again" and "Not in My Lifetime".

I light candles and shed tears.

I paint and write and try to understand how it was and how it was not.

We shudder at pictures of Hitler and Goerring and Goebbels and Eichmann and Mengele.

We raise statues to those who we can never reclaim from the fires.

We stand in the shadow and try to see the sun.

I found an article in the Sun archive "Relatives of Nazi Germany's Monsters talk about How They Feel".

Monsters do not exist.

It would be much easier if they did.

6 million people were murdered in factories.

These factories were designed to reduce a human to dust.

And it happened here.

This happened in Germany, in France, in Poland, in Italy, in Czechoslavakia (as was), in Hungary and in every other country that Hitler's forces invaded. 

The American government did nothing.

The British government did nothing.  

And in 2013, we "who live save in our warm houses",

We who "returning in the evening" find "hot food and friendly faces"*,

I light a candle to those and go to bed,

With Primo Levi's book resting under the bedside lamp.

*Primo Levi - if this is a man

This is not enough. This will happen again if this is all we do. 

This happens again everytime that this is all we do.  

It is easy to look in the mirror and see a victim or a survivor - it is easy to read their stories and to see ourselves - our mother - our father - our children.

We are so quick to see the humanity in those who suffered.

It is much harder to look in the mirror and see the perpetrator.

The actions of the Nazis were monstrous, but they were not monsters.

They were men and they were women.

They were mothers and fathers. 

They were aunts and uncles,

doctors,

surgeons,

teachers,

musicians,

artists,

writers,

chemists,

shop-keepers,

factory workers,

farmers;

they were just like us.  

“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
― Hannah Arendt

Today, I remember those who were lost. 

I light a candle in memory of the 6 million gone.

I look at the pictures of the camps and see the person inside the skeleton.

I look at the pictures of the Nazis and see the person inside the monster's uniform.

They were just like us.

Young women and men from the Nazi party on a training trip in the German mountains.

But we don't have to be like them.