Am I insane or is this?

There are times I read articles in newspapers and truly wonder am I insane? 

I remember a short story of a pickpocket describing himself as a ‘fingersmith’ and giving an account of his craft. Akin to silversmiths, blacksmiths etc he proposed his particular craft required no less hard practice or skill.  He needed to develop physical and mental abilities and even social skills to blend into crowds effectively. Skills such as being able to pinpoint a suitable victim were described with avid enthusiasm. You're almost convinced by his arguments and his total reframing of stealing as an art form of sorts. It almost takes a moral slap to remind yourself that he is talking about targeting the vulnerable, to deprive them of what is rightly theirs. Traumatising the innocent to earn his living and leaving scars that last long after the original crime has been forgotten by both the perpetrator and the courts (if they were ever convicted). The victims can feel isolated and foolish, robbed of their savings and pensions. Many look at the world around them with different eyes. Suspicious of all, trusting no one, even doubting their own capacity to cope in this new world of villainy.

Today's fingersmiths are multitalented and are everywhere. They run investor scams, telephone fraud, internet deception, abuse people etc and they have found their way into companies, governments, councils etc It seems perverse that our systems of justice seem laboriously expensive and are notoriously ineffectual. In the movies, the villain is tracked down by eager expert forensic investigators and Poirot-like detectives who remorselessly bring justice to bear. The truth is far from that reality. Murder cases take years and often go unsolved, assaults and rapes are often not pursued because witness statements/investigations are not actioned or recorded in a timely fashion. Even how things play out in the press can bear little or no relation to actual facts.  But that no longer seems to matter.

The 38-year-old suspect who stabbed a woman and poured acid on her face, we are informed, was not even questioned and instead of being arrested by the police he was taken to hospital for psychiatric examination.  The police found him in a disturbed state.  I can actually remember reading about the same character in the same newspaper attempting to murder the same woman in 2012. He hit the woman and stabbed his victim resulting in her losing an eye. On that occasion, he went on the run and spent five hours on a flagpole threatening to jump off. At the time he was actually still on bail pending proceedings for an earlier attack on a previous partner.

I remember the words of sympathy towards this particular individual as he perched on the flag. With increasingly important individuals in the community anxiously endeavouring to talk him down. Offering understanding and empathy to this poor misguided soul. To find that he has, six years later, stabbed the same woman and poured acid on her face is an insult to reason! Exactly how much abuse of women is to be perpetrated and accepted by the police, law and press.  Today's article depicts a dramatic picture of the poor fellow’s 2012 suicide attempt, clinging to the flagpole under the misleading heading ‘ acid attack suspect not fit to stand trial’. The article states that the victim is ‘ recovering well from stabs, burns’, oh well that’s okay then isn’t it? The article again places its sympathy squarely on the perpetrator and not on the victim. Are we to feel sorry for this man?  His victim had already lost an eye from his previous attack now she lies stabbed in hospital, her face douched in acid and yet somehow the perpetrator is carefully protected from even questioning, never mind arrest!

Am I mad or is this world becoming an art form in 'slight of hand’ and deception? With a choice of font size and the correct photo, they have turned the stabbed and acid burnt woman into a side character to the main story. The injustice of allowing the perpetrator to continue his rampage on the basis that, in the words of the police, he seemed disturbed.  Given that excuse won him sympathy and freedom before from the justice system the entirely sympathetic account in today's press does not bode well for this attack being treated any differently from the former.

Obviously, a man climbing a flagpole and threatening to jump off six years ago trumps a woman being stabbed, punched and having acid thrown in her face today.  Am I insane or is this?

I will rip his arm off and beat him to death with the bloodied stump

My mum has been visiting me in Malta and I have loved our long walks and chats. It is such a blessing having her here and at almost 85 she has indomitable energy. I have enjoyed her company immensely, except for her wiping the floor with me in the game, Rumicube. If you haven't played this game, do yourself a favour and your family,  buy one now. She particularly enjoys beating my husband, at this game, as he hates to lose and is always ridiculously upset when she has a victory. His rage brings a smile of sheer contentment to her face.

On one of our long walks, we were late getting back to the flat. It was getting dark and the road home was blocked with a crane and trucks so we took a narrow dark back alley instead. It was only when we were halfway up I became aware of the darkness, lack of lights and total isolation of the lane. Suddenly, out of the darkness, an African man appeared. He approached us in an oddly agitated manner.

I have to explain here that I did many years of karate at university in my youth and this created an illusion for my mother that I was invincible in hand-to-hand combat. When my cousin and I were teenagers we headed off with backpacks across Europe. She told me she never worried about us because of my karate! This was a total misconception. Years later on the Isle of Wight, in England, I joined a self-defence class which was full contact. This is taught me many things. 

That all those years of karate, where you just touch your sparring partner softly, are light years away from the reality of a hard punch or kick. It showed me that even a tiny man is usually much stronger than the largest woman. I bruise easily and so my weekly defence classes resulted in me looking like a particularly bad domestic abuse victim. Colleagues at work would not believe otherwise and one hissed venomously to me in the toilet to “leave the bastard!” Before washing her hands and exiting the room.

Ron, the instructor, was outrageously vicious. Demonstrating how most women, when strangled face-to-face with the perpetrator, would instinctively try and remove the hands clenched around their throats. Ron screamed in irritation. 

“He is cutting off your oxygen and you're scratching his hands uselessly! Begging him to let you go with your last breath.”

 He glared at the class and particularly at the woman members. 

“You still think you can win by appeasement! Well, you can't! By thinking like that you get too badly injured to do anything. Most men's instinct is to fight for their lives, women hope they can talk their way out!”

He then demonstrated that instead of flailing at the hands clenched around your neck, you should instantly jab two fingers as hard as possible into the assailant’s eyes. His two finger strike straight to the face of his opponent (stopping just centimetres from the eyeballs) had all of us women screwing up our faces in distress. At this, Ron launched into an excited rant, 

“You see, you’re all thinking, you couldn't do that to anyone. It's too vicious! But if your life depends on it, get vicious!  Get angry fast, it could save your life!”

“If you're in a dark lane and you hear footsteps from behind keep walking, keep close to the right wall. That way the attacker has to come to you from the left side. Now, you need to get angry fast. Imagine the bastard has murdered the person you love most in the world. Feel the adrenaline surges as your anger grows. Then, when he actually touches, you strike hard as if you want to kill them. Strike and run. Imagine you've only got one shot, so make it hard. They'll be expecting shock and fear from you, not rage and anger.

I practised imagining the assailant had just hurt my mum and when my sparring partner grabbed my left shoulder from behind I turned on him like a banshee (~wild Irish woman) cursing and punched him on the face with a roundhouse swing that felt like it came from all the hatred I could muster. Ron had been impressed, I had been shocked at myself and my sparring partner sported a huge mark on the left side of his face. I was also riddled with guilt. Obviously, my powers of imagination had been a little too excessive.

So here, 20 years later, I was in a dark lane with a potential assailant and my tiny sweet 84-year-old mother was at my side. Ron’s training flashed quickly into my mind. If he touches my mother I thought, I will rip his arm off and beat him to death with the bloodied stump. Adrenaline surged, I clenched my fist, prepared to bite his nose off. I was even prepared to do a bit of Ron’s eyeball poking!

Meanwhile, the African guy kept asking us to take a piece of pizza that he held in a box in front of him. My mother was calm but insisted that she already eaten didn't want anything but smiled her gratitude. I'm thinking my poor innocent mum has no idea of the danger she’s in. She's never been hit, never raised her hand to another human being. What sense can she make of all this? It's up to me to defend her, this is the moment Ron warned me about. To be ready, to be angry, the minute he touches her, he's a dead man!

Then tears started streaming down the guy’s face.  He says he's from the Sudan. His father died five years ago today.  He doesn't want to eat alone he wants to share his meal with us in memory of his father. We are standing in the dark lane and he's blocking our way offering a piece of pizza. I'm still thinking perhaps this is a ploy. Are there others waiting in the darkness to attack us. Friends of his? Blocking our way, he's probably keeping us here until they attack!

My mother moves in and hugs him in a wide embrace. I'm so expecting violence, I am completely thrown. She holds him close and suddenly I can see the genuine sadness and loss on his face. He wipes his tears with the back of his hand and my mother says he must come to our house and eat with us. She instructs me to give him my card so he knows where to go. I give him my card he shakes my hand politely and disappears into a nearby rusty metal doorway.

We walked the short journey home. My mother comments gently,

“What a nice lad that was! It is sad he's lost his father. It's difficult to be alone in this world far from loved ones.”

 I can say nothing I am exhausted by all the rage and adrenaline. Having too much imagination is a draining traumatic affliction.

Aged 13 and Writing to the Archbishop for answers

me around 13 looking annoyed in pigtails

When I was young, around 13, I wrote a letter to the Archbishop of the Church of Ireland. It was a heartfelt piece about how angry I felt about the people of violence in our community who regularly bombed and shot others. My question was how as Christians could we turn the other cheek to such individuals? How could we love those who hate us and do us harm? Living in an area of Northern Ireland prone to bombs and violence I really wanted answers. One of my playmates on our street later would be sent to prison for planting a bomb that killed others. She was released after many years for health reasons. Seeing the devastation killing created it seemed forgiveness was an inadequate response for the community. Wolves when allowed free reign will kill the whole flock. Acquiescing and forgiveness in those circumstances will not avail. Surely communities have a right to defend themselves from such abuse. But where do Christians  stand given scriptural demands of a higher moral standard?

I was surprised to receive a reply from the archbishop. It was unexpected and appreciated. He wrote of our duty of forgiveness not just in words but in hearts also. He recognised how hard this task was and how many in Northern Ireland struggled with the enormity of this call. It seems strange then that decades later the man of violence on both sides are not just released from prison but invited to play their role in government. In fact those not involved in violence in the past are seen as rather ‘weak watery’ types who have little role to play in this new peace. Centre stage are the redeemed bad guys whose pronouncements on political and social affairs receives much prominence. What is this strange new vista where not only are we to forgive those of violence but handover to them the reins of power. Not just devout Christians but atheists, agnostics and those of all Faiths are expected to turn the other cheek and pretend all the bloodletting never happened. 

The same scenario was repeated in Rwanda where almost 3/4 of a million were slaughtered in a matter of months. The new peace requires victims to swallow an unpalatable reality. Violence achieves results. Those who are terrorists today will be tomorrow’s government. Until someone more violent trumps the existing cards and takes his place at the peace table. So we perpetuate a system of injustice devoid of reward and punishment. Almost the opposite where violence is a new currency of political debate and is rewarded with depressing regularity. The only beneficiaries apart from those of violent tendencies are huge armament industries whose bank balances bulge with blood money. 

It almost feels as if countries are being used as military advertisements of just what weapons of war can achieve. Instead of staid military hardware conventions the new sales arena for this industry is unfolding on our screens in the nightly news. Look! Look! How powerful our strikes are, how many we can kill or maim, how quickly can we lay waste a whole urban city. As millions flee the violence should we demand they turn the other cheek? Actually we ask much much more. We demand they turn around and head back to the hell they have fled. We are annoyed they fling themselves and their offspring at our European borders and drown in our seas. That's the perverse thing about injustice. We no longer see the reality that exists but some coloured perspective of our own construction. Everyone is the hero of their own movie. We look on all events as to what effect it has on me and mine. It is a tendency that is rampant in people, in industry, in nations and even in how hard facts are portrayed. To defend our dignity our nation’s flags are hauled around our naked flanks. Bare of principle or integrity but proudly indignant of the precious soil beneath our feet. 

One human life is worth more than any of this. When you take another life you have lost the game. Everything shifts and you have to see things in a light that justifies your actions. To do otherwise would be unbearable. That shift is subtle but cataclysmic in consequences. You must go forward claiming justification for your actions or spend a lifetime regretting those actions and attempting to find some redemption. Perpetrators choose the easy path and we have chosen to look the other way. It is easier for us to think that when men of violence achieve their objectives we will have peace. But even in our worst dreams we cannot think our way into their heads. 

Violence warps the fabric of our very humanity it makes us walk among others like humans but devoid of humanity. We no longer seek forgiveness. We are full of self justified anger. We have no mercy and are hungry for more blood. We have developed a taste for such things. I would it were not so. If I was writing to my 13 year old self I would hesitate to put pen to paper. I would not unfold the terrible path that lay ahead. It would not be fair. The young need hope to weather such storms. It would be unfair to take that away. Perhaps, with hope in their hearts,  they will find a more just path than we have.

When killing is the best option

Murderers are a breed apart, one thinks.  Who in their right mind would take the life of another person?  Are they monsters? Do they not appreciate the preciousness of life, any life.  Yesterday, I had no sympathy whatsoever for those who take way that most fundamental human right, existence.

What changed my mind?  An incredible film entitled, ‘Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father’.  It is a documentary that chronicles the appalling confusion that followed the murder of a young doctor by an ex-girlfriend.  It is a film that touches your heart on so many levels and you know right from the start it will have no happy ending.  However, there is a scene where the victim’s father berates himself that he did not murder the ex-girlfriend.  He described how he planned it, thought through the method, how he would carry it off.  Instead of being appalled you, like me, will find yourself also regretting he did not carry out the killing.  On so many levels, it would have been just.  It would have saved yet another innocent life, apart from his son’s, it would have left him incarcerated for murder but undoubtedly it would have been the right thing to do.  His anguish comes from the fact that he did not commit a murder.

I reckon by now you are shocked that I am recommending murder as a just action.  Can there be any justification for such a step?  Well, think about it.  Imagine someone you loved, God forbid, was horrifically viciously killed at the hand of a sadistic killer.  Conjure up not only the unbearable loss of the person who makes this world joyous, but also factor in that the one who snuffed out that precious life is walking around free.   Perhaps you will even meet them in the supermarket.  You will have to wait from 1- 6 years (an average of four) before even the nightmare trial occurs.  Every day they walk free upon the earth while your loved one rots beneath it, lash upon your soul.  The justice system expects you to be civilised and await the cogs of justice to turn, to give them their sentence.  Meanwhile you must weigh up if you can swallow the impossible, endure what cannot be born, be patient and long suffering.  

Well, the honest news is you probably will do your best.  No one likes vigilantes.  Society requires laws.  The framework that upholds civil society and stops a chaotic free for all.   The even greater loss of life that revenge killing triggers.  Just because someone takes a life does not justify a reciprocal action.  The difficulty is those rational arguments will struggle with your own heart stopping pain.  If it becomes unbearable you will crack.

In my local town, in N Ireland, a young grammar school boy was playing in the school grounds when two older teenagers jumped the wall and beat him so badly he was left permanently brain damaged.  He had done nothing to instigate the attack, no provocation, no history of ill feeling.  Just two vicious thugs who thought it would be fun to beat the uniformed boy to a pulp.  They were subsequently sentenced to 6 months in juvenile detention.  A year later, the father of the severely disabled schoolboy met the two attackers giggling as they passed him in the main street of the town.  He went home and wept his pain, howled his anger to the skies but took no revenge.  Would you be able to do the same?

Years ago a friend of mine was subjected to horrific domestic abuse on the Greek island where we lived.  When she left to find sanctuary her husband was so enraged he punched me through my car window.  Filling assault charges in the local police station, availed nothing.  It would be years (and was) before it would be heard in court.  Meanwhile my friend and my family were vulnerable to this local bully.  Talking on the phone to my seventy-year-old mother in NI she became very concerned about the seriousness of the situation.  She also was alarmed that my young children might be targeted in his tactics of intimidation.  She then announced that if he killed me, she would be on the next flight to take him out.  I was amused at the venom in this tiny white haired ex-teacher who had never even committed a traffic offence.  I took her statement purely as an expression of her love and concern.  So it was startling this summer, when I found myself during a visit questioning her on whether she would have indeed carried out the murder.  My now, eighty two year old mother confirmed that there was absolutely no doubt about her carrying out the killing.  She was deadly serious!  I found it disconcerting because she is a warm loving righteous person.  So, if such a person can contemplate murder how many good souls rot in prison because the intolerable happened to them and killing became an easier option that letting a perpetrator live?

If our justice system acted efficiently and promptly such issues would rarely arise.  The shocking truth is that murder trials take years and in those years there are often more deaths and more pain.  

In Belgium, Marc Dutroux was convicted for car theft, muggings and drug dealing.  This was only the start of his criminal career.  He went on to the abducting and raping five young girls.  He liked to torture his victims and keep them in cages in his home.  When convicted for this crime he got a prison sentence of thirteen years.  Unbelievably, he was released, wait for it, for good behaviour after serving only three years.  This despite his own mother writing to the prison director to say he would continue to kidnap young girls if released.  Which, of course he did.  Inevitably, he kidnapped, tortured and sexually abused six more girls from 1995 to 1996, ranging in age from 8 to 19, four of whom he murdered.  The incompetence of the judicial system and the police in their handling of the killer brought 300,000 people onto the streets of Brussels in protest.  Despite the public call for judicial reform, Dutroux was held in prison without trial for a further 8 years!  He claimed he was part of an elite paedophile ring involving judges, police and parliamentarians.  Not bringing him to trial would obviously protect those other shadowy characters.  However, he was a killer and how much can we trust this vile man?  The delay was so long there was a discussion that Dutroux might have to be released as his human rights had been denied him.  Okay, are you feeling murderous yet?  Imagine how the parents of those violated, tortured children felt?  To rub salt in the wound, in 1998, Dutroux while was being moved from prison he managed to escape police custody for several hours.  Right by now even the gentle soul among you must be boiling in rage about now?  Fortunately, he was caught and is back behind bars.  His wife is free.  She who was told by Dutroux to feed two caged girls in their home and their dogs, while he was in prison.  She decided to feed the dogs but not the girls and they starved to death.  She now walks the streets of Brussels and those parents who have lost their innocent children know it.  Do you begin to feel the red mist of rage descend?  

Well, my point here is not to enrage you but to allow you to see that all of us are capable of murder under the right circumstances.  Whether that is driven by fanatical prejudice, a desire for revenge, to protect those you love – the list is endless.  The worrying point is when the good in our midst become murderers.  Our justice system (flawed as it can be), can handle a small percentage of vile vicious killers (albeit taking forever to do it) and it can imprison those who would take other’s lives (though the US tally of 2.4 million prisoners is extraordinary). When the system is so flawed and incompetent that the victim’s relatives can find no real sense of justice you have a system that instead of imprisoning killers actually contributes to the making of more!  The bad are ever with us, but when our judicial system makes even the good and long suffering bad, what exactly is its point?

There are no easy answers.  Of course the law must be upheld.  Caracas, Venezuela is an example where ‘tit for tat’ gang killings have tortured an entire city.  In wars killing becomes the main agenda and those whose joy is to hurt, control and destroy come into their own.  In a civilised society the structure is upheld by two pillars reward and punishment.  Those who take a life need to be severely punished and it should happen quickly and efficiently.  The legal system should not be allowed to draw the whole business out into a veritable cash cow.  The urgency of justice should not sacrifice the right of defence.  Even the guilty deserve their day in court.  But the innocent need the reward of an effective court system that respects their rights too.  The dead victims and their families too often end up bit players in a main show that crucifies them slowly and methodically week after week, month after month and even year after year.

If good people begin to kill there is something very wrong.  Our legal system should be designed to deal with those who break the law, commit a crime.  It should not take the innocent and twist them until they crack and become the killers the system is designed to take off our streets.

‘Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father’ is an extraordinary film and I urge everyone to watch it.  Be influenced by it and seek to change a badly flawed system.  The wonderful parents shown in the film forge their love and pain into a cry for justice for others.  They deserve to be heard.

Justice Falling Flat

Funny things happen on islands regarding the justice system.  Perhaps it is a feature of living on a tiny restricted area, where a lot of people know each other, that intimacy breeds a rather skewered attitude to the whole concept of justice.  If our civilisation is reared on two pillars reward and punishment it is scary to see that concept toppled.  Let me give an example that gives me cause for concern.

On Rhodes, in 2000 a British tourist fell from a balcony and after a 45-minute wait for an ambulance was taken to the local hospital.  There a junior doctor was unable to contact a senior doctor on duty and so merely transferred the patient to an orthopaedic ward. Where he subsequently died.  It is now thought that a simple procedure could have saved Christopher Rochester’s life had he received the correct treatment in a timely fashion.  Accidents happen and medical mistakes can be made, but what happens next in this case highlights for me the weird workings of justice on a small island.

The body is repatriated and once home the British doctors are surprised to find that a kidney is missing.  They contact the Greek authorities and subsequently another kidney arrives.  There is more horror, as this kidney is not believed to be Christopher’s, the DNA does not match.  Meanwhile, after lengthy court battles, in  February 2008 a Greek doctor, Stergios Pavlidis, was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in jail, suspended for three years.  A good eight years have now passed since the original death with no one really being punished.

The nightmare continues, for the British family, as the Greek courts insist on an exhumation of Christopher’s body to check the DNA again.  This, despite other sources being available for DNA (hair etc) without such a traumatic intervention.  So eleven years after losing their son needlessly, the family have to observe their son’s body exhumed for testing in Belgium.  At this stage, obviously an impartial laboratory is called upon independent of both Britain and Greece.  At last, you are probably thinking, as did the family, that some justice will be served.  And indeed the results are completed and ready.  But no, the Greek Government, who insisted on the testing have still, not released the results.  In June 2012, a family member claimed that any official confirmation that the kidney did not belong to Christopher would only spell more problems for the Greek authorities hence the delay. If you wrote it in a book of fiction no one would believe it. 

Mrs Fazi

Mrs Fazi

She lived in Tehran and was from a wealthy family.  She was ever elegantly dressed, well read and meticulous in her housekeeping.  She lived in an affluent area of the town in her large spacious house.    One day a couple came to her door and told her to pack one suitcase and leave immediately as they had been given her house and its contents, since she was a Baha’i.  She was literally thrown out of her own home within a matter of hours with her single suitcase in hand.  She had lost everything she owned in a matter of hours.  Everything that was familiar, loved and cherished was now owned by strangers. 

But, she had her children and they were more important than possessions, she consoled herself.  We take for granted all that we have until it is taken or lost, she told her friends. Then, her son, a medical doctor, was arrested and put into Evin prison.  Arresting Baha’is was becoming a common occurrence, whether it was to extract large fines from the family or as a method of intimidating the Baha’i community.  She visited the prison daily on foot taking food and clean clothes to her son.  The guards, as a joke, told her one-day that she needn’t come anymore as her son had been executed the night before.  Mrs Fazi went missing and was found two days later wandering the streets in a confused state.  Her son was eventually released but her mental state never recovered. 

She came to live in Ballymena and was lovingly nursed by her daughter here in Northern Ireland and is buried in the graveyard here.  I visited her grave recently and thought about her life and her suffering.   I also remembered her kindness to all who came across her path and her devotion to her family.  The callous cruelty that cuts through decent lives and wreaks havoc and pain quite takes one’s breath away and shouldn’t be forgotten.

“O OPPRESSORS ON EARTH!
Withdraw your hands from tyranny, for I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man's injustice.”

The Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh

Bullies getting their just deserts!

In the early hours of sleepless mornings I find myself surfing the net.  Weird and wonderful things are found and then so too horrible scarring ones.  For some reason watching bullies get their just deserts is a particular favourite on mine.  As if justice being dispensed in these individual cases rights the wrongs done down through the years to all of us in some shape or other.  So here are a few of my heroes taking a stand.

The first is a bully on the subway targeting a woman passenger, a bystander finds an unusual way to bring things to an humiliating end for the bully.

The next is where a long suffering neighbour who puts up with a lot of verbal and physical abuse finally deals out justice to a thug.  By the time he actually responds you are cheering with the neighbours watching.

The last is a boxer walking with his girlfriend in a park.  Two men decide to cause trouble punching the girlfriend for no reason.  Big mistake as the boxer demonstrates his skills.

Yes, I know it is all a bit violent but in the early hours of the morning it is strange what entertains.