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.

Coffee time in Malta

There are a wealthy couple sitting with friends at a nearby table in this café.  The man is complaining about the delay in the delivery of his new Porsche to Malta.  Later, they move on with relish to discuss their forthcoming holiday in Moscow where they hope to visit the Winter Palace and are twittering on in a fashion fit to annoy anyone.  They have that peculiar plumy English accent that sets your teeth on edge.  He is babbling again at the top of his voice,

“Life is still fun and worth living”, the sixty odd year old proclaims. 

“The economic situation has not touched me, thanks goodness.” He follows in smug tones. 

I believe fate places such people nearby to annoy and test me.  Now, he is complaining about his computer system’s inability to respond to his commands.  I find myself strangely comforted that PCs, at least, do not jump to the beck and call of that “rulers of the empire” tone.  Computers are democratic and as such equally rebellious to all.  It’s weird that in Northern Ireland I’ll  be specific about coming from north of the border but when on an island in the Med I morph into Irish for fear of being associated with these colonial types.  My father always claimed that there was something about ruling an empire that damaged emotions.  He would name them one by one, tapping on each finger in turn, pausing at each tap to raise his eyebrow as if exhibiting another proof of his argument.  His reasoning was, if you had to keep the locals underfoot it required you to be missing on certain wavelengths including for example compassion, empathy, humility, modesty.  It has taken years for recent research to prove that keeping a nation or people in subjection is as damaging to those who rule as it is to those who are abused. 

It stands to reason then that keeping women in a lower state will have equally negative effects on both men and women.  Injustice is evil, not just because of its unfairness but also due to its long-term damage on all concerned.  In India 50 million girls are missing due to abortion of unwanted female babies.  In that culture boys are preferred.  The end result of this tragedy is that girl abductions/rapes are common.  How horrific that following the quiet death of millions of female girls, young women who have survived this first cull are being singled out for yet more violence.  Of course India is not alone, violence against women crosses all borders, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia, South Africa, Afghanistan and one of the highest rates of domestic abuse is found in Papua New Guinea.  So much of this violence is under the radar despite its horrific nature.  Violence against females in our midst is a world problem and not limited to any one nation. 

Whatever the realities that lie beneath the statistics you can be sure that both men and women are being damaged in this process.  I look forward to the day when we realise that injustices such as prejudice of race, religion or gender damage us all.  Sense that the growing gap between rich and poor is another unsustainable trend.  Otherwise the corrosion eating into the vitals of human society will continue, I fear.  

Time to leave, my one coffee has lasted an hour and a half and the staff are becoming increasingly restless round me.  At least I outlasted the plumy toned fellow on my left.  Obviously, I have prejudices of my own to weed out! 

PS Proceeded out of the café and walked a good half hour along the coast only to be brought up short with the dreadful realization I had forgotten to pay for my coffee.  Walked back guilt ridden, apologized and paid.  This growing older business is embarrassing at times!

I tried to hit her over the head rest

The Greek driver was following us along the road talking to us as we walked along the pavement and I could understand nothing.  We had moved to Rhodes some four years ago and set about the task of settling into a completely different culture.  Our three boys attended Greek schools and after a painful transition period were all now fluent in the language.  My husband and I had not yet mastered it in any shape or form.  Our brains seemed reluctant to take in the new vocabulary and grammar in which we were surrounded. 

So bemused I asked Daniel, my youngest son, who I had just picked up from primary school, “What is he saying?”  Daniel listened carefully while the Greek middle-aged man repeated himself through the open window of his car, then he translated, “He says Daddy’s been knocked off his scooter and has been taken to hospital.”  The shock must have shown on my face as the Greek man started talking immediately in a reassuring manner.  Again Daniel provided a translation, “He says only his middle bit has been broken!”  Not the reassurance I had hoped for.  He offered to take us directly to the hospital and Daniel and I clambered into his small car.  He was very kind and tried to calm me by smiling and nodding. 

Even when we reached the hospital he followed us in, directing us where to go after consulting a nurse.  We were shown into a tiny cluttered room filled with about eight people milling around, smoking talking.  There on a trolley lay Vessal in absolute agony and as I reached his side he asked in trembling tones, “Can you put your coat on me?”  He was freezing and beginning to shake with tremors.  Medical experience has shown that so many people die of shock after accidents and this can be prevented by two basic techniques.  One keep the patient warm and two don’t leave them alone.  Keep talking to them, reassuring them and keep them warm.  Almost instinctive things you’d think of doing yourself but no one in this hospital seemed aware of them.  I took my coat off and wrapped it around him.  Daniel fell to his knees sobbing at his father’s side.  The man who had opened his car door and knocked Vessal off his scooter, found this intolerable and tried to console Daniel by dropping to his knees beside Daniel and telling him his father would be alright.  Daniel however, was inconsolable and my heart was beating in an uncontrollable fashion.  Everything was going wrong.  I shall not go into the gruesome details except to point out my husband had a fractured back and had to lie flat on his back for eight long weeks.  The complexities of Greek hospitals and the endless queues and pieces of paper required defy belief.  May my worst enemy be spared the experience of a Greek hospital!

Vessal eventually, was home at last but under strict instructions to stay in bed prone.  He spent most of the early weeks on heavy painkillers which were hard on his stomach but did keep the pain at bay.  I’m not awfully good with sick people.  Always previously, Vessal would joke that my limit on sickness was three days.  After three days my sympathy would run out and the message conveyed implicitly was “Die or get better but don’t linger!”  Now, my patience was really to be put the test.  I was having to cover my husband’s teaching hours as well as my own, cook, clean etc for everyone.  Life became a tight routine of chores that required doing and there was little time to dwell on the situation.  It could have been much worse we told ourselves. 

Then, as life so often does, it actually became worse!  Vessal became completely deaf.  It must have been all the lying down, but both ears became blocked.  He couldn’t hear a thing unless you shouted.  A kind of paranoia set in were he was convinced we were plotting against him.  This seemed strange but was followed by an even worse phase in which he sank into a deep dark silence.  This frightened me more than all the previous states.  Life requires effort and will power.  None of us can go on without either of those.  I decided to get his ears fixed at all costs.  The isolation deafness brings had worsened things, but no doctor would treat him at home.  So I arranged an appointment with the closest ear, nose and throat specialist I could find.  We arrived by taxi at the surgery and after a short treatment Vessal could hear.  The genuine delight on his face was a picture. 

The last task was to get him home safe and sound.  We waited at the taxi stop and waited and waited.  By his stage, Vessal was almost passing out with pain, leaning against a nearby tree.  At long last a taxi came but before we could get in a Greek woman jumped in front of us and opened the taxi door and jumped in the back seat.  I told her this taxi was ours and motioned for her to get out.  She refused, even when I said in poor Greek my husband was ill. In a haughty tone she replied, that was not her problem.  My husband, meanwhile, carefully wedged himself into the taxi beside her, unable to lie down on the back seat and told me just to get in so we could get home as fast as possible.  Reluctantly, I clambered into the front seat beside the taxi driver and gave him our address.  As he moved off, the woman gave her address and told him to go to her address first.  I was really mad at this point and told her she was a bad woman.  Unfortunately, I did not change the adjective to suit the gender and ended up saying that she was a shit woman. 

This triggered utter rage in the Greek woman and she began shouting insults at me in fluent fast Greek.  I knew enough to understand what she was saying but was woefully incapable of responding effectively.  It is at such times you realise the weakness and sheer vulnerability of not speaking the language you need.  On and on she raged in aggressive tones and I lost it.  I just lost it.  Eight weeks of sickness, pain, hard work, fear and anger exploded and I tried to hit her over the seat.  I know it is unforgiveable to resort to violence.  She dodged back to the corner of the taxi door to avoid my blow and her demeanour changed from one of shouting fury to sheer fear.  The taxi had high seats and so I could not reach her easily but tried to hit her between the gap on either side of the headrest.  I swung from one side to the other trying to reach her and she like a demented puppet in the back seat tried to avoid me.  At one point cringing up in a corner hugging her mobile phone to her chest like a comforter.  I was livid and intent on smacking her and oblivious to the taxi driver and Vessal’s shouts of remonstration.  The taxi driver stopped, we were at our flat, and an injured Vessal crawled from the back.  The taxi driver put his arm across the gap between the seats to stop me reaching the woman and shouted “Ok, Ok”.  Reluctantly, I got out and the taxi drove off with a very subdued passenger in the back.  As I helped Vessal limp slowly into our apartment, he kept muttering, “I can’t believe you just did that!”  Neither could I.

Using Your Head

I once picked up a four year old Daniel from primary school in Rhodes, Greece to find he had a huge red mark on his face where the teacher had smacked him.  This smack had been administered during the break a good hour before.  I was angry and tried with my limited Greek to complain.  The teacher sailed past me into the staffroom, ignoring my requests for information about what happened.  The rest of the parents gathered round and told me what had happened, gleaned from their kids. 

Apparently, the class had been let out to play in the school yard unsupervised and became too noisy.   This teacher had left her own class and gone out and smacked the first child she encountered, this happened to be my son.  The parents told me this teacher was notorious for smacking children and complaining would just make things worse for Daniel.  I tried to sleep on it and cool down but tossed restless with the injustice of it.  If only I could speak this wretched language at least I could defend my son in some way.  But my Greek was limited, very limited. 

The next day I went to the staffroom and asked to speak to the teacher responsible.  She came out into the corridor as regal and proud as ever and in Greek asked me what I wanted and told me to be quick.  I tried to tell her but the words would not come smoothly and she grew impatient and went to sail past me as before.  Infuriated I stepped in front of her and prepared to give her a head butt if she so much as tried to push past me again.  Eyeball to eyeball we glared at each other and she suddenly started saying how sorry she was and how it would never happen again.  She came over the next day at school assembly and apologised to Daniel in person in front of the other parents.  Who were all bewildered at the change and wondered who I knew in the educational system to make such a turnabout.  But I had discovered the universal language of head butting cuts across all cultural boundaries.

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