LISTENING TO THE SILENCE

My loved ones
I have said before
we have allowed the Barbarians into the castle.
Now they are dancing crazily
to the clashing clatter of their poisonous vials.
Whilst we hide our tears
they become drunken leaches on their bile
and we know we have made a horrible mistake…

….and we now know we have made a horrible mistake…

Who amongst you understand the origin of their cruel world?
Is this world your world and is it the same as their world?
Do you give a fig from whom you have become?
Do you give a crate of figs to know why you are as you are?
And are all your answers wrapped in your own reflections
or do you pause a moment in the mirror
wondering are those other’s history of struggle and tragedy
a part of you as well?

I have said before
we have allowed the Barbarians into the castle
and they have sullied our souls.

In the mid thirteen hundreds the Black Plague
killed between 25 and 50 million people in Europe.
Farm labour became expensive.
Peasants fled the oppressive estates and moved to the new towns
where jobs were to be found.

Soon after, in Italy’s 15th and 16th century’s Renaissance,
which also witnessed the beginnings of capitalism,
after years of oppression,
after centuries in which most people had little consciousness of their individuality,
resistances to their subjugation grew.
The tender notions of democracy began to take root.
Individual’s emancipation began to take social forms.

What of DaVinci, Michelangelo, Rafael in those years?
When they saw the turmoil around them they learned to look
and when they looked they learned to imagine a new world
not in God’s reflection
but of distinct individuals, of landscapes, animals and their uniqueness
all of which had previously been possessions of aristocrats and their God
and his church in both material and spiritual domains.

Slowly the concept of one’s individuality was given birth.
Slowly the rising middle classes accrued wealth and power.
Slowly they turned in favour of freedom for themselves
and un-freedom for others.

Now, we are moving full circle
as we re-encounter the forgotten depths of Barbarian inhumanity:
this cruelty we are living with day-by-day
from the current wars,
from the 4 million British children going to bed each night improperly fed,
from the people left in pain for months because there are not sufficient doctors, machines, minutes in the day to help them,
from the children banned from schools,
from the poor, the abused, the undereducated,
all suffering or fighting because the necessity
is that we need to extract more from the welfare state
‘to again turn ploughshares into weapons’
so say the politicians
who refuse to tax rich individuals and corporation.

Is this truly the best they can imagine?

Should I care that most of us close our souls to these things?
As a documentarist I always wished to give voice to the voiceless
but I am finding it quiet outside.
None the less, I know there are caring people everywhere,
perhaps in small numbers trying to shout out
in the name of decency and fairness.

I have said before
we have allowed the Barbarians into the castle
and they will sully our souls
only if we remain silent.