My wife and I recently underwent an episode of attempted bullying, driven by racism. For her it must be more aggravating and aggrieving than for me, she’s Asian and the perpetrators share my race (sadly).
What is so wrong about the whole thing is that it began over almost nothing (well, a seven pound Shih-tsu who doesn’t bark and for whom we were seeking to find a home). Pets are now allowed in the 'court' where we live without permission. When we returned from America last summer, we wrote a very polite letter to our neighbours requesting that our dog be allowed to live with us on a probationary basis, if he did anything unacceptable, out he'd go. Two neighbours in particular were vehemently against the idea and rude in expressing their opposition. Rather than take the matter to the directors (of which I am one) and risk an unpleasant outcome (whichever way it went there would be bad feelings), my wife and I elected to give the dog away. We then transgressed because the first volunteer to adopt the animal was, in the end, unable to take him and so we had to have him resident for a few days until we found him a second home. It was against the covenants, we knew, but we were actively and energetically seeking to reverse the situation.
The depth and harshness of the feelings against us from two of our seven neighbours were puzzling at first. I could not understand why something that rational people would simply resolve with a few quiet words had prompted such strong and unreasonable reaction. After all, we live in England, a place renowned for both tolerance and civility. Those two values are to be cherished and the way to do that is to treat the expressions of tolerance and civility that you do encounter with great respect, particularly when they may also be the vehicle for a difference of opinion. By this mutuality is a great nation judged.
We did encounter great tolerance and civility and, more, genuine sympathy, from several true friends. For this we are and will remain grateful. From these quiet heroes we also felt something even more important than understanding for our position; they recognised in a civilised and just Britain that the feelings and motivations behind the behaviour of the ringleaders against us were intolerable and unacceptable; they were contrary to the fundamental values that inform this modern, liberal and tolerant society. These friends saw that they had to make a choice. I applaud their wisdom, their humanity and, more, their moral courage.
From the people who were at the epicentre of feelings against us, we expect nothing more than what we encountered. When I understood that the expressions of opposition were being couched in terms of ‘cultural differences’, I recognised the supposedly modern and acceptable face of racism. In fact, what was behind the vehemence of feelings against us over a minor matter was born of immaturity and ignorance. On both counts I’m sad but resigned – those people have to live with that evil in their souls.
There were other ‘friends’ about whom I’m more ambivalent. Although they formed part of the silent majority of people on this island who would be tolerant and civil and patient whilst, in good faith, my wife and I worked to resolve the matter, their failure to actively condemn the means and form of opposition to our behaviour worries me. In a minor way it’s a form of collaborationism or appeasement which is morally weak.
I’m reminded that in New York the twenty year trend of crime to increase was finally reversed – and dramatically so – by the imposition of a zero tolerance policy. New York police, encouraged by the government and supported by the courts, inaugurated a policy of fines, arrests and prosecution for even petty crimes, public urination, defacement of private property, petty theft and so on. The turn-around was dramatic. Within a year or two, reports of all types of crime, minor and major, were falling. New York rapidly became a safer, more civil, more tolerant and, above all, happier place.
The parallel I’m trying to draw here is fairly obvious – when the sort of bullying, racist behaviour that my wife and I just encountered from ignorant and immature people is not immediately challenged, by everyone, the bullies and the racists will simply be encouraged to do it again.
My own dilemma is how to deliver this message to those friends who have failed us in the matter. As a member of a civil, liberal society, it’s incumbent on me to make the point but I want to do it in such a way that I prevent further division and, instead, promote the solidarity, tolerance and, ultimately, the happiness that I’m so anxious to foster.
We've sold our home. In normal circumstances we would be sad to leave such a beautiful home but not this time, we're relieved. We're leaving two racist couples behind who have to live with themselves. Sadly, at least two other neighbours are seriously thinking of leaving as well because of the poisoned atmosphere. Who wants to live around the sort of creepy, ill-mannered bigotry that has surfaced here in idyllic rural Worcestershire?
By the way, we kept the dog. When things got ugly, we boarded him in a nearby kennel where he slept each night. My wife picked him up each morning. He spent the day with her, staying in the car in the garage when my wife wasn't outside with him; we never allowed him in the house (heavens knows what would have happened had we brought him in!). Needless to say, our new home welcomes dogs!
Showing posts with label racism in England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism in England. Show all posts
24 March 2007
13 January 2007
The Ghost at Besford Court ...
1 January 2007
Besford
As our time at Besford draws to a close, I’m minded to share the tale of my sightings (???) of the Besford ghost, one with which I am intimately familiar, a spectre that inhabits the netherworld whose marches rub against those of our apartment, specifically our bedroom.
I know this ghost, we have shared the intersection between her world (she is, indeed, female) and mine. We have shared this connexion in the magical hours between midnight and dawn but we have also shared space in the early evening, in the morning and as we retire.
This existence of this ghost, if her ‘being’ depends on the acknowledgement of her occasional presence, is due to my belief and no one else’s. My wife steadfastly refuses to ‘believe’ or, perhaps more likely, chooses to deny that she crosses or touches the world of living humans in our bedchamber. Indeed, her steadfast refusal to even acknowledge or discuss the possibility of a ghost where we sleep is firm and unshakeable!
Inevitably there are, as is the case with virtually any long inhabited place in England, tales of ghosts associated with Besford. Although the main court is still just shy of a century old, there were residences, messuages and defences, perhaps even a moat (well, it sure looks as if there might have been a moat to me), that antedated by centuries the more recent stone structure where we reside. A lot of life has trod this ground – not all of it can have been happy and we’re told that unhappiness is the midwife of phantasms.
Whatever the story, and no one can substantiate (nor, equally, has anyone ever denied) the existence of the ghost in our home, I have ineluctable and undeniable evidence of her passages into or across our world. This evidence is as plain as the nose on your face.
And what is that evidence? Simple, smell. That’s right, my ghost has a scent. It’s a wonderful, old-world, sweet, slightly heavy perfume. The sort that my great aunts used, the sort that my Mother favoured in the 1950’s or, before we were introduced through the medium of my birth, what I imagine my Mom favoured in the 1940’s; a ‘Shalimar’ type fragrance, flowery, lingering, just airy enough to be wafted along by even a faint breeze.
I’m lying in the bed, it’s, say, 9 PM. I’m reading, it’s late autumn and outside the night is well and truly established. My wife and daughter are not here, they are visiting relatives in Switzerland. It’s quiet and calm, I am settling nicely when an almost imperceptible hint of a breeze passes across the bed. It is a movement that I would most probably never even notice but for its cargo, a perfume from another age.
Funnily, I have never been afraid of our ghost. To me she is a benign presence, entering our bedroom, not from the hall or any adjacent room but from one of a myriad of dimensions that touches ours. She comes in, so softly, so gently that the only perceptible sign of her presence is the sweet, comforting perfume that washes over the covers and quietly soothes me with its presence.
But our ghost never stays long. Her scent washes over us and then passes on. Sometimes she flickers in, her scent leaves and then returns, like the calm waves of the Mediterranean or the Caribbean. Eventually, though, after a minute or, sometimes, even two, she passes on, heading, I suppose, through a shimmering barrier between one world and another. I wonder which one is her home …
And that, my friends, is what I know of our Ghost. Once, before I learned that to mention her was to invite trouble, my wife brought out a couple of scented candles that we keep in the room. Demanding that I sniff them, I did and, to placate her, I agreed that the smell of one was precisely the smell of my Ghost. Of course, we never light that candle and, don’t tell the wife, its perfume is not much like that of my Spectre, she favours a much sweeter and more lingering fragrance.
Besford
As our time at Besford draws to a close, I’m minded to share the tale of my sightings (???) of the Besford ghost, one with which I am intimately familiar, a spectre that inhabits the netherworld whose marches rub against those of our apartment, specifically our bedroom.
I know this ghost, we have shared the intersection between her world (she is, indeed, female) and mine. We have shared this connexion in the magical hours between midnight and dawn but we have also shared space in the early evening, in the morning and as we retire.
This existence of this ghost, if her ‘being’ depends on the acknowledgement of her occasional presence, is due to my belief and no one else’s. My wife steadfastly refuses to ‘believe’ or, perhaps more likely, chooses to deny that she crosses or touches the world of living humans in our bedchamber. Indeed, her steadfast refusal to even acknowledge or discuss the possibility of a ghost where we sleep is firm and unshakeable!
Inevitably there are, as is the case with virtually any long inhabited place in England, tales of ghosts associated with Besford. Although the main court is still just shy of a century old, there were residences, messuages and defences, perhaps even a moat (well, it sure looks as if there might have been a moat to me), that antedated by centuries the more recent stone structure where we reside. A lot of life has trod this ground – not all of it can have been happy and we’re told that unhappiness is the midwife of phantasms.
Whatever the story, and no one can substantiate (nor, equally, has anyone ever denied) the existence of the ghost in our home, I have ineluctable and undeniable evidence of her passages into or across our world. This evidence is as plain as the nose on your face.
And what is that evidence? Simple, smell. That’s right, my ghost has a scent. It’s a wonderful, old-world, sweet, slightly heavy perfume. The sort that my great aunts used, the sort that my Mother favoured in the 1950’s or, before we were introduced through the medium of my birth, what I imagine my Mom favoured in the 1940’s; a ‘Shalimar’ type fragrance, flowery, lingering, just airy enough to be wafted along by even a faint breeze.
I’m lying in the bed, it’s, say, 9 PM. I’m reading, it’s late autumn and outside the night is well and truly established. My wife and daughter are not here, they are visiting relatives in Switzerland. It’s quiet and calm, I am settling nicely when an almost imperceptible hint of a breeze passes across the bed. It is a movement that I would most probably never even notice but for its cargo, a perfume from another age.
Funnily, I have never been afraid of our ghost. To me she is a benign presence, entering our bedroom, not from the hall or any adjacent room but from one of a myriad of dimensions that touches ours. She comes in, so softly, so gently that the only perceptible sign of her presence is the sweet, comforting perfume that washes over the covers and quietly soothes me with its presence.
But our ghost never stays long. Her scent washes over us and then passes on. Sometimes she flickers in, her scent leaves and then returns, like the calm waves of the Mediterranean or the Caribbean. Eventually, though, after a minute or, sometimes, even two, she passes on, heading, I suppose, through a shimmering barrier between one world and another. I wonder which one is her home …
And that, my friends, is what I know of our Ghost. Once, before I learned that to mention her was to invite trouble, my wife brought out a couple of scented candles that we keep in the room. Demanding that I sniff them, I did and, to placate her, I agreed that the smell of one was precisely the smell of my Ghost. Of course, we never light that candle and, don’t tell the wife, its perfume is not much like that of my Spectre, she favours a much sweeter and more lingering fragrance.
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