Amara Isis
"Changing people. Transforming our world."Archive for January, 2012
Just because you can’t, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t!
Amara~Isis
“Changing people. Transforming our world.”
We’ve all heard the expression: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should?”. Well, when it comes to ‘vision’ – the power to make an idea happen - the opposite is true. When you want to do something amazing in the world, and something that most people tell you just can’t happen, then the best answer you can give them is: “Just because we can’t, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t!”.
Think, for a minute, about all the situations in which this is true. Think about South Africa becoming a country with equal voting rights for citizens of all races without the predicted bloodshed. Think about the first test-tube baby, now a mother herself. And, the first man on the moon – whenever that was (it’s debatable, apparently). What about the first black president of the United States of America and justice for Stephen Lawrence, a young British boy stabbed to death on the streets of London, England. Stephen’s parents are change-makers, just as much as every American who voted for Barack Obama is. That’s the thing about being change-makers. Often, we become one, without ever having had an intention to do so.
Often, we become change-makers, without ever having had an intention to do so.
I don’t suppose that Doreen and Neville Lawrence ever imagined that they would become change-makers when they sought justice for Stephen. They were simply parents wanting the killers of a much-loved son to be punished for the crime they had committed. Most of us would feel the same, if we lost a member of our family in that way. Yet, they are change-makers none-the-less. The double-jeopardy laws of the UK, which said that you could not be tried twice for the same crime, were changed for Stephen Lawrence. Now, who would have imagined that? Could anyone ever have predicted that? Unlikely.
I once met the Lawrence’s lawyer, Imran Khan, in the kitchen of an office block in which he had his law firm. Someone told me who he was. He was a quiet, unassuming man. But, clearly passionate about the law and willing to step up when the law did not deliver justice. The next time I saw him there, I thanked him. He was quite embarrassed (can’t say as I blame him, having a complete stranger thank me in such circumstances would have made me a little embarrassed too). But, I felt it was important to say it. Out loud, if only so that I could hear it. Stephen mattered and the justice sought in his name mattered too.
Stephen Lawrence was the first man of colour in the UK to be treated by the British press as a real person, rather than a caricature of a ‘bad guy’ in a Hollywood movie. He was a young man with ‘prospects’. Parents who were pulling together to give him a future. Parents who had expectations of him, of the person he would grow up to be. Of the contribution he would make to British society. Strangely, he made that contribution, possibly more powerfully from the grave than he ever might have in life. Because ‘Stephen Lawrence’ refused to die. He just kept coming back and demanding his justice. That is what change-makers do. They keep coming back and demanding to be heard.
An English woman sitting opposite me was reading a newspaper, openly weeping
Stephen rests in my mind for another reason. I was once sitting on a train heading home. An English woman sitting opposite me was reading a newspaper, openly weeping. Now, I don’t mean that she had silent tears rolling down her cheeks. I mean she was crying as if someone she loved had just died. This was the middle of the rush hour and the evening train was packed. Standing room only. Everyone was ignoring her. Well, I guess we were all embarrassed and feeling very inadequate. We did not know how to respond. No one teaches you how to deal with public displays of emotion – your own or other people’s. ( However, I digress.) When she got off the train, the woman left her newspaper behind. I pounced on it; I wanted to understand what had distressed her so. It was an article about the presumed killers of Stephen Lawrence, making the most appallingly vile racist and violently abusive comments. Really foul stuff. I found it upsetting, but nowhere near as distressing as my fellow passenger. Perhaps because I already knew such people exist. Perhaps because I wonder how sad it must be to live your life from such a place of hate. Hate for something you can never defeat.
These young men too have a vision. A vision of a world in which people are treated differently because of the colour of their skin. A world in which people can expect to access or be denied justice based on that skin colour. The Lawrences’ vision was the opposite. One in which all citizens of their country can walk the streets of their home towns in safety. And, if they are attacked, then they can expect justice. Quick and relentless. Regardless of race. Small comfort, but necessary all the same. That happened just recently when a gentle Asian man, Anuj Bidve, was brutally killed on the streets of Manchester. The British justice system did not make the mistake it made 18 years ago. It apprehended the suspected killer and it is seeking justice for Anuj and his family, just as it did with the killers of Ben Kinsella in 2008. That these attacks happen still may be seen as a failure of the Lawrence vision, but I don’t think so. We have free will as human beings. It is what sets us apart from all other species. The choices we make in any given moment are ours and ours alone.
“Not in our name.”
We may not all like each other here in the UK nor wish to share each other’s life-styles. But, we are no longer indifferent to the common humanity that unites us, beneath the superficial differences of skin colour. All three families are grieving for their sons; one black, one Asian, one white. And, we can all imagine just how terrible that would feel, if it had happened to us. Where 18 years ago, British society turned its back on Stephen, indifferent to his rights, to his family’s pain, to the life he would never have, it now, finally, has turned to face him. To acknowledge him. “Not in our name.” This was the message of the young people who marched on the streets when Ben was killed, demanding an end to knife crime. It was the same message on the lips of the people of Salford at the killing of Anuj. “Not in our name.” It may take a while for some of our citizens to hear it, but hear it they will, eventually. This is the true legacy of Stephen Lawrence. He has made us question our values and create a better, stronger, more demonstrably compassionate society in his memory.
Thank you,
Stephen Lawrence
Rest In Peace.
Amara~Isis
© 2011 Heather Salmon and Amara Isis Ltd
Goodbye 2011: A tribute to the beautiful Amy Winehouse
Amara~Isis
“Changing people. Transforming our world.”
I always thought, when looking at the beautiful Amy Winehouse, with all her talent and all her troubles, that she lived her life as if she had been born without a skin. As if all the pain and sorrows of the world poured directly into her; and out again in the form of her amazing songs. All great artists, creative types, have this quality in common - an emotional porousness that can, if not carefully managed, overwhelm and consume them. This, I think, is what happened to the beautiful and talented Amy.
For people like Amy, it is essential that the flow of their prodigious talent finds a continuous outlet.
Her genius was so great, her talent so prodigious, how could she help but be overwhelmed by it? Indeed, deep down inside, I think that Amy knew such talent was given to her as a gift. It was never ‘Hers’ in the way that something we work for is ‘Ours’. She had been blessed, ‘chosen’, and who would not struggle to feel worthy of such a blessing. Who would not be drawn to counter-balance the weight of it, the pressure, the expectation, with its polar opposite?
The paradox of Amy’s life is that she was at once desperately attracted to being brilliant and to being ordinary, both at the same time; she acknowledged the light and the darkness within her. She just did not know what to do about them. Had she been older when her talent blossomed, more mature, she might have survived. Might have learned to harness her brilliance, riding it like a crest of a wave, releasing it into her music. There was more, so much more, that her voice had to give. Yet, she could not make the transition from ordinary person to superstar in a way that did not destroy her.
The contradictions of Amy’s life remind me of a diamond covered with mud to obscure its brilliance. So that it does not shine too brightly, does not attract too much attention, to allow itself to retain something of itself, for itself. But, this is impossible. A magnificent diamond is what it is; beautiful, brilliant, eternal – with the power to move people in ways that they do not themselves understand. The late Diana, Princess of Wales, too had this unusual quality. Such people take us out of our comfort zone, particularly emotionally. But, in a way that we feel safe to ‘feel’. We experience our own emotion through them. Through their moments of glory; through the depths of their despair.
Like the proverbial rabbit caught in the headlines, the more brightly they shine, the less they can find their way out of the tunnel
In the end, they get hit by a fast-moving train or the light they shine consumes them – returning them to the brilliance from which they came. To us, it can feel like a waste. Yet, is such a life wasted? I do not think so.
When Amy died, many female musicians credited her with making their own creative journeys possible. Her success enabled their success. She had changed the landscape of music for female artists forever with her honest lyrics. Amy was not afraid to be a 21st century woman, giving a different perspective on the female experience – in all its beauty and its ugliness. Amy changed the world’s expectations of female artists. Made it acceptable to show our intelligence in our art. Allowed women with a story to tell to speak their truth in song, without needing to wrap it up in sugary words, all frills and pretense.
Amy was real. And, in sharing her reality, she allowed women to be more real too. Those who come after her honour her, and this is as it should be. She will never be forgotten, because her songs continue to tell her story. And, we will continue to love her through her words. Whilst we might not wish to emulate some of her life-choices, we aspire to her humanity. Amy understood the human experience. She loved people and people loved and felt loved by her. This was, in the end, her greatest gift.
2011 is now at a close and we have entered 2012. Is there a difference that we want to make in the world? Perhaps it is a difference only in our own lives or in the lives of the people we care about. That does not make it any less significant. Or less important. We may not have the talent of an Amy Winehouse. But, the gift we have to share in the lives of others may touch them as much as Amy touched us. For the people whose lives we touch, the change may be as great as the transformation that Amy brought to women in song.
I have always loved the New Year and I feel very excited about the one we have just entered. “2012″. It has something of a ring to it. The ring of change.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I wish you a happy, prosperous, exciting and wonderous 2012.
With love and blessings,
Amara~Isis
© 2011 Heather Salmon and Amara Isis Ltd
