'Woke'

      It's over a year ago now when, visiting our Cristíona in London, she announced that 'Daddy is woke'. I hadn't a clue what she meant, but it was not said unkindly,- I think I earned the sobriquet partly for my attitude to climate change, also for making some remark about black people having had a rather hard time, in defence of some Black Lives Matter denigration of colonial era statues and so on. 

     On the other hand, I got into fierce trouble for remarking to someone else that it was a bit of shock to find the streets where my Grandma once lived in south London chock full of 'darkies',-  and despite the fact that I was taking the mickey, immitating certain people - trying to be humorous on such a subject is evidently dodgy these days! Anyway I couldn't help being reminded of the time I got off the bus in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in an area where there was no other white person to be seen, and a big friendly man said 'Don't be here by yourself after dark, man!' I was looking up a priest from County Clare at that time who was running a busy parish, alone, in his seventies, having retired from running a school. He walked me back to the bus, being constantly greeted and often stopping to chat. Across the Gulf of Paria in Venezuela, I found in the eyes of local Indians a desperate spiritual hunger, especially in a mother struggling to get her child baptised because the Church has such a scant presence in those parts. 

     Then there was a hero of my youth, Dom Michael Smith, who when the mission he was on in Peru was closed down on account of the Shining Path insurgents, instead of retreating to Lima, headed off into the jungle with his knapsack and spent years travelling about bringing the sacraments to the Indians. Missionaries are often disparaged in 'enlightened' circles, as flag-bearers of colonialism, but sorting out the heritage of empires is not straightforward, any more than that of the scientific and technological revolutions which stemmed from them, and which by and large the whole world is all too eager to embrace.

    Until machinery seriously began to alleviate the heavy lifting of life, slavery was taken for granted in most civilisations; most people in a position to avail of it did so, whatever their race. Our modern civilisation has swept the globe, and even as it risks making it uninhabitable, there is little credibility attached to opting completely out anywhere, nor appetite for doing without its benefits, despite the fact that it was built on the backs of mostly black-skinned enslaved people. This was a vicious business, though kept out of mind when possible, but left its scars on everyone, particularly those who carry the memories of it in their heritage, and still frequently find themselves at a distinct disadvantage; but such scars also remain in the very structure of our societies and cultures; it is not after all just black people who were and still are exploited, and of course the slave driver was brutalised as well as the slave!

     Now however we find a veritable industry being made out of constructing narratives of victim-hood. It may be as well not to mention any names, but this is where the 'woke' business does become objectionable, especially when the 'victims' are parading wealth and privilege for all it's worth. Meanwhile, we do well to consider those scars, search those old wounds, rather than continuing to ignore them with the rationale of 'not opening old wounds'. Still we might be better off doing so quietly rather than on the biggest stage that we can reach, which is hardly conducive to any real attention to truth. There it is more than likely to become a big distraction from the serious work that needs to be done.

     The rush to 'speak one's truth' is as ever problematic. Anyone who kicks up about anything, let alone an oppressive system, is going to get into trouble, and the suppression starts early. What child has not been told to 'shut up', 'wrap up', 'dry up', 'put a sock in it' etc? The fact that we have so many ways of saying the same thing is surely significant. When was this ever appropriate, or on the other hand, when was 'oh darling, what's the matter?' the appropriate response? No doubt we need both, and maybe needing both a Daddy and a Mummy comes in here, which comment will earn me a another ticking off in some circles. Soon we will not be allowed to refer to Mummies and Daddies at all, the way things are going! The fact remains, coming to grips with the past starts in our own psyche, whatever our skin tone.

      Meanwhile to thine own self be true' stands, unless we give up on the whole idea of seeking truth and justice. Actually it seems that the Bard did not attach much psychological baggage to this famous injunction, it being tossed off by the mouth of silly old Polonius as he lectured his son. Polonius didn't follow it through anyway, ending up being run through by Hamlet's rapier as he hid behind a curtain spying for the King. But it comes just after 'neither a borrower nor a lender be',*  to which today we might be even more inclined to respond with Good luck with that! The kind of ontological angst we go in for today does not seem to have troubled previous generations to the same extent; even if they feared going to Hell, they tended to take the existence of their own soul for granted, along with that of God. In this matter of being true to oneself, Shakespeare seems to have been referring to the relatively simple matter of living within one's means and not trying to be what one is not,- just about the polar opposite of what our modern societies are mostly up to, one might add.

     If one did happen to be so fortunate as to live in a society  which lived within its means, ecological as well as economic, chances are it would present less of a threat to others,- would not be trying to make them pick up the slack, or indulge in flights of chronic imperial nostalgia, blowing billions on warships and silly adventures to the Far East while cutting aid to the starving and failing to run one's own society justly, concentrating instead on working constructively with one's neighbours. This would be the way to convince others that one is serious about finally leaving colonialism behind, while building up credibilty and respect, and the means to make helpful contributions to the world. One might finally discover how to live happily in one's own country and with one's own neighbours.

     One would likely also find in a sane society that, though undoubtedly there would still rich and poor, they would still be 'on the same planet', able to understand and respect each other; there would not however be a lot of claptrap about 'equality of opportunity'. Opportunity for what? Getting 'a foot on the ladder', and achieving the opposite effect of what is allegedly intended by very effectively segregating people into those who proceed to 'get a good job' and those who do not, each to their own miseries! Anyway there would be no shame attached to working with one's hands, indeed we might consider 'a real gentleman' not as someone who never got his hands dirty, but one who achieved a balance in his life between manual and intellectual work, and did his share of his own physical labour. Surely his intellectual work would be all the better for it! Then again slavery will only be definitely consigned to history when we do not have to sell ourselves, dedicating ourselves to that authentic vocation which only the mysterious relationship between the self and God can evoke, and which uniquely gives sense to ideas of being 'true to oneself' and free,- dare I say, really and truly woke.                                                     

Sunset over Horseshoe Cottage

*Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3.