Redundancy blues

It was D-Day at work yesterday - no-one knew where the bombs would fall, or who'd be culled.

The problem with D-Day, of course, is that it's so personal - you're the one being shot - it's you the bullet's going to hit. This is not a movie, it's not a manufactured drama, it's your life.

Plus, unless you're some kind of monster, while you're desperate not to be culled yourself, you really, really don't want your friends to go either. So you're trying to avoid the shrapnel, while looking out of the corner of your eye to make sure your friends are still ok, and hoping whatever moves you've made to protect them will have been enough.

When the hiheidyins call you in and tell you whether you've got the chop or not, your first reaction, on hearing you haven't, is "Thank God!" Which, of course, translated, means "Thank God it's not me." So who is it? And how do you go back into the office without showing your relief, so you don't hurt the person who is the target? He probably doesn't deserve it any more than you do. What do you say to someone whose livelihood's just gone straight down the pan? You certainly can't comfort him because you've still got what he hasn't, which makes you the last person he wants to hear.

Redundancy is horrible; it's divisive, reduces people to their essentials and, with luck, can bring you together. But it needs to be done with whatever humanity can be summoned up. What it shouldn't be is needlessly cruel.

Not so much cliches, more the tactful disavowal of truth...

In terms of commiseration, the British aren't much good. With some brilliant exceptions, they're either so embarrassed they gush, or so shy they mutter inaudibly and while you're trying to work out what they said they smile awkwardly and leave, having got it over with. This isn't to condemn them - they face difficult situations with kindness, even if they don't really know how to express it.

I've been thinking about the things people unused to suffering say to make you feel better, and they tend to have two things in common - these phrases are so universally used that they're almost cliches, but they're not cliches because although they sound true they're actually inaccurate in much the same proportions as likening a mild bout of flue to bubonic plague. Yes, both make you feel ill. That's as far as it goes.

For instance:

"When one door closes, another door opens"

Really? Prove it.

And re the opening door, how can we assume it's a good thing? It may be (and in this climate, probably is) the door to the lengthening dole queue. It may be opening just to allow someone to come through and kick you down further. And what happens if the only door to the room you're in is the one that's just closed? How do you get out, let alone as far as the door that's opening? You get my point...

How about this one?

"Time heals"
NB. This is a stock commiseration to those in mourning; people tend not to say it to someone who's just lost a leg. That would be crass.

No, it doesn't. What actually happens is that time distances you from the pain, which you feel continuously at first. As time goes on, intervals appear between pain which gradually get longer. At that point you start to remember happy times, people as they were, and remember them with love. The pain, however, does come back and is no less intense when it does. It hurts just as much. But the intervals come again and you learn to live with it.

So, if you can, please avoid these worn out staples. I'm not sure why they're so ubiquitous. Perhaps it's an unwillingness to explore an embarrassing subject. Perhaps it's the fear that if you once allowed yourself to hear what you're saying you'd hide beneath the bedclothes and never come out again? But I suspect it's inexperience combined with the need to not make the pain worse. If you say, "I'm so sorry you've lost your job; you'll probably never get another one. God, it's going to be tough," or "I'm so sorry he's dead. I hate to think how much you'll miss him and how unhappy you're going to be for so long," all you do is make life more difficult for your friend. But there has to be a middle way...

In the news today is an interview with the woman apparently known as 'the Mother of Believers' who has been recruiting young, impressionable women to become suicide bombers.

I don't agree with suicide bombing, of course - it's an appallingly violent form of protest which invariably kills the protester and always takes innocents with him or her (rather than influential opposition figures, few young kids having access to anyone politically or religiously important). This is the grass roots of warfare - ordinary people killing ordinary people. It's almost impossible to guard against, which is why it's so effective.

But the thing I object to most is her methods of recruiting. For someone to be so fanatical about her religion that she's willing to kill children, and make them murderers in the process, is appalling enough. But the worse inquity lies in compounding the brain-washing process by taking a wavering child and having her raped, which in a muslim community is even more deeply shameful for the victim than in the Western world, and then telling her that the only way to expiate her shame is to kill herself for the glory of Allah, and take her enemies with her.

In my world, religion's about spirituality and belief; in the Mother of Believer's world, it's about the callous abuse of children who she sacrifices happily for the cause. But whose cause? I doubt if Allah's happy...

Burma

Evil exists; of that I have no doubt. The horrific cruelty that surfaces in the human race from time to time is unstinting evidence of it.

For a tragic illustration, look to Burma. The military junta have had things all their own way for far too long. Greed and fear seems to rule them. The people of Burma are exploited, maltreated, hungry; the monks, revered by the whole devout nation, are beaten up and tortured. Opposition is ground into the earth; legal elections are annulled and the lawful ruler imprisoned.

But evil brings about its own downfall. It has no limits, and so eventually goes just a millimetre too far. It pushes through that invisible barrier that separates a barely tolerable life from an intolerable one and leaves its victims so little choice that to act becomes a better option than to submit. Fear turns to anger. When a good man stands up against injustice, he wins a moral victory; when a whole people is enraged, dictatorships crumble. The junta's decision to raise petrol prices just may turn out to be that one incautious shove.

The sides in this dispute could not be more different. On one side, an oppressive military that plunders the resources of a once-abundant country for its own use, indoctrinating its soldiers that anyone disagreeing with them is the enemy, to be stopped by force. In opposition, a defiant brotherhood whose gentleness drives the desire for justice. Monks and nuns pray for the soldiers and refuse to fight back; Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel peace prize for personifying the power of the powerless and has been kept in solitary confinement for most of the last two decades, prays with them.

At this point Burma's future is uncertain. The junta has cut off internet access and is busy restricting the world's view of its atrocities. It has killed one foreign journalist, and at least nine protestors. People on the spot say the regime's claims of nine deaths is a vast understatement, and that monks are rumoured to be among the dead. If its milita can work out of sight, it will arrest and silence all possible opposition, and the people will return to a desperate, poverty-stricken existence, weaker than before and yet more hopeless. If the generals' deeds are open to scrutiny the regime will be more vulnerable to outside pressure.

A huge amount depends on China's and India's influence. If they can be brought to use it, a peaceful democracy may be negotiated into being. But China is unlikely to support a process of democratisation.

Bishop Tutu says this is in essence a 'moral universe'. He says that good will ultimately triumph, and history proves that to be so; but to wait for it without anger requires a superhuman patience and the active acceptance that all things come to an end and that everything happens for good. In Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, as in Mandela, the annealing fire of adversity has brought out these qualities. But she needs to be free, as do her countrymen. To achieve a peaceful revolution is incredibly hard; the courage of the Burmese protestors deserves the highest acclaim and the utmost help any of us can give. The monks believe that prayers for a peaceful resolution help - I, for one, am joining in.

Dua Khalil

was a 17-year old girl who was beaten to death in a public square for going out with a boy of a different religion.

Joss Wheedon says it all. http://whedonesque.com/comments/13271

Sic transit gloria mundi

In this case for glory, read Darcy - Bussell, that is; the glamorous, celebrated principal dancer at the Royal Ballet at Convent Garden who retires in a few weeks.


I was at the last night of her farewell performances at Sadler's Wells.

It was quite an experience. The rest of the cast were obviously determined to make her farewell memorable and to celebrate her contribution to dance over more than 20 years. She'd chosen her greatest (and incidentally seriously talented) friends to join her in her farewell.


In a line-up including Jonathan Cope, Roberto Bolle, Tamara Rojo and the Ballet Boyz you expect excellence. We got more. Cope danced with great sensitivity; Bolle with passion and strength; Rojo with a charming precision. William Trevitt and Michael Nunn moved with their accustomed lovely athleticism. Then Darcy Bussell came on the stage and danced them off it, fluently, gracefully and without any prejudice - she just danced.


There's no disputing it: the woman's a genius. In group choreography, she's magnetic; all of a sudden she's the only one visible, moving with a fluidity all her own. The difference is profound. The others perform skillfully, with a zest that moves you. Darcy Bussell gives you beauty in motion. She creates the space for you to see how it's meant to be done; she dances in a moment suspended in time.

Miss Snark has gone

I can't believe it - Miss Snark's retired!

I came back from the weekend away thinking I'd sign in for my daily dose of Snarkiness and all of a sudden I found the sky had fallen on my head. I'll miss the Snarkiverse a lot, but especially Miss Snark's trenchant common sense, wisdom and the innate kindness she tried so hard to disguise.

It'll be a big miss, as we say in Scotland (which, now I come to think of it, definitely needs translation!) Not just her, but that whole eclectic community of writers who got together to read and comment on her blog.

She's leaving the blog up, which is a relief - it's an extremely valuable resource for writers. I can see why she'd need to retire, though. The work she's put in must have been phenomenal. I can't imagine how she found the energy to blog, read the mail, and crit the crapometers, as well as holding down a job. Her life must have been put aside to make room. I hope she has a well-deserved rest after this and manages to get her hands on Mr Clooney. Good luck to her - she's a true gem.

Just things

Today is Wednesday, early evening; I can hear the air-conditioning from the restaurant behind the back garden wall, and a bee that's just flown in the room. Both humming, but the air conditioning's slightly flat and the bee's note wavers as it flies.

The garden's blooming. It's spent the winter waiting and in the last few weeks it's gone beyond anything my uncertain skills could have produced; bypassed them and leapt ahead. Everything's blossoming. Flowers that should come out in June are opening; plants that I'd done mourning are showing shoots. It's a burst of colour; a flaunting of life. And somewhere in there is Harriet, making it work, being glad that this is continuing while she's gone. She's only a step away from her garden - if only that step was smaller and just across the world's breadth, instead of over unknowable dimensions of body and spirit. I miss her more than I thought possible; and she'll never be far away.