It’s all about memory.
We can only know where we are going if we first know where we are – and we can only know where we are if we know where we have come from. No wonder so many people are now spending time and money trying to reconstruct their family tree, even famous people on the telly. We need to know who we are.
That might sound trite or obvious, but it is also poignant today.
9/11 changed the world – not just because it brought upon us the disastrous ‘war on terror’ and re-defined the shape of Islam in the western world’s consciousness and imagination, but also because several thousand people left bereaved families and friends to shape a future without them, the particular loss impacting deeply in its brutality and scale. And today is one of those days when everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the planes exploding into the twin towers in New York.
Tomorrow sees another powerful memory evoked and, hopefully, reconciled. The Bishop of Liverpool is not here in Oxford as he will be presenting the Hillsborough Inquiry report in Liverpool. Not just friends and families of the 96 Liverpool fans who died on that awful day in Sheffield, but everyone in or with a connection to Liverpool. I remember exactly where I was when I heard on the radio what was happening and my mind just wouldn’t compute it at first.
The sense of injustice in Liverpool has been compounded by two things: (a) the refusal of successive governments to release papers and hold a proper inquiry, and (b) the offensive reporting as fact by the Sun newspaper of crude and shocking allegations about the behaviour of Liverpool fans while people lay dying on the pitch. The Sun has never been forgiven. The energy and persistence of those who have pushed for transparency and justice has defined their life… and it shouldn’t have been necessary. I only hope that tomorrow will bring with it the security of certain knowledge, the peace of resolution, and the beginning of healing of memories.
We live out of our memories. We inhabit an internal world shaped by memories. We know who we are by where we have come from and how we got to be where we are. Today and yesterday bring to mind (for some of us, at least) the searing sadness of loss, injustice and fearfulness – and invite us to begin a different journey to a different place of resolution in which the sting of particular memories begins to be drawn.
Or as Bruce Cockburn put it:
There you go swimming deeper into mystery,
Here I remain, only seeing where you used to be.
Stared at the ceiling ’til my ears filled up with tears;
Never got to know you, suddenly you’re out of here.
Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light
Posted with Blogsy
September 11, 2012 at 11:26 pm
As someone who has lived and ministered in inner city Liverpool for most of my life (bar five years during and shortly after my studies), tomorrow is going to be a very painful but deeply significant day. I think it has been typically brave and courageous of Bishop James Jones to chair the Independent Hillsborough panel, as it is going to be a very difficult path to traverse. It is an indication of the esteem in which he is held that he has been asked to Chair the panel.
My fervent hope is that the bereaved families will emerge from tomorrow feeling that the panel has fulfilled most of their hopes surrounding the process, and do not feel even more frustrated at the process.
One of my former line managers in work, a really good man, lost his younger brother aged 17 in the tragedy, and tomorrow is undoubtedly going to be a really difficult day for him and his family, along with many others. I am sure our prayers will be with all the families and friends tomorrow, and with Bishop James and the other panel members as they deal with the intense press scrutiny.
As for my own views, I personally would like to see documents which portray Kelvin Mckenzie for what he is. How typical that a man who holds forth on any subject he deems fit on Question Time and the like, should refuse to make himself available for comment for any of the programmes that have been aired in recent days, and keep his head firmly below the parapet. Hardly a surprise, and in total contrast to the dignity which the bereaved have borne their loss and anguish at the shocking and scandlaous way in which the reporting was handled by certain sections of the media.
I also hope that where governments have sought to suppress the truth that it will finally begin to emerge, irrespective of the collateral damage it may do to personal reputations, and that were proesecutions are clearly seen to be warranted, that the door may be opened for justice to begin, at long last, to be seen to be done.
September 11, 2012 at 11:39 pm
My own memories, in an old post, but poignantly re-inhabited with each Hillsborough reminder.
http://www.acutting.co.uk/hillsborough-20
September 13, 2012 at 10:58 am
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