Yesterday I read an article on the train into London.
Mrs Beautiful had read it some weeks ago.
I rip stuff out and read when I can - usually on a train.
I was really upset.
It changed my mood.
I felt tearful.
Read it and feel it - please.
Today I have just flipped through todays Guardian magazine.
There another article.
Same horrible feelings.
Tears came to my eyes - I am so upset.
Both articles - nearly a month apart
describe Palestinian BHP's living in terrible situations.
I am grieving as I have to click this keyboard.
Previously I had skimmed through another insert
"Do something' - about ideas we can do for interest or health.
I thought to myself
'So middle class - I don't see anything about
SURVIVAL.
How to survive with no money and living on a tough housing estate.
I am middle class?
I thought.
I read the Guardian and have for years.
But it touches me where I am at.
It plumbs the depths on issues which live with.
Have lived with all my life.
Poverty.
Urban life. Working class life. The struggle to survive.
Violence. Gangs. Offenders. Humans in pain.
Beautiful humans.
I remember, having lived on the job for 38 years,
how we moved from housing in the middle of a inner city community
to a house attached to the same community project
but it had a front door out onto the street.
WOW I could get the Guardian delivered daily.
It was a new life for us.
We read stuff.
Am I still working class?
I spent my after schooling working in factories
between 15 and 26 before we sold up our home
moved from our home town
to go and work in a young offenders unit.
Uneducated and factory worker,
(even though the last place I worked was a
factory/Research Laboratory with Pilkington Glass.)
Was I working class then?
I have lived close to poverty all my life
and it damn hurts.
You could say I live in poverty now.
I feel I do.
BUT poverty is deeper than the economic
it is something that imprisons the spirit.
I don't feel I am impoverished in the way - EVER.
I guess the Guardian readership has a middle class readership
but it raises issues - unravels social pain and I like that.
I love what they do
even though it can be 'so middle class'
and I feel working class.
Am I?
Does it matter?
Why am I asking this question anyway?
IT DOES NOT MATTER
It's just a TAG.
The most important thing is
that people with a passion for justice,
and a desire to eradicate poverty,
that we are better informed about the reality of others.
This Palestinian situation,
and I have not read todays horrific article yet,
is absolutely dreadful.
I have a number of friends who have travelled there.
They return shocked
but also motivated to work for peace and justice
for those people living under oppression
and in extreme poverty.
The first article::
'Goodbye Gaza:
A Guardian correspondent reflects on her time in the Middle East
After three years reporting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,
our Middle East correspondent is coming home to the UK.
With heavy heart she pays a farewell visit to Gaza
and pays tribute to the resilience, creativity and humour of its people' ...
AND got under my skin on yesterdays train............ read this bit
'Electricity is rationed, currently eight hours on followed by eight hours off. Some families are cooking indoors on open fires at considerable risk of injury. Children are forced to study by candlelight. People set alarms for the early hours in order to be able to take a shower or charge their phones or send an email. Mealtimes are now determined by power supply rather than tradition.'
'DO SOMETHING'
is the title of the Guardian magazine.
YES - we need to DO SOMETHING !
..todays article::
..todays article::
TODAYS ARTICLE - AN EXTRACT::Those working with Palestinian children say this is a common reaction. "When you live under constant threat or fear of danger, your coping mechanisms deteriorate. Children are nearly always under stress, afraid to go to school, unable to concentrate," Frank Roni says.
Mona Zaghrout of the YMCA lists typical responses to trauma among children: "Nightmares, lack of concentration, reluctance to go to school, clinginess, unwillingness to sleep alone, insomnia, aggressive behaviour, regressive behaviour, bed-wetting. Psychosomatic symptoms, such as a high fever without a biological reason, or a rash over the body. These are the most common things we see."
