BLOG 246: Who made it so

"In the Holocaust, Nazi's assumed compliance without challenge - an assumption indeed proved to be so. Monstrous acts are permitted not by acts of law but by the implied approval of silence"  LA Bell - Overcoming Racism [1995]

I grew up in Eltham, South East London.

It's a rather unspectacular upper working class suburb, put on the map primarily because Queen Elizabeth the First grew up in Eltham Palace which is just off our high street and that the town is edged by Oxleas Woods - Europe's oldest and largest urban woodland.

Twenty years ago today, something happened that changed everything not just for our rather insignificant leafy suburb, but for the whole desperately ignorant country in which we then lived. I say desperately ignorant not in a rude or dismissive way... just in a matter of fact way. Twenty years ago it was blithely said of the UK that we were an island for whom racism (or in fact any 'ism') was a footnote to a chequered history and that we were in more enlightened times...at last.

But we weren't.

While I sat round my parents house watching TV and talking crap.... two young intelligent boys ran for their lives less than 100 metres from my parents door.

While we sat behind our curtains blithely ignorant of the events that started at a bus stop where I embarked and disembarked so many times.... one of those boys fell to the pavement that carried the trace of my own footsteps.

He died.

He was stabbed to death by young men who sat in room that was walking distance from my parents house and planned how to kill anyone who had the same colour skin as he.

As I sat in my parents house, my sanctuary, my childhood home... Stephen Lawrence was killed by my neighbours, on my streets.

It was the third such murder, and it was assumed that justice would not prevail and that the usual cover up would take place  - after all racist attacks is just something non white people must put up with. But such assumptions did not take into account Stephen's mother. She fought like a lioness for justice for her son.  Justice that in many ways is still outstanding.

A seldom reported fact is that the people of Eltham acted to show support to the families affected by these outrageous murders and make clear that the perpetrators certainly did not act in OUR name. The town came out and sat in the streets holding candle light vigils. Flowers - even to this day- are anonymously left at the spot where Stephen Lawrence fell. And the many many churches of Eltham came together with the other faiths practised with in the area to present one united voice against the violence.

I was asked as the daughter of a Deacon of one those churches to write and deliver a prayer for unity following those events.

On April 22nd every year I take out that prayer and revisit it. Prayer has it power in being shared - so please take a quiet moment in your soul.... and join me:

A Prayer for unity

Dear Lord Jesus

Thank you for the gift of variety.

Thank you for the many different ways in which your presence in all things is shown to us.

Thank you for showing us the many different colours, shapes and actions in nature - the way a rose differs from a daisy in so many ways, and yet still belongs to the same family.

We especially thank you for our family - the family of man and for all of the variety within it.

Our differences are endless, our genders, our sizes, our colours, our cultures, our ages and our abilities and yet we all have one common purpose, to bring our many different voices to praise you.

We thank you Lord, for our many similarities, which make us all, no matter in which package we come in require security, love, happiness and to be valued.

We are grateful it is your hand that guides us towards satisfying these most human of needs, and pray that all your people throughout the world will be united in this knowledge.

We thank you for our strong and diverse community.

We praise you that for over four hundred years, brown, red, black, white and yellow have lived in this borough* alongside each other and have found their many different voices to honour you.

However Lord, there are those who have always sought to highlight our differences only to promote misunderstanding and create fear - in order to sanctify violence.

We pray for Northern Ireland**, Kosovo**, Zimbabwe** and so many other lands torn apart by seprartist philosophy.Nearer to home, we pray for the three local families whose members have been killed on our streets in racist attacks in recent years.

We ask you to bring comfort to all the families in their never ending grief - be they the ones around the world that we shall never know -

 - or the ones we do - the families of Roland Adams, Rohit Duggal and Stephen Lawrence.

Lord, make us all mindful that the evil in some men's hearts can make us forget that it was You who made us all different -

-and to hate each other for our differences is to hate He who made it so.

As we appreciate a rose for being a rose, and a daisy for being a daisy, may be all learn to appreciate each other for our differences and give praise to you for the variety that You have given us.

In Christ's name.

AMEN

REFERENCES (at the time prayer was written/delivered):

* LONDON BOROUGH OF GREENWICH: borough records show the following:

Sarah "a negress" buried in the borough 1602

Philip "a blackamore" baptised in the borough 1679

Samuell Sampson "an indian" buried in borough 1680

Richard Pady "a negro" Occupation: Ships Cook. Location: Lower Deptford - Baptised his children at St Nicholas Church 1720

First documented Irish settlement - 1850

First documented Italian settlement 1880

** SEPARATIST STRUGGLES/WARS late 1990s/early 2000.  

So much has changed in the last twenty years, and yet so little has changed also.

We are still to learn that it is not for us to pass sentence who lives and who dies.

We are still to learn that it is not for us to say who has more rights to this tiny island. 

(which face facts was uninhabited till some hunter gatherers from the middle east chopped the trees down some 500,000 years ago)

But I think it is clear to anyone thinking about the events of twenty years ago:

We have now learnt to NEVER underestimate a mother's love.

#RememberStephen

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