Being able to cry is a big advantage. Being able to cry with other men and have other men cry with me is good. I used to think this was the essence of weakness. Once in the back of a bar on the Shankill Road, a couple of men were giving me a hard time. They did not like what I was doing and where I was going in Belfast and they were beginning to threaten me with dire consequences. There was plenty of reason for me thinking that what they were talking about could very easily take place. I had visions of being found in a back alley or on a dump somewhere with a bullet in my head. I remember that I got rigid with fear. That is what fear does. I didn't know what to do. I thought I was at my wits' end. I didn't realise that it would have been quite appropriate for me to get up and walk out. Or ask them what they were so afraid of in me that felt they had to threaten me. What I did was burst into tears. I bawled, like I had never bawled since I was a child. From deep down inside me I erupted. And that broke the spell of fear for me. I remember the look on the faces of those two men. A kind of incredulity. Maybe they'd never seen a man cry like that before. Maybe they were reminded of a time when they were free to cry themselves. One of them said 'Go on ahead'. I got up and left with a spring in my step, delighted.
I have often thought about that incident. And about other times in my life when I have cried. I realise now that having a good cry clears my head, when I need to get my head clear, and that it is especially good to do this with another human being, especially with a man.
Being able to do this clears my thinking around the nuclear question. I want to have men begin to think rationally around the nuclear issue. To get through the numbness that hits us when we try to face up to the nuclear issue. Sellafield needs to be cleared up and Chernobyl has reminded us in one of the most international ways so far that we have not got the measure of nuclear energy yet, and before any more messing around goes on we need some clear thinking.
I want men to do this. I want men to get rid of the oppressive, non-thinking and rigid viewpoints we have picked up as agents of the oppressive society. This is the best way I know how of supporting and standing beside my sisters in the world, and the young people. I am getting in touch with men at all levels. An unemployed group (I'd rather say 'unwaged') in a town near me has started and I'm part of the support group for that. I am setting up a group among the men I work with and I've got the man in charge to encourage me to do this. I am in touch with men in different parts of the world and I am finding all the time that men are simply waiting for the word to go.
| It is like having someone stand guard for me while I take a rest. |
The way I do this, to begin with, is to listen. More than listening with the ears. Rather getting the whole of my attention working. Paying attention to myself. Learning to trust my own good thinking. Making decisions based on what I think. Taking responsibility for myself. No one else is going to do that for me. No one can decide for me. Then I find someone, another man, or a woman, or a young person, anyone, but in this case a man who is taking responsibility for himself, and I get together with him. I make an ally and we take turns to listen to each other. I know that everyone wants to be listened to and that few enough people know how to listen, so lots of people are talking but very few are listening, but it is simple when one realises that all one needs to do is to take turns listening to each other. One is enough to be going on with, but the more the merrier. It is like having someone, a man, stand guard for me while I take a rest. I have an ally in getting past all the despair that the isolation and competition of the oppressive society lays on me. I get to celebrate myself. And so does the other man. That is two of us getting to the innocence, which is the essence of power. I learn that we are all interconnected and interdependent. Each one of us is connected to the next person and the next person and so on. But also each one of us is connected to the whole of what is. Each one of us is an integral part of the whole. Without any one of us, the universe would be a different place. With every one of us, the universe is a different place.
For me to understand that the links are there already, that the connections are actually in place, is very powerful. All I need to do is to uncover the process. I do not have to struggle to create something that isn't there now, and might never be there. The connections are in place ready for us to move.
| 'I'm glad you came home, Daddy.' |
Sure, I have my difficulties. My father went to war when I was three. He was unemployed and got sucked into the sharp end of the oppression. I missed him for six years when I was growing up. That is one reason I do not like war. No one had the right to take my father away like that. My father did not really want to go away and leave me. I know that now. Recently he said to me, out of the blue, after a small family celebration with himself and my mother 'Do you know that today is the fortieth anniversary of me sailing out of Piraeus harbour in Greece to come home from the war?' There were tears in his eyes when he said that. I said 'I'm glad you came home, Daddy.'
Of course the struggle goes on. Everywhere people are struggling. In South America, in South Africa, in the inner cities, in rural areas, in Northern Ireland, in Russia, in what we call the 'middle east'. What I am saying is that we need to check out the tactics. Pulling up the paving stones and throwing the petrol bombs takes up a lot of valuable energy and brings with it a very rigid and irrational response. The more we struggle against something the stronger what we are struggling against sometimes seems to get. There may then be better ways of using our energy. We need to find the space to relax and realise that all our brothers are caught in this cycle of oppression, no matter what 'side' we are on.
I used to have a recurring dream. I was in a vast dark place. It seemed like a cavern. I couldn't make out the walls, or even if there were any boundaries. It was very dark. All dark except for a glimmer of light, a pinpoint of light far away. And I am straining and struggling to get to it, to get out of the darkness. I have woken up sweating with the strain. I could not move in the dream. I was rigid. It took me some time to realise that the more I struggled the more rigid and strained I became. Only when I learned to lie still and relax did I begin to move. I do not have dreams like that any more.
I am reminded of King Canute. I used to think that he was a silly old king who went down to the seashore with the notion that he could stop the tide coming in. A man I knew recently told me that this was not what Canute did. He took himself and his throne down to the seashore all right, but his object in doing this was to show the people that you can't stop the tide coming in. Change happens, in other words, He wasn't so foolish as I used to think.
Somewhere along the line the human race made a deal with oppression. We made this commitment because it was the best we knew how at the time. We figured out that in order to survive we needed to set up a system where a few men did the thinking and planning, while the rest of the men, women and children went out and worked to support the system and the few doing the thinking and planning. We gave up our power because we reckoned that this was the best way to survive. We survived all right, but at a price. The price was opting for a system of oppression as a part of our living. I think it is time we realised that the price has been paid and we have survived. There are five billion of us now and it is time to take our next step.
| celebrating our delight in ourselves and our brothers |
The next step is celebration. This means giving up the struggle. The energy we spend on our daily battle to survive is not necessary any more. That energy would be better utilised in celebrating our delight in ourselves and our brothers. This is not easy because the struggle has become ingrained in us. We men have struggled magnificently. There is no doubt about that. But we have made the struggle an end in itself, an integral part of our daily living. We have decided that if we are not struggling with someone or about something we are not living. The old 'divide and rule' trick comes too easily with oppression.
In order to communicate this knowledge I am making friends with men. One of the people I live with is a man. I am having fun getting close to him. I'm doing this by listening to him and laying no expectations on him. I know what I want with him and the best way to get it is to remain delighted with myself all the time. How can I love him if I don't love myself?
I am spending time with men around where I live. I have had a number of men sharing with each other over the past number of months what it is like growing up male - what is good about that, and what has been difficult. I have asked that we listen to one another and that everyone gets a turn being listened to by everyone else without being interrupted. Also I have asked that confidentiality be made a condition of us meeting, because that makes it all the safer for us to share. Each of us has noticed changes in our lives as a result of this. We have been taking steps to explore our own power to decide how we want to live, and especially with those closest to us.
| No man is my enemy |
I'm delighted to be a man. I am gentle and caring, as well as strong and intelligent. My brother men are gentle and caring too, and strong and intelligent. Oppressing people is not my nature, nor is it the nature of being male. Oppression exists in many forms - classism, racism, sexism, adultism, ageism, sectarianism, anti-Semitism, gay oppression are some of the forms oppression takes. Oppression is not natural or inherent in human beings. Oppression operates on fear, and there is no basis in nature for men to fear one another, for no other human being is an enemy. No man is my enemy.
I have spent ten years in West Belfast watching men getting hooked into despair and being beaten. I didn't know what to do then. I did my best helping to organise community groups, going to an endless round of meetings, writing down the feelings of despair I had in a kind of poetry, and depending on the woman I live with to stay with me. I learned a lot during those days and it is very different now. I'm moving. Moving closer to my brothers and sisters. Shaking off the effects of the oppression on me and getting out into the open. Making friends of my allies, and allies of my friends. Celebrating...
Brian Smeaton
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
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