Tag: heroism

The Storm Of The Mind

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

The first time I came to Greece, perhaps it was about four years ago now. Time is strange, it decides itself how fast it moves. It may have even been five years. The destination was Lesvos and it was with the intention of being some kind of hero, there to save the refugees. Actually I’m not entirely sure what the intention was, it was just suggested to me by a friend as something to do and I thought why not. We arrived in a storm. For about four days the island was battered as people slept rough, they slept wet, they slept on hillsides that resembled rivers. The scene was destruction and devastation. It was post-apocalyptic in everyway except that I was able to return to my little hotel room once all the heroism was done for the day.

There is a lot that could be said about that time, little of it positive in a way but there are always things which shine through the clouds. I made friends who will be friends for a lifetime. That isn’t always something you can say. I also saw the world in a way I hadn’t previously, and I understood seeing truth in another form, despite being hard to take, was a good thing for the mind. These things are all about me though because to view it from any other perspective is too much of a challenge. Thousands of people passed through everyday. The fate of nearly all of them unknown to me. Many survived but I don’t doubt many didn’t, their fates too horrific for these words here.

I’m not sure why I’m going into this. I always feel so self-indulgent. The knowledge I’ll likely always have a hotel room to go to if I need devalues something of any assistance I could give. The words become hollow, if they ever weren’t. That and the knowledge I could also jump on a plane with relative ease and go to any of those countries people were dying just to reach. There is probably a sense of guilt in a way but we shouldn’t feel guilty when ultimately we’re powerless. It is also a completely pointless emotion as we can’t help the lives we were born into. We can help what we do with them but even then we’re limited in anything genuine. It does make you grateful for a bit but that slowly passes as you start casting envious eyes around once more. I can understand how people become detached when they exist in that world for so long. Or maybe they’re detached when they begin and that is how they last. That is unfair. People do what they can. What they have to.

I know why I’m going into this. I’m in day three back in Greece and it’s currently day two of Storm Ioannis. Apparently there will be a day three and day four will be the day the world comes back to life. The scenario couldn’t be further from the last and I am as much a different person as those people I now meet but arriving in a storm seems familiar enough that it has made me reminisce. Reminisce in the most miserable and sad of ways but then weather can do that to you. Our moods are so very defined by the nature of our environment. What is important though is to remember to come out with the sunshine once it returns. It’s best not to leave yourself in the storm.

BR#8 – One For The Road

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I still refer to these as book reviews when if we’re all honest they’re probably something else. What they actually are I’ll leave to the annuls of history to decide but in the meantime and for the sake of form they’ll continue to be book reviews. I am reviewing plays seemingly more regularly than books too, although a play is still arguably a book, but with One For The Road by Harold Pinter being a one act play, only sixteen pages long, it’s more of a pamphlet than anything else. It’s so short in fact that when I finished reading it I decided to read it again, just because, well, why not.

One For The Road is set in what I assume is some kind of headquarters of the secret police under a totalitarian regime. The man in charge refers to patriots so you can imagine nationalism plays a role but he refers to god more often which makes me believe this is some Christian fundamentalist regime on par with Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale. That probably just exposes my ignorance of a better relatable example and a sign of my being lazy. It also ignores the general complicity of the Church in right wing totalitarian states in our history so it could just be a simple case of something along those lines.

The story revolves around what can be classed as interviews between someone of importance, potentially the head of the secret police, and individually the three members of a family taken in for interrogation. The father / husband, wife / mother and their son. The man is beaten and while he challenges his interrogator slightly he generally remains silent and passive. It is likely they have all been arrested because of his political activity. The woman talks more, although there are more direct questions and it is revealed she is being repeatedly raped. Her father is also revealed to be a national hero, a heroic soldier who fought and died in some war that presumably led to the establishment of this state. While the boy who is only seven we discover spat at and kicked the arresting soldiers when they came to his house. At the end he is referred to in the past tense. The interrogator is constantly pouring himself drinks and suggesting it’s one for the road but the implications are more that this will be one for the road before they are released. This of course doesn’t come and there is something chilling in this psychological torture too. That is basically the story, which I’ve now given away but in such a crude manner I’ve not gone near to doing it justice.

I know very little about Harold Pinter beyond his name. I did study Drama for my A-Levels at school but like everything was left incredibly unimpressed by any teachings provided, although my lack of effort and involvement mustn’t be discounted. It is only now as I get older that I start to understand that these things can actually be enjoyable. It is short and I would be curious how and in what circumstances the play would be performed. There are a lot of pauses so potentially they would make better use of them than I did but it was a good introduction to his work. I look forward to reading some more, maybe even a full length one next time. He certainly appears to be someone I could get into.