oily oaf
22nd September 2007, 05:14
In yesterdays rather vacuous thread I may have intimated that it is in some way laudable or courageous to go around thumping the life out of our fellow human beings.
This is of course not the case and indeed most of the men of violence I have known have been rather unpleasant individuals who use the fist and the boot to overcome their own deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and social exclusion.
Courage for me was epitomised in a piece I heard last night on the national treasure that is the mighty BBC World Service which chronicled the work of a Roman Catholic nun in war torn East Timor.
This remarkable woman has set up a refuge for children made homeless by the fighting and cares for a few hundred of them in a small compound on the city limits.
Despite the fact that she's been threatened with guns and knives by various warlords who want to recruit these kids into their respective gangs to serve as boy soldiers or sex slaves to the troops she has remained steadfast in her role as protector to these youngsters.
On one memorable night Sister Wilhelmina, for that is her name, quietly recalled how two rival gangs fought a bloody battle outside the compound before turning their attentions to stoning her refuge and the kids within it.
Swallowing her fear she went outside, locked the children in the compound and made her way toward her assailants amidst a fusillade of bricks and stones whereupon she sought out the gang leaders and ordered them to stop endangering the safety of her small charges.
Whether they had become bored by their activities or whether through respect for the doughty little nun I know not but the gangs dispersed and melted back into the streets.
Now in this perverse world where the rock musician, the film idol and the sportsman are feted, worshipped and richly rewarded, every now and then a story of the utter dignity of the human spirit emerges which is enough to make you weep.
As I listened to the good Sister quietly and unassumingly tell her harrowing story which she also littered with some delightful self-deprecating humour it dawned on me that this little scrap has more courage in her little finger than I have in my entire lumpen mass of a body.
And that my friends is a fact.
This is of course not the case and indeed most of the men of violence I have known have been rather unpleasant individuals who use the fist and the boot to overcome their own deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and social exclusion.
Courage for me was epitomised in a piece I heard last night on the national treasure that is the mighty BBC World Service which chronicled the work of a Roman Catholic nun in war torn East Timor.
This remarkable woman has set up a refuge for children made homeless by the fighting and cares for a few hundred of them in a small compound on the city limits.
Despite the fact that she's been threatened with guns and knives by various warlords who want to recruit these kids into their respective gangs to serve as boy soldiers or sex slaves to the troops she has remained steadfast in her role as protector to these youngsters.
On one memorable night Sister Wilhelmina, for that is her name, quietly recalled how two rival gangs fought a bloody battle outside the compound before turning their attentions to stoning her refuge and the kids within it.
Swallowing her fear she went outside, locked the children in the compound and made her way toward her assailants amidst a fusillade of bricks and stones whereupon she sought out the gang leaders and ordered them to stop endangering the safety of her small charges.
Whether they had become bored by their activities or whether through respect for the doughty little nun I know not but the gangs dispersed and melted back into the streets.
Now in this perverse world where the rock musician, the film idol and the sportsman are feted, worshipped and richly rewarded, every now and then a story of the utter dignity of the human spirit emerges which is enough to make you weep.
As I listened to the good Sister quietly and unassumingly tell her harrowing story which she also littered with some delightful self-deprecating humour it dawned on me that this little scrap has more courage in her little finger than I have in my entire lumpen mass of a body.
And that my friends is a fact.