I see you, I hear you, I'm here for you
Have you seen what’s happening in Israel, Mum?
As soon as I read this message from my son last Saturday morning, my heart sank. There are parts of the world so prone to conflict that no news is definitely good news, and some news is, well…
We all now know what happened in Israel last Saturday - and what has happened in Gaza subsequently.
Another act of heinous terrorism and another war has broken out on this beautiful, long-suffering planet of ours.
This week, like many other people, I’m sure, I’ve thought long and hard about the heart-breaking events happening throughout the world and what if anything, I - and we - can do to try and make a positive difference.
Donating to a charity is an obvious option - I pay a monthly direct debit to War Child, which helps the children affected by conflict around the globe - but I think there’s something else we all can do too. And bizarrely, I came to this conclusion when remembering the stage version of the movie Footloose (please stay with me, this will hopefully all make sense by the end!)
Several years ago, me and my bestie went to see the musical of Footloose (one of our favourite teen movies) when it was on in London, and as an extra treat we decided to go for dinner before the show.
We went to an Italian restaurant right by the theatre and as is the way with many of these West End theatre restaurants, it can all feel a little like a conveyor belt as as many diners as possible are whisked in and out.
We were whisked to a table in the corner of the basement and promptly placed our order. I ordered a tuna pasta dish and a side of garlic bread (please pay close attention to the garlic bread, as it’s of crucial relevance to this tale).
We waited and waited and finally my friend’s meal showed up but there was no sign of mine. I asked the waiter politely, as is the British way - I probably even apologised for interrupting his evening - and he disappeared into the kitchen, to return with a plate of steaming pasta with no sauce and what looked like a tin of tuna that had been tipped out on top of it. You could literally see the shape of the tin!
I still wasn’t all that bothered at this point - we’d come out to see the show after all and maybe the garlic bread, if it ever arrived, would be an improvement.
The garlic bread finally arrived. The waiter sat a plate of it down on the edge of the table, away from me. I picked the plate up with both hands to move it closer and a searing pain shot through my fingers.
‘Ow!’ I yelped, dropping the plate.
And at this point, the waiter started to laugh.
‘Careful, the plate has come straight out of the oven,’ he said, still sniggering at my obvious discomfort, and before I could say anything else, he’d vanished off to serve someone else.
As I picked at my tin of tuna a la soggy pasta, stinging blisters started forming on each of my fingers. I went to the bathroom to run them under cold water but to no avail. I was in a lot of pain, and would be, no doubt, for the rest of the evening. We’d had a rubbish dinner, which had been so bad it had actually injured me, and to cap it all, the waiter hadn’t warned me that the plate had just had come out of the oven and had laughed when I cried out in pain.
When I got back to our table I told my friend that I was going to ask for some money off the bill as compensation, and she was in full agreement. So we finished and went upstairs to pay.
What happens next has gone down in the annals of our forty plus year friendship as Garlic-Bread-Gate or, the night when I well and truly lost my shit.
I went over to the counter to see the restaurant owners, a middle aged husband and wife duo, showed them my burns and explained that I hadn’t been warned beforehand that the plate was straight out of the oven hot and then, to add insult to literal injury, been laughed at. They called the waiter over, and before I knew it, all the other (male) waiters formed a circle around us, like some kind of shit pasta mafia.
‘We could give you the garlic bread for free but if we do it will have to come out of the waiter’s salary,’ the restaurant owner / Godfather, let’s call him Don Tinned Tunalonie, informed me.
The waiters gathered around me all frowned and sighed, as if I was the most evil person to have ever set foot in their establishment.
The pain in my fingers sent a burning sensation searing right through me and a red mist began to descend.
‘Show some humanity!’ one of the waiters cried, and the others all nodded in solidarity. Just to clarify, we’re talking about a £5 discount here.
The red mist blinded me.
‘Humanity?!’ I yelled at the top of my voice. ‘Where was his humanity when he brought over the garlic bread!’
A deathly silence fell upon the restaurant - no doubt all the diners who had ordered garlic bread were scratching their heads wondering what on earth was about to befall them.
In the end I got the garlic bread THAT HAD BURNED MY EVERY FINGER for free, and my friend and I hotfooted it over to the theatre without exchanging a single word.
It was only when we plonked down in our seats, just in time for curtain up, that we looked at each other and started to laugh hysterically.
‘Where was his humanity when he brought over the garlic bread,’ my friend gasped between snorts of laughter. ‘That was the best line ever!’ She then looked at me slightly shocked, and I would like to think, with an element of respect, ‘I’ve never seen you so angry!’
The truth is, I’ve rarely felt as angry as I did that night, and I’ve certainly never yelled at the top of my voice at a member of staff in any establishment before or since.
But there was something so incredibly frustrating, hurtful and infuriating about standing there, in a considerable amount of pain, while a group of people accused me of having no humanity, and also trying to intimidate me into silence.
My friend and I have always laughed and laughed hard about Garlic-Bread-Gate, and the line, ‘I was having a “show some humanity” moment’ has become shorthand in our friendship for having a meltdown.
But as I’ve watched the news coverage this week, and a lot of people saying a lot of inflammatory things on social media, I was reminded of how I felt in that moment, when I was physically hurting and people were gathered round ignoring or laughing off my pain, and accusing me of having no humanity.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
So often, when conflict breaks out somewhere else in the world, we (and I include myself in this fully) can be very quick to jump online and add our own vitriol / ridicule / perceived wisdom, into the mix. And actually, it helps no-one, and only inflames the situation (see my outburst over the garlic bread).
How about, if we see people suffering, we quietly and privately tell them, ‘I see you, I hear you, I’m here for you.’ And that’s it.
No pontificating about things we’re not experts in. No dehumanising entire races or religions. Just offering love and support for the people who are hurting - whoever they might be.
How different might it have been if that night in the restaurant, the staff had all gathered round me and shown sympathy for my burns? If they’d said they felt sorry for me instead of accusing me of having no humanity?
I know it’s a silly example but can you see the parallels with what’s going on on a larger scale?
Ultimately, it’s all about where we choose to focus our energy - on love, or on hate.
This week I’m the guest on a podcast called She Rebel Radio and my chat with the lovely host, Lulu Minns centred around the Holocaust and how we need to take steps to stop history from repeating itself. You can listen to it here, and I’d really love it if you do!
Towards the end of the episode, I share a quote from Auschwitz survivor and author, and a huge inspiration of mine, Viktor Frankl, in which he talks about the conclusion he came to after his experience in the camp:
‘A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human thought and belief have to import: the salvation of man is through and in love.’
This is the conclusion he came to after years witnessing the very worst humans have to offer, in Auschwitz: ‘the salvation of man is through and in love.’
If Frankl can choose love, after losing all of his closest family to the Nazis, then surely so can we?
Until next week, I see you, I hear you, I’m here for you.
Siobhan