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| Monday, 29 September 2003 |
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Mothers - come back home by Lorna Wright Convinced. A child needs a mother or 'another' say some human rights activists. A child needs 'family'; irreplaceable says everybody. An infant helpless, needs love, cuddling and warmth. First steps and the child needs to explore his own ideas, move his own way around, and not get alarmed or fear different, awkward attempts at childhood thinking. Adult supervision is necessary. For parents, it is always an unremitting crusade to let their child's growing youthful goodness shine through. Why give it away in well over one million under fives, in the country. A good question. In the 'Sun' paper May 5th 1982; all the Petro dollars won't help the dead-end kids' - the murky side of the flashy West Asian jobs. Over the last 20 years we have collected over 1.5 million drop-outs what S.L. De Silva's 'Technical Education' Ch 70, P 826, refers to as pests in society. Unemployable. "What right has anyone to call them 'Pests' in society says an academic. Let's give them the researchers classification - drug addicts, petty thieves, crime busters, rapists, unemployable political stooges. Political rallies were taking place. At an institution the trainees kept darting in and out of the tailors section. Sudden activity - Why? "No Madam they are getting caps sewn to walk in the political rallies and shout Jaya Wewa". So many caps? The tailor laughs. Each boy wants two. One green, one blue - one in each pocket depending on the political rally, they wear the needed colour. Boys were summoned. "That is not being honest doing that". "No Auntie - we get a bun, and cup of milk tea and ten rupees at the end of the walk". With the years 2001 there were 350,000 housemaids abroad, the year 2003 has 555,000 housemaids aborad of which 70% are mothers. The institution of family with focus on mother, is today an indifferent, if not unpopular school of thought. Asian values largely responsible for the 'Asian Miracle" emphasize the primacy of Rule of Law over freedom, family and community interests over individual choice, and ordered economic progress over poetical haggling, and these values are becoming obsolete. Youth today and extremes of ostentatious wealth or dire poverty or in middle-class oblivion need structures and supports which only family could bring them. We respect those who insist human rights, but need to know - a woman's? A child's? may we have debate on the losing line - the reassuring lie - the truth and complex challenge it presents in single parenting in the Third World. With monies no longer needed for a war may-be mothers could be brought back. Some stories to tell Jayantha was fourteen, may be twelve. He was one of a picnic group, out for a walk on Temple Road, Mutwal lined with beggar women, seated on the ground begging. Jayantha stopped, dug into his pocket, dropped some money into an outstretched hand. "Son, save your money they are professional beggars". He looked up at me with tired, sad eyes, the fabric of his life had obviously frayed. "No aunty I always give a beggar woman some money - because who knows she may be my mother". A life long search. * * * Empathy Better a tortured integrity than a phoney peace for a security guard. The cook house keeper was off for the day. Her umbrella, handbag and carrying the sirisiri bag with her working clothes. As she walked out, very noticeable in the bag, was the rim of a tin of salmon fish. She was called back. She unpicked the contents of the bag - besides her working clothes - was a tin of fish, 4 eggs, rice and sugar. Not a word, her head down, she gathered her clothes then limped away. The security guard at the gate watching was summoned. "What would you have done, examined her bag"? The reply was prompt. "Madam she is a grandmother, she has give grandchildren, the mother is abroad, the father has another woman. Leaving the items where they were on the front door step, the other staff gossiping, w went upstairs, sat to our warm dinner. Out somewhere were five small children who had no mother to give them dinner. * * * Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Father tells his 12 year old, "if teacher asks you your mother's name say Ariyawathie, not, Sriya. Child does what she is told to do - confused. The road she travels, there is a sense of emptiness and humiliation and shame. She tries not to hear the gossipy tongues - hates her father and cannot forgive her mother for leaving her to suffer such. The school principal speaks to her father - "my wife has been away for an year and will not return for another year. Am I expected not tor elate to another woman asks Amarasiri, or "do I console myself with drink or gambling or be accused of incest". * * * Attended a private viewing of a film where soul beauty was a feeling - very recently. A nice kid, eyes clear with intelligence, grows up - adolescence, and comes the interlude between boyhood and manhood. Vulnerable, but the son has his mother. In the border villages of Pakistan they do not live in a society free of racism - Muslim - Sikh. Soon, the cold irrationality of race hatred penetrates everything he does, numbing him. With his young friends he develops an anti - Sikh revolutionary creed. The devoted son becomes an agitator to a cause. Marches, demonstrations, disorganising routine life of others - the cause - the cause. "A lovable disrupted'. Only to discover his mother was an abducted Sikh woman. 18 years old - he could love all - when he could hate everything. * * * Mother - woman. Her feminine alliances love, devotion and gentleness attempting to separate victim from oppressors fails her. Erupting trauma and self-knowledge resonates. Society, social status and the overactive tongues do not shore up her defenses. No, not against the slings and arrows in the great swollen throbbing agony facing her son. Political imperatives of the day and it is very intense and very emotional realism for her son - shame and the spiritual inextricably entwined. She commits suicide. The young man broken, every pore of his being and nothing is anything firm in itself. Seated at the rivers edge he opens his mothers personal trinket box - he sees inside the Koran placed next to the Sikh Book of Prayer - he floats the box down the river - 'Ramsoh Pani' - silent water - title of film. A son, a youth questioning a tortured peace. In this day and age of globalisation senseless - yet true. TV today in most slum and shanty homes. There is a deluge of crass publicity and propaganda - buy, buy, buy - It is more important than giving - having is more important than sharing. Youth devour these sterile shows of consumerism - verging on pornography with unlimited human rights freedom and rampaging materialism bringing on greater hungers. There is an explosion in child abuse crime, learning disabilities, drug abuse - rape - moral decay. Can this Third World country afford the antidote to urban disorder and violence - the monetary figure and trained personnel needed are daunting, human right activists please note. Mothers - we need them back - restore family. |
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