Names are
important. They are the words by which we make sense of the world. They are
tied up in history, and religion, and culture. They are how we create and
receive our identity, or identities. They enable relationship. They are given
as a gift from those who love us most.
Anonymity
can be important too. A place to hide from who we really are or from who others
think we may be. A freedom to express something the identifiable self cannot or
will not say. An escape from a reality too painful or too constrained to
contain who we have become.
One of the blogposts I wrote during the summer included references to the “Sudanese male”
who died in the channel tunnel. There have been others before and since, both
here and at every other stage on this arduous journey. There are exceptions, but
most, like him, have remained unknown and unnamed.
I was struck
at the time by this absence of a distinguishable, personal identity. It was so
different from my relationship with the asylum seekers I know: real people,
with not just names, but families and histories, with fears and hopes and
dreams.
And yet I
knew I could not challenge his anonymity by revealing theirs. When I have
written about them, I have also concealed their identities behind a protective
veil of anonymity. But there is a difference, I think (hope) because they have
taken ownership of their anonymity. But his is an anonymity that has been
imposed rather than chosen. It is not
the anonymity of protection, but the anonymity of being ignored.
Maybe he
would have wanted it this way. I doubt anyone tried to find out. We will never
know.
Sometimes
There is a
place
A safer
space
Where
In the
protection of a promise
Anonymity
can choose its name
And each can
opt
To not be
known
To hide
From all
they are and cannot be
But what of
you
Was this
your choice?
To remain
forever
Unnamed,
unknown
Or were you
victim of a system
In which
No-one tried
to learn your name
And would you
choose that once
Just once,
A friendly
voice might whisper
Your name
Was it far
from here, and long ago
That someone
Carved
The promise
of an identity
Inscribed in
love
With all you
are and hope to be
This the
gift
Of those you
knew
Left far
behind
To wonder
Where are
you now
Who’ll never
know your final fate
A better way
Perhaps
That they
might live with this
The hope you
dared to share
That you
might find
A better
place
A safer
space
The protective veil
Through
which one day
You might
just dare
To whisper
once again
Your name
The promise
of an identity
Inscribed in
love
With all you
are and hope to be
In the
midst of this,
Our nation’s
shame
I’m sorry
That I do
not know
And cannot
speak
Not even
once
Your name.
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