Justice

It's a funny thing considering we make up all the rules. It is us, human beings, who decide what is just and unjust in the first place; what is right and what is wrong, what is ethical and what is unethical etc. What is considered humane and inhumane is perceived by us and us alone. Higher judgment, or God, will reveal all in a different life. But who decides whether or not we should stand trial now, in this lifetime?

I watched a fantastic film once called 'God on trial'. It was about the concentration camp prisoners putting God on trial to decide whether or not He was responsible for abandoning them in their time of desperate need. It was touching and poetic, sad and pathetic, helpless and hopeful. But most of all, it was distressing. The mammoth feeling of abandonment struck me. I wondered what it would feel like to wake up and realise God had just walked out of your life.

The BBC documentary I just watched achieved the exact same thing. A journalist decided to embark upon a journey to Germany, Hungary and Austria to find the world's most wanted Nazi war criminals. These men, all in their mid-90's, are (directly or indirectly) responsible for the massacre of 11 million people; jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and many more. These men, frail and often disorientated, claimed they had no recollection of what had happened. Some admitted their past but refused to take any responsibility; claiming they were simply following orders as soldiers. Others were completely oblivious to the scale of devastation caused by the Nazis. They were convinced it was 'exaggerated' and felt betrayed that the plight of the German people who were also displaced and made to evacuate their homes was not represented in equal measure to the suffering of the Jews.

Drowning in alcohol in the early hours of the morning, unable to face the reality of their past, they sit determined to avoid the subject altogether. Looking at their wrinkled, pale faces; their withered eyes and their shaking hands, I wonder how anyone can put these men on trial now. Am I a fascist like them? Does this make me a Nazi? No. Does it make me compassionate? Am I fooled by the exterior, unable to recognise the men who once killed brutally without flinching? No. Instead, I am convinced that the only judgment which now matters, which will bring justice of unprecedented levels, is the one that awaits these men at the end of their lives.

Facing the end of their lives alone is a kind of justice in itself, I guess. But admittedly not enough.

I think of my own past. Have I done things I regret? Yes. I haven't killed anyone or intentionally harmed a soul but I'm sure in passing I must have. So, put me on trial. Whose to say the judgment of those on Earth, those equal to me, will affect me in any way at all? The thing that petrifies me the most, the thing I'm convinced petrifies all of us the most is death. I will enter an unknown terrain alone, stripped of any agenda or ego, grovelling undoubtedly and unsure of what awaits me. At that moment, every last remanent of guilt that lingers in the shadows of my conscience will unwillingly rise and stand trial. Just like those men, at the end of their lives, I will have to be held accountable for everything I've done and everything I haven't. Every single one of us will. So, why do we deny it so adamantly?

For some reason, the human mechanism is designed to deny anything which jeopardises its interests. Deny the holocaust, by all means. Just know that one catastrophe isn't greater than another. And the suffering of one person or one race isn't more or less colossal than another. The real injustice is done when you deny the suffering of another for the sake of saving your own skin; skin that was never yours to save in the first place. Skin that isn't mine, either. It is only the choices that belong to us, that are owned by us. And upon those, we await judgment.

Pillars of family

I remember when I was little, I'd often hear the adults talk about how the family was suffering once the watchful eye of an elder had long gone. I never understood it then and never thought I would.

Reflection is never far from those who are obsessively committed to analysis, re-analysis and over analysis. Yet, for some reason, at this time of year my brain goes into overdrive. Maybe it's because I recall so much of what was good about this time of year, so very long ago.

Eid, I remember, was a reward for the month of sacrifice, strength and determination that came before it. New clothes, new jewellery, money, feasts - all very extravagant and rich. What I failed to observe as a child, however, was that Eid wasn't at all about those things. It was simply about family and love. And we all loved our grandmother. She was the centre of my universe and most definitely, the most important person to all of us individually.

Waking up in my grandmother's house is a feeling I have never experienced again. She'd be sat at her special, mahogany chair by the table with a bowl of Quaker oats cereal and her newspaper. Her matt gold-rimmed glasses would sit just above the tip of her nose - miraculously glued in place, defying gravity altogether. I'd watch as she'd turn the pages of the newspaper; so engrossed in what was happening in the world. At that age, I was completely oblivious to the fact that my grandmother was completely uneducated. And yet I have never observed such poise, sophistication and etiquette in any woman.

She had such a beautiful smile; comforting and playful and a voice I had never heard before. That sounds odd, I guess. Voices tend to be individual. But I guess to me - to us- everything about my grandmother was untouchable, incomparable. She called me her 'shaizaadi', the same term she used for all of us. And yet she somehow made it seem so personal, so unique. Her tone was different, I guess. She'd look at us all differently. We all had a special relationship with her.

At this time of year, I miss her face. Her loving gaze as I'd walk into the room; her warm embrace; her comforting smile; the way she'd affectionately tuck my hair behind my ears when I'd lean against her shoulder; her smell. I would have given the world for my grandmother.

During the years she was ill, I'd sit beside her and she'd secretly make me promise her things. She made me promise I'd be happy and successful. She made me promise I'd be a good person, a kind person and that I'd take care of my mother. But most of all she made me promise that I'd never forget I was her 'shaizaadi', her princess. I'd look at her lovingly and make all these promises. Then, when her illness would soothe her to sleep, I'd go upstairs into the bathroom and weep. I still remember the way she'd look at me after she was diagnosed with cancer. It was a changed look. She was still familiar, still the same - but she knew something that I didn't. As I'd sit on the floor and take her feet in my lap to lather with creams and oils, she'd look down at me from her favourite chair and her loving smile would morph into something else. I never understood what it was until the day she died.

Six years on and whenever I hear someone say 'grandma', there's a little pang of bitterness that sweeps swiftly through my body. And then just tiny remnants of her memory linger until I brush them away and convince myself there's no room for them in reality.

The day we buried her, we all gathered in one room and got under the covers: all eight of us. Something shifted in the universe that day, something happened. Between that day and today, six years later, not one of us have felt any desire to celebrate Eid. We moan, we bicker, we laze - anything we can to avoid embracing something that was once so beautiful. The first Eid without her was classified by the adults as being non existent, 'She's in this room with us', they said. 'Her spirit is here; in each and every one of us'. As I looked round the room at my girls, we all shared one expression - resentment. Resentment for something that we deemed untrue. Her spirit wasn't good enough; we wanted her. We wanted to hug her and touch her and tell her how much we loved her and missed her and how Eid and everything else would never be the same again. We smiled to each other knowingly and one by one, got up and left the room until we all ended up - rather coincidentally- in what used to be her room.