Innocence is precious.
“Hundreds of Benefits Claimants are fined every day” is the headline in a recent paper, revealing a dramatic increase in the number of sanctions issued to those who fail to turn up for DWP interviews or to attend to the other requirements of finding a job. You had no money to phone the jobcentre because your mobile phone ran out of credit because you were sanctioned last week? Too bad, here is another sanction to reward you for your efforts….. Sanctions appear to be levied for the strangest reasons, including, not being able to attend two appointments at the same time, and waiting to start a new job.
The current belief that underpins the increase in sanctions and the general tightening of belts is one that screams, “Scroungers, wasters, the lot of them” and so, with that assumption firmly in place, automatically the collective mind charged with administering benefits goes on the lookout for evidence to support that belief. Subconsciously, evidence is found which bolsters that assumption, as well as a whole raft of other assumptions, which are naturally filtered and selective.
The same process happens when we go around saying to ourselves, “I feel sick”. We look for any evidence that vindicates our belief; and the difficulty or discomfort we create in passing is thus not seen as regrettable, but as inevitable.
In that sense, the fact that there has been a huge increase in the number of sanctions being levied against the poorest and most desperate merely bolsters the underlying belief that there are lots of chancers out there, who will do anything to fiddle the system. This is just the tip of the ice-berg, we are just beginning to uncover the scale of the deception…. The presumption of innocence is very precious, yet seems to be under attack in all quarters. The Scottish Parliament seems bent on abolishing the doctrine of corroboration in Scotland too, so that more guilty people will get the justice they deserve.
Innocent people deserve a break too.
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December 11, 2014
Seeing
Fran Macilvey beauty, change, childhood, choices, communication, family, hope, innocence Flash Fiction & Short Stories 2 Comments
Little Amanda, in special white stockings, lived lightly with her grandmother, an old curmudgeon, overbearing and humourless.
Grandma had her own daughter once, a beauty with bright green eyes and hazel, switchback hair running in careless shiny ropes down her back. Beauty went off with a beast, who took her downhill into the town, underground into the dungeon city at the base of the hill, the hideout of the poor, desperate and cold citizens with nothing to do, except gaze with gauzy eyes into the middle distance, the dark walls enclosing them, the weight of a whole city above.
From there, a baby was pleadingly brought to the old woman, wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm. Baby child Amanda was quiet. Occasionally she would sing, self-consciously curling her lips, as if to mute the sound. She wasn’t supposed to be happy. Grandma, with her bent back and stern gaze, was unhappy.
But the sun shone, so Amanda found escape from their flat into the back green, below the gaunt height of the tenement. Lying on the grass at the base of the hill, she would gaze dreamily up at the trees, admire their swishing branches and hope flowers would sail down, land on her face and arms. Fragrances blew around her. Beneath the branches, she breathed deeply and her heart lifted.
Not so far away, Simon held a yellow duster. Motes swam in the air, then settled again a little way off: on the mantelpiece, on the round-headed clock, the dust and grime kept the corners of his living-room warm. It annoyed him, a little, when the sun shone. Then he could see streaks and marks from dearly departed toby jugs.
Habit tugged him over to the window. The sash and case rattled faintly as he adjusted the blind. Without really seeing, since he looked so often at the same shorn hills, he watched…adjusted and looked again.
Her dark brown eyes, almost black, found the flicker. She looked too, smiling quietly and easily, careless that caught, she should behave differently. No-one else noticed that light brown face, saw those window eyes catch the sun. No-one else was there to watch the shape of her cheeks, the way her hair swept back. That blue dress, hidden under the bright, waxy green of trees fully awake.
Amanda grinned. Simon smiled.
The old man turned away, shaking with regret. Where was Ellen, to share this? He had long ago looked at beauty like that, in that way. In the business of passing his days, he had lost the urge to look outside. Outside!
The duster lay on the floorboards where it was dropped.
He saw her again when he left, the front door slamming shut behind him. Deeply busy, dreaming. Such a beautiful child. Such wondrous sunlight. See those flowers…red flowers.
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