“Eloquence belongs to the conqueror”; my first memory of the American Indian Other.

When I was little, like all young children I would forever be lost in my own fantasy world. It’s as if my imagination went into overdrive in an attempt to grow up and be the dominant, adult party. I wanted the trappings of adult life; after all, adults were in charge. So a box became a car, paper became money, and a long card tube became a gun. Later these were replaced by purpose built toys, such as my prized third generation action man, his plastic hands long since eroded and replaced with dollops of my mother’s clay. I once got into trouble with my father for dressing him in black and crafting a small swastika armband for him. I placed him at the end of our concrete garden path and threw stones at him, making ricochet noises for a miss and a scream for a hit. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t seen doing this, instead I was caught by my grandmother, who had lived through the Second World War, as I walked back into the house still carrying my plastic “Nazi effigy”, and my game was taken out of context. She took me to my father and I explained myself; he was less concerned than my grandmother, evidently having not been involved in “The War” provided him with a less emotional stand-point. After my explanation was relayed back to my Nan, everything was fine.

So many of my games centred on warfare and combat, I suppose this is fairly typical of boys; an ancient genetic hardwire teaching us how to hunt and defend ourselves.

There was no shortage of toys when I was a child, my grandmother worked in a toy shop when I was very young and would often bring home gifts to win my favour or indulge her own sense of wellbeing. Once she bought a Cowboys and Indians play set; a sheriff’s badge, pistol and hat for the budding colonist roughrider, and a bow and arrow and cheap plastic headdress for the young native, all wrapped in tight film against a card backer; the image on the board showed two smiling cartoon children, wearing the attire and pointing their imitation weapons at each-other.

That cannot have been my first experience since I had already decided which I would be; the victorious cowboy, revolver in hand and sheriffs badge pinned upon thick denim; civilisation against the wilderness and its wild inhabitants. This caused a conflict with my brothers who also identified more with the hero lawmaker than the warrior Indian. Our dispute settled we ran around the garden slapping our mouths and making the well-established, universally-stereotyped Indian war call. When one or the other was “shot” we would perform a dramatic dying scene; waving a hand in front of the wound to simulate the blood jetting from the vein. This was perfectly acceptable.

Before I can even remember, I must have been exposed to some external media that inspired my determination to be a Cowboy rather than an Indian; perhaps it was “Dr. Quine: Medicine Woman”, that my grandmother would insist on watching every Saturday night, or the rare “Western” that my father would watch on a Sunday afternoon.

Then there was the media designed for my age group, such as the “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” book I loved so dearly. It contained a two-page-spread of a traffic jam, with a variety of cultural stereotypes interspersed throughout; there was an Arabic character, identified with a mud-brown skin tone and a turban sat upon a magic carpet, a French character in a stripy shirt, string of garlic around his neck, driving a croissant-shaped truck, and an American Indian, with a red painted face, his exposed chest partially covered by his long headdress, arms crossed and oversized lips pulled down at the corners in a permanent grimace. He sat in his archetypical pose on the back of a horse; I didn’t want a horse, I wanted a car like my dad, or a fast red one like the one moving at the front of the queue in my big hardback book. I, like every other child, wanted to be the coolest hero, and they all drove sports cars and carry guns.

The Other Monologue

In many ways I led a very sheltered life when I was younger. My Grandmother held the belief that the country she had seen alter and change around her was too dangerous for children. The world purported by the “Daily Mail” and the “ITV news” was the world she believed in; the world of paedophiles, muggers, drug-addicts and pushers. For her, murderers and child snatchers lie beyond our red painted doorstep. It was, I believe, a mixture of protectionism and selfishness that made her keep us in; trying to prolong the innocence of our childhood; partly for our own sake and partly so she could re-live her own through us. She had to forgo her own childhood very early in her life; she was eight when her mother died of TB and her father, who had remained at home for the Second World War due to an injury, had to work all day. From that early age she was forced to care for her younger sisters, cook meals, clean the house, and collect rations. She had never had time to experience the comfort and security of a childhood. She became a rather Victorian woman in her later years, with unusual periods of childish melodrama and tantrums, like scratches of the undernourished child within vying for attention and recognition; even her job in a toy shop seemed to be influenced by her desire to remain as a child. Eventually, like all those who live under an oppressive control, I lost the will to venture outside, my Grandmothers fears became mine; unlike other children of four I would cling to my mother everywhere we went, hiding behind the pleats of her skirt, the whole world seeming hostile and threatening to me. So overwhelming was my grandmother’s desire to perpetuate my childhood that I was still pushed around in a buggy until I was six, in fact I would often refuse to walk, insisting upon the secure blue nylon cove of my push-chair to keep out the infinite array of bogie men. My mother was an emotional wreck, my father and grandmother both islands of authority, and regardless none of them were anywhere near our age. In search of relation and social hierarchy, my Brothers sister and I turned inward, toward each other. I remember when my sister first asked me if I believed in God; sat on the rusted green metal of our garden swing I ventured a nervous yes, and received a welcoming look that reinforced my sensation of relation to her. I felt connected. But my brothers abused this connection; forcing me and my sister into things we didn’t want to do. We went along just so we didn’t feel excluded and alone. I had never, as a small child, thought of myself, my situation or my condition as weird. Why would I? I had no basis for comparison. But as soon as I went to primary school it became startlingly obvious that the other kids thought I was strange. I arrived on my very first day at school in a thickly knitted V-neck tank-top with the sort of NHS milk bottle spectacles you could use to fry ants, pushed in my little blue chair of security. Even the mothers stared. That first day I cried and knuckled down to work in equal measure. I showed promise as a student but failed to relate to the other children at all. For their uniform, I had my Grandma’s home-knitwear, for their shell-suit tops I had a duffle coat, thick blue with toggles and handed down through two other kids; as they talked T.V. and toys I thought of space-ships and aliens, and read science-fiction and the bible in place of their comic books. I was, apparently very “weird”, a “freak”, an “oddity”, and as a result I was shunned. I didn’t want to be that way and I tried to fit with other kids. When I went to secondary school I started to smoke, skived classes I didn’t like, tried, with little hope, to date girls – but still I couldn’t shake the brand of “freak”. I think I was around thirteen, that time of amass hormonal upheaval, when I began to stop trying. Through constantly absorbing the message that I was different for nine years, I stopped trying to argue and began to take a creative control over my superimposed oddness. I blindly enacted a work of alchemy and turned shit into pure gold; I embraced a change in myself. I began to defended my “weirdness”; it was mine, it was what I was, it was my cultural niche; I took my little blue push chair and part exchanged it for a heavily spiked dog-collar, cuffs, finger-armour and make-up; my new identity became my new security blanket, I was suddenly the cause of my own exclusion, I made it my choice. It stopped being that the cool kids didn’t want to speak to me; it was that I didn’t want to know them. I became what people wanted me to be. I would bark at people who picked on me, wore make-up to school, and was proud to sit and read poetry and philosophy at lunch instead of trying to play football. My “weirdness” became the effectual outcome of itself... not that I was conscious of any of this at the time. I found others like me and we began to form friendships of sorts; still strained under the burden of internal hierarchy. It became a competition to see who was the weirdest, just as the other children campaigned to be the top-dogs of cool. I felt included and accepted; so long as I maintained the “weirdness” I had friends. We became secular and bigoted; assessing others by looking back through the same window of bigotry they observed us through; that they were other than us. When I reflect on this I have to ask who was more worried about their identity and security; me or the other kids? It seems that all of my life was coloured by these experiences; as if whenever I encounter something new or different, my reactions echo the survival skills I learned as a child; fight or flight. Whether it is safe to rush toward a new experience or runback to the protective pleats of my mothers skirt; each fold in the fabric being my bigotry, secularism, and egoism; These elements are the safe haven from which I can hurl judgments like stones at that which I do not understand and am not included with. At the same-time as they found fellows who were also threatened by the unusual kids, we found others to help us aim and throw judgments in exchange, to fight back, and a war of sorts was born. We defended our territory against an unwelcome invasion of tyrants seeking to destroy our personal identity and force us to integrate with theirs. I defended my mental territory, the boundaries of my identity and beliefs as they bridged the vast ocean that had separated me from other children and arrived upon the shore of my identity. Each stone of judgment that hit me, each crass comment and insulting remark, left a scar that strengthened my identity, solidified my cause, and removed me further still from a state of inclusion with them. I couldn’t remain the same, I had to adapt, but I refused to conform to their notions of normality, and why should I have done? My identity, with either a group or as an individual, is just a shelter from change and those who oppose me, and a means of relation and maintenance of security within my own tribe or culture. It’s the little nylon blue push-chair or studded collar and make-up of my youth; it’s my Grandmothers dominance over our childhoods; its being French, English, African, Gay, Straight, Bi, Black, White, or blue; a “Chav”, a “Jitter”, a “Goth”, Christian, Jewish, Arabic or Atheist. It’s being Pearce, Smith, or Peasey. It’s how we find each other and how we stay alone. It’s our frontline defence against change and the threat of the oppressors, reformers and invaders. I was crafted into what I am; the weirdo, the outcast, the freak; my own identity was bought more sharply into existence, and made more robust by those who wanted to destroy it. Since I had no other group to identify with, no other heritage to which I could relate, those few fractured friendships’ became my whole culture, and I became a “Goth”. I was isolated had others point the finger, causing me to realise more and more the need for my own identity; I was crafted by the judgments of others and saw them by comparison with myself; I was a Goth, they were not; I knew the way to be, they didn’t. There are no innocent parties in this game; each group sharply collecting the other and forcing it into its respective box. Like two cultures colliding on a foreign shore; one repelling the intrusion of another, we can only observe the Other through ourselves. Anyone who is not my friend is my enemy, and the others are never our friends.

THOUGHTS ON THE OTHER; A Pre-amble before the Monologues

Looking out the window;

Whenever we humans encounter something new or different, our reactions echo the survival skills of our primate ancestors; fight or flight. We learn as children whether it is safe to rush toward a new experience or runback to the protective pleats of our mother’s skirt. The results of these early experiences and experiments colour the rest of our lives, dictating our levels of confidence and comfort when confronted with that which do not understand; change and its minions; the Others.

My grandmother’s life is spiked with tragic change. She was eight when her mother died of TB and her father, who had remained at home for the Second World War due to an injury, had to work all day and spent his evenings with the home guard. From that early age she was forced to care for her younger sisters; cook meals, clean the house, collect rations. She had never had time to experience the comfort and security of a childhood. For her and all who shared this time and place, the Others were the Nazis, and she was united with her countries efforts against them. For the Germans who made their home Under the Nazis regime, the Others were the countless foreign parties that threatened their security and plagued their economy.

She became a rather Victorian woman in her later years, with unusual periods of childish melodrama and tantrums, like scratches of the undernourished child within vying for attention and recognition; even her job in a toy shop seemed to be influenced by her desire to remain as a child.

I, by comparison, led a very sheltered life when I was younger. My Grandmother held the belief that the country she had seen alter and change around her was too dangerous for children. The world purported by the “Daily Mail” and the “ITV news” was the world she believed in; the world of paedophiles, muggers, drug-addicts and pushers. For her murderers and child snatchers lie beyond our red painted doorstep. It was, I believe, a mixture of protectionism and selfishness that made her keep us in; trying to prolong the innocence of our childhood, the one she had lost so early in her life; partly for our own sake and partly so she could re-live it through us.

Eventually, like all those who live under an oppressive control, I lost the will to venture outside, her fear became mine; Unlike other children of four I would cling to my mother everywhere we went, the whole world seeming hostile and threatening to me. So overwhelming was her desire to perpetuate my childhood that I was still pushed around in a buggy until I was six, in fact I would often refuse to walk, insisting upon the secure blue nylon cove of my push-chair to keep out the infinite array of bogie men.

My mother was an emotional wreck, my father and grandmother both islands of authority, and regardless none of them were anywhere near our age. In search of relation and social hierarchy, we turned inward toward each other. I remember when my sister first asked me if I believed in God; sat on the rusted green mettle of our garden swing I ventured a nervous yes, and received a welcoming look that reinforced my sensation of relation to her. I felt connected. But my brothers abused this connection; forcing me and my sister into things we didn’t want to do and picking on us. We went along just so we didn’t feel excluded and alone.

I had never, as a small child, thought of myself, my situation or my condition as weird. Why would I? I had no basis for comparison. But as soon as I went to primary school it became startlingly obvious that the other kids thought I was strange. I arrived on my very first day at school in a thickly knitted V-neck tank-top with the sort of NHS milk bottle spectacles you could use to fry ants, pushed in my little blue chair of security. Even the mothers stared. I could feel my own mothers’ embarrassment, but she had not the will to challenge the mitten wearing iron fist of my grandmother.

That first day I cried and knuckled down to work in equal stints. I showed promise as a student but failed to relate to the other children at all. For their uniform, I had my Grandma’s home-knitwear, for their shell-suit tops I had a duffle coat, thick blue with toggles and handed down through two other kids; as they talked T.V. and toys I thought of space-ships and aliens, and read science fiction and the bible in place of their comic books. I was, apparently very “weird”, a “freak”, an “oddity”, and as a result I was shunned.

I didn’t want to be that way and I tried to fit with other kids. When I went to secondary school I started to smoke, skived classes I didn’t like, tried, with little hope, to date girls – but still I couldn’t shake the brand of “freak”. I think I was around thirteen, that time of amass hormonal upheaval, when I began to stop trying.

Through constantly absorbing the message that I was different for nine years, I stopped trying to argue and began to take a creative control over my superimposed oddness. I blindly enacted a work of alchemy and turned shit into pure gold; I embraced a change in myself.

I began to defended my “weirdness”; it was mine, it was what I was, it was my cultural niche; I took my little blue push chair and part exchanged it for a heavily spiked dog-collar, cuffs, finger-armour and make-up; my new identity became my new security blanket, I was suddenly the cause of my own exclusion, I made it my choice. It stopped being that the cool kids didn’t want to speak to me; it was that I didn’t want to know them. I became what people wanted me to be. I would bark at people who picked on me, wore make-up to school, and was proud to sit and read poetry and philosophy at lunch instead of trying to play football. My “weirdness” became the effectual outcome of itself... not that I was conscious of any of this at the time.

I found others like me and we began to form friendships of sorts; still strained under the burden of internal hierarchy. It became a competition to see who was the weirdest, just as the other children campaigned to be the top-dogs of cool. I felt included and accepted; so long as I maintained the “weirdness” I had friends.

When I reflect on this I have to ask who was more worried about their identity and security; me or the other kids?

We live now with the re-emergence of the BNP in this country; we use to call them black-shirts, national-front, skin-heads or Nazis, but now they ware D&G suits we listen. Suddenly Islam is a word associated with bombs and violence; when I was a child I’m sure it was the Catholics and the Irish. In Afghanistan, Iran, and the Gaza Strip, I’m sure the word’s American, Jew, and Christian carry the same fears as Terrorist, extremist, and bomb do here.

Whenever we humans encounter something new or different, our reactions echo the survival skills of our primate ancestors; fight or flight. We learn as children whether it is safe to rush toward a new experience or runback to the protective pleats of bigotry, secularism, and egoism; our mother’s skirt; the safe haven from which we can hurl stones at that which we do not understand; change and its minions; the Others.

Each stone that hits our target leaves a scar that strengthens its identity, solidifies its cause, and removes it further still from a state of inclusion with ourselves. At the same-time as they find fellows who are also being stoned, we find others to help us aim and throw, until the others fight back, and a war is born. We, like our primate cousins defend our territory; our mental territory, the boundaries of our identity and beliefs.

What is our identity then, as either a group or an individual, other than a shelter from change, a means of relation and maintenance of security, and a vehicle for our own social perspectives and agendas? It’s the little nylon blue push-chair or studded collar and make-up of my youth; it’s my Grandmothers dominance over our childhoods; its being French, English, African, Gay, Straight, Bi, Black, White, or blue; a “Chav”, a “Jitter”, a “Goth”, Christian, Jewish, Arabic or Atheist. It’s being Pearce, Smith, or Peasey. It’s how we find each other and how we stay alone. It’s our frontline defence against change and the threat of the Others.

We craft the Other, we bring it more sharply into existence; we isolate it and point the finger, causing it to realise more and more its own identity and secularism. There are no innocent parties in this primate game; each group sharply collecting the other and forcing it into its respective box. Like two chimps meeting in a disputed tree, we decide in an instant whether the other chimp is of our own pack or not. What clever little monkeys we all are... after all we are ALL the same monkeys.