I have this innate sense of justice.
Comes from my Dad, who is an ex-policeman.
It also comes from being stuck to the underside of Life's shoe—ground into the welt, like discarded gum. Watching horrid things occur around me, and with my empathy dominating my personality, it was a no brainer that I would end up getting a bit fired up over injustice.
As a kid, it probably meant I was a bit of a dobber. Well, yeah, I was.
It kills me and burns a hole in my soul. When people do the wrong thing, commit atrocities, or partake in the spread of evil across our society - like an oily, black, pervasive rot.
Evil is a part of our nature. Of Nature itself. But it doesn't mean we have to sit idly by and watch the world go to hell in a handbasket!
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Winston Churchill, or Edmund Burke - depends on your source.
It is not in me to watch people get ground into the cogs of bureaucracy—people who need help; people who do the right thing, morally and ethically, even if the rules are bent; when big business mows right over the top of the little guy; when people are bullied at work; when people get, hated on because of the colour of their skin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or type of clothing... It happens everywhere every day—these quiet victims of our society.
The problem is, our societies hierarchical structure comes from our genes. Where there is a winner, there is a loser. When something terrible happens, there is a perpetrator and a victim. When a whistleblower calls out something or someone, why are they denounced and vilified? Why are good people punished for doing the right thing?
Why do we let this happen?
Every time I have called someone out, I get punished. Every time I see a good man or woman do something good, they suffer under the wheels of the system - ploughing them under, like so much stubble. Why do we let our peacekeepers, our sentinels, our soldiers and police officers, get chewed up and spit out for trying to do the right thing?
"It's out of my hands", " Its just the system", "It has nothing to do with me"...
I call bullshit.
We absolutely can make a change. Even if it is softly laying your hand on the shoulder of the man or woman or none binary human who has fought for you, protected you, kept you safe and suffered for it - and validate them. Stay, dependable, and quietly by their side as they struggle to stand, after being ground into the mud left by the wheels of progress. Or if you have the guts, speak up. Don't let their voice echo into the silence. Don't let their bravery fade into the darkness. Don't let them be forgotten or destroyed by doing what is good, and just and right.
Speak, even if your voice shakes.
Em, x.
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