My keynote address to FEGO Class of 98

An Unexpected Invitation

I was invited to give a keynote address to the Federal Government College Odogbolu, Class of '98, on the general topics of alumni, networking, life and purpose. After a few light jokes about how I had been surreptitiously co-opted into the activity, I began my address.

This cohort of successful people are entering middle age; they are mid-career, raising families and will face challenges ahead. I suppose there was a view that I could share some of my life experiences to help them avoid a mid-life crisis and attend to healthy life choices.

It was an honour to meet the Class of '98, and I wish them Godspeed.

My Lead-in

FEGO Class of '98, you graduated in the Silver Jubilee year of your school's founding; quite auspicious.

My history with Odogbolu is somewhat long and interesting. In January 1976, we were living in Kaduna when my parents had the crazy idea of sending me to a secondary school close to where they were born, in Ijesha-Ijebu, so that I might be imbibed with Yoruba culture.

Baptist Academy, Mayflower School, Odogbolu Grammar School, Remo Secondary School (RSS); I cannot remember the school in Ibadan where I sat the common entrance examination. Did I have a life of privilege? I flew in from Kaduna, and there was someone to collect me and take care of me for the duration of my visit.

I do not know why I was not put forward for any of the unity schools, even though I realise there were opportunities for those. I suppose my primary school environment in Jos and Kaduna was a disadvantage to my becoming integrated into Nigeria. The schools were international, with a high percentage of Europeans, Chinese and Japanese, so I was not really growing into a Nigerian per se.

Odogbolu Grammar School and Remo Secondary School both offered me admission. I took the latter because the former's campus bordered on a graveyard; I had had the strangest things happen to me at ten, and that settled my decision.

Two years ago, my nephew was admitted to the Federal Government College Odogbolu (FEGO) at the age of nine. A year later, his brother, with whom he shares a birthday though they are two years apart, joined him. They are probably the youngest in their year group, just as I was in primary school and then in secondary school.

I find it strange that I am giving an address to an alumni association because, whilst I made a few friends at RSS, my memories of the five years I spent there are not ones I cherish that much. We had to be street smart, even as we stood out because of our accents. We were bedwetters; back then it was thought a weakness rather than something psychological. There was the occasional bully, and the use of collective punishment was rife. Thankfully, the core of individuality, inquisitiveness and fearlessness could not be beaten out of me.

Apart from on Facebook, I have no enduring friends from the RSS Class of '81. I met up with old schoolmates from my primary school after 41 years in 2016. I still have friends from Lacostech; from YabaTech, where no one believed I was 16 when I was admitted; and from the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, where, on my first day, I met a junior from secondary school who was in his final year whilst I was starting afresh.

Have Your Purpose

Considering the good fortune and opportunities I had from birth through secondary school, the four years afterwards were sobering. I attended two polytechnics and ended up with nothing. My third attempt, born of travail and raw experience, widened my perspective on what I could achieve. I was no longer haunted by my past or fearful of the future. I simply determined that, by 35, I would be able to stand amongst my peers unashamed of what I had done with my life. I began to see good results already at 24.

Do Something Radical

In 2000, just after the Millennium bug issue, I was having trouble finding a new job. I was attending interviews and getting good reviews, but no offers. A mentor advised me to speak to an occupational psychotherapist, who concluded that I was suffering a mid-life crisis ten years early. His advice was to consider a career change, perhaps go back to school, or even emigrate to another country.

I took the hint and started looking for opportunities in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, I got a job in the UK and, on a day off, flew out to the Netherlands for an interview. I got that job, and with it 13 years of life in Holland.

Have a plan, do things in the interim, but do not lose your focus and do not be distracted.

Embrace Youthful Aspirations

When I was about to buy an apartment in Amsterdam, the first thing I did was ask the estate agent to feel my hands. She said they were soft. Indeed, I retorted, I do not do DIY; I want a place I need not do anything to, and please complete the deal in six weeks. She did.

The couple I bought my home from were in their mid-70s. They had lived in Eindhoven for 25 years and could easily have lived out the rest of their days there, but they bought an apartment in Amsterdam off the plan and came to live there for almost four years. During that time, she became the chairman of the homeowners' association.

Then they decided that, because of their age, they needed a place where they could receive better care. They sold up in Amsterdam for a healthy profit and bought a riverside residential care apartment in Arnhem. I still wish I could make decisions like that, whatever age I am.

Then there is my uncle, who was and still is the playful adult in my life, someone I can talk to about anything. I can be utterly irreverent, yet always respectful. He was one of the foremost insurers in Nigeria, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Insurers and an examiner for the council.

In the space of a few years, he lost his car a couple of times to armed robbers, so he decided to move to the UK, where he is now settled. He called me one day and said he wanted to go back to school to study petroleum engineering. I asked whether he was going for a master's programme; he said he was applying for a bachelor's degree.

Obviously, I thought him too distinguished for such a somewhat lowly pursuit, but he expressed such humility in his decision to take it on.

He was already 60. He tells me the course was one of the hardest he ever attended. He had failed so many examinations from adolescence into adulthood that my father, on returning from the UK, promised him £10 if he passed. That £10 debt is still a running joke in our conversations.

He stood out throughout the course, the older man, wise from a world of experience in C-suite jobs. Students and faculty alike were always seeking his viewpoint on many things. By graduation, he had been gravely ill and was recuperating, so the university arranged to collect him from hospital to attend the ceremony. When his name was called, along with the citations, he received a standing ovation.

Such a thing can never happen if you are not ready to embrace your youth and your youthful aspirations. Do something new; assess yourself against your aspirations rather than against others; believe in yourself even if no one else does; and never let your failures define you today or in your future.

Recently, on the radio, I heard Isabel Allende asked, "How do you fall in love at 76?" She answered, "Like 26, only with a little more urgency."

Identity Is a Construct

I have a keen sense of my identity: I am an Englishman of Nigerian heritage. I arrived at that idea of who I am when I lived in the Netherlands and had to answer the question of where I was originally from.

I was born in England, grew up in England and Nigeria, then lived in the Netherlands for almost 13 years. Why am I not Nigerian? I was like everyone else until my accent betrayed me. To so many, I was the child born abroad; I was not entirely accepted in Nigeria.

My mother tongue is English, but my mother's tongue is Yoruba. I am proud to say that, even as an Aje-butter, I speak Yoruba to a very good standard. My Hausa, however, needs some work; I was in the North only until 1977.

Identity is a construct of influences: many good, some bad, and a few you need to discard completely. Accept who you are, and do not let anyone question the legitimate version of you.

On an Uber ride last week, the driver told me about his extraordinarily brilliant nephew, who had excellent A-level results but could not make it through the Oxbridge interviews to gain admission. I knew what the problem was: much had gone into academic achievement but very little into identity and personality development. The poor chap was cowed by the environment.

Community is good, but you also need to interact with wider society and have a sense of confidence, completely different from arrogance; a healthy self-esteem, completely different from feeling an impostor; and the ability to express yourself clearly, completely different from being loud and vulgar.

When I returned to the UK from Nigeria in 1990, I already had a good sense of who I was. My blackness was always part of me; anyone who had an issue with it, that was their problem, not mine. I also had a good sense of history. So, when someone trying to be offensively racist said to me, "100 years ago I would have shot you," I was immediately able to respond, "200 years ago, I would have eaten you."

Be a sleeping dog, but be ready to bite when kicked; probably take the leg off, if you must.

Let the best influences of culture, of beliefs, of location, of friendships, of communication, of reading and of learning define who you are in personality, in expression, in empathy, in humanity and in the pursuit of happiness.

Your Health Is Wealth

Ten years ago, what appeared to be athlete's foot had become painful and was beginning to weep. At the back of my mind, I thought it was serious, but I was willing it away. A residual element of my religious upbringing was interfering with my reasoning; thoughts about faith, miracles and so on.

Then I decided to visit my GP. She took one look at the sole of my foot and said, "This looks serious, I need to refer you." The first referral, two days later, led to another four days after that, because of the intervening weekend.

The professor came to examine me and said, "You cannot go home; we have a bed for you upstairs." That is how my treatment for cancer started. I did not realise how serious it was until the eighth day in hospital, when the professor came round to tell me: "We can treat this, but it depends on how your body takes the treatment. If it can, you'll be fine; otherwise, you probably have five weeks." Five weeks!

I spent 18 days in hospital and then five months of gruelling chemotherapy. Sometimes I could not keep my food down for days.

Because of cancer, I lost everything: status, wealth, my home of ten and a half years, prospects. But I did not lose hope, and definitely not the will to live.

Part of my life education had been the ability to let go of things, not to let things have a hold on me. Because of that, I have been able to go on to new things, do new things, think new things, achieve new things and prosper in life, despite the old things of the past; because they pass, and in the process you are given a better story. In learning to let go, I realised that an open hand is one that is ready to receive.

Consider your health; go for scheduled and regular check-ups. I have a better idea of my health situation than my medical notes can provide. I have been fortunate to be treated as an intelligent patient, even though, with hindsight, I have been foolish.

One identity construct that has helped me get the best outcomes for my health and treatment was telling two professors of medicine, "It is my body first, before it is your guinea pig." They listened and backed down from the intrusive and uncomfortable course they had planned.

Key Points

These are some of the key points from my address.

·       Do not be afraid of failure; be afraid of never trying.

o   I have failed at many things; the lessons have become part of my world of experience.

o   I say do it, rather than regret not doing it at all.

·       An opportunity once lost can be regained after a temporary setback.

o   I have had many setbacks, but never entirely lost opportunities.

·       Accept your vulnerabilities; they are part of your humanity.

o   I needed therapy, and when I went for it, it helped me and enriched the therapist too.

·       Embrace change and be prepared for it in every area of your life, because if you hate change, you will hate irrelevance even more.

o   I have not survived 31 years in IT by being stagnant; I have had to adapt and improve continually. I have been a self-employed contractor since 1995.

·       Learn to rest, learn to play, find time for yourself and do new things.

o   And suddenly I found this liking for classical music; travel calms me down; I love quirky things.

·       The greatest thing you can pass down is example: an example of contentment, which is not the lack of ambition; an example of resilience, so that you never fold in adversity; an example of empathy, walking a long, hard mile in another's shoes before you dare assume you know better.

o   I will probably not inherit much from my parents, but these are things that have stood the test of time.

·       Everyone has a story; you can tell yours too.

o   In the ordinariness of our lives, when you begin to count your blessings, you realise how extraordinary your life has been.

In Closing

In speaking to this alumni gathering, it is 21 years since you left FEGO. I hope it is more than the mere fact that you attended school together that has brought you here. I hope there is a friendliness that goes beyond acquaintance; a love deeper than mere concern; an engagement that ensures no one of you falls to the ground; a brotherliness and sisterliness that means each of you has another to whom you can turn for advice, direction and even admonition.

Yes, you can gather to laugh and play, but there must also be times when you speak the truth frankly and without equivocation. We all need some tough talk alongside the support to see it through. We cannot afford to be ashamed amongst true friends.

FEGO Class of 1998, I commend you: live well, live strong, live long and live happily.

Thank you.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Boris Johnson: I do not believe this Moses can part the #Brexit Red Sea

The man – Boris Johnson

By the force of sheer ambition and ingrained public-school entitlement, Boris Johnson is on the cusp of becoming the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He must be congratulated for this achievement, but it is at an inauspicious time.

Boris Johnson has both a record and form, his history is littered with gaffes and buffoonery, the tack of playing the court jester whilst executing the dastardly, he does not have the best references from many of those he worked for, but we are where we are now.

I was distressed but not full of despair when it was announced that he had been elected the leader of the Tory Party, the position was his to lose, for he does offer some sort of star power and to those easily distracted, you could be fooled for how Machiavellian he could be.

We need more than hope

Listening to his victory speech yesterday, I could notice no hint of sincerity in what he said apart from fulfilling the righteousness of seemingly saying the right things. We are as a country and conglomerate of nations facing crossroads of what future is ahead of us, we all, knowing how this country has stagnated since the Brexit vote of June 2016.

We all need a dose of optimism, but it cannot be realised by ignoring the stark realities this all portends. I would be the first to tell you that when I finally accepted I had cancer, just under 10 years ago, I knew I would survive it, but I still had to face the reality ahead of me, I didn’t even know that treatment I would get would work.

It was 5 gruelling months of chemotherapy, 4 types of pain medication, enough to quieten the pain, yet with that little bit of pain that proved I was still alive. Optimism and hope alone was not enough, as my consultant said to me if I did not respond well to the treatment, I had just 5 weeks to live.

What kind of Moses is he?

For all the optimism and hope that Boris Johnson suggests we need to get Brexit realised, there are some tough obstacles ahead about negotiating deals and assuring a future for this country and its people. We cannot just proceed on jingoism, bluster, rhetoric and gallons of intoxicating hope towards the sunlit uplands that are figments of an inebriated and overactive vivid imagination, there are jobs at risk, lives in the balance, futures in turmoil and other unintended consequences.

Leadership in the case of Brexit would be like us being brought like the Israelites of old to The Red Sea, the question is if indeed, the one who has brought thus far is the Moses with the rod to part the Red Sea or a charlatan about to drown the nation having convinced us we can swim like dolphins to the other side.

“The UK is at its most combustible. And now it’s led by a man who plays with matches.” Aditya Chakrabortty in the Guardian today. [Guardian]

We will continue to oppose Brexit

I earnestly believe Brexit is not the right path for the UK at this time. Nations use the heft of bloc, trading, political, military and economic to exact deals and this has been the case for decades already. A good example is us calling on Europe to help police the Gulf shipping when the US apparently refused to help us out. Ireland has the heft of the EU-27 behind it and so commands much more clout in the EU negotiations than the UK can alone.

I will put my support behind parties that support revoking Article 50, we would not be a silent minority in terms of where our nation is going. We belong here and we patriotic, and if patriotism needs to be redefined, it is the love of the fatherland, it does not automatically include the love of the government, their agenda or policies, we all need to be persuaded and convinced and if we are not, we are no less citizens and have no less a say in how we are governed.

In the end, I can only wish Boris Johnson a successful premiership, he will be opposed for as long as we can muster the support to do so if we believe he is taking us for a ride. There is a time to know when a course leads to perdition and someone should take that decision to turn back from ruin.

Just for the asking

We have been put to the test,
At the drawbridges of Fortress West,
Where a gatekeeper says lest,
The invited returns not to their nest,
They cannot, for now, be a guest,
For reasons that we must contest,
And quite vehemently protest,
Though our means are modest,
Our aims are completely honest,
Once more we find we must wrest,
To show our very best,
Against policies that do suggest,
We can’t be better than the rest,
On this, we are really pressed,
As it must well be stressed,
That what was then professed,
And would like to be redressed
At the point that it’s again addressed,
Is the leave granted to the quest,
To enter freely unsuppressed,
To be trusted wholly as possessed,
Of good character duly manifest,
To act as agreed and expressed,
And depart without arrest,
When due as one did truly attest,
We stand the readiest,
To leave you all impressed,
It is just a simple request,
A visit as if you haven’t guessed.

Thought Picnic: The changing dynamic of familial allegiances

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Beyond the conventional

There comes a time when you can no more think for just one, even though for such a long time, anytime I have been asked about my family, I have answered, I have a large family of one.

One person can be a family, just as a family can be traditional, extended or unconventional, and I have been in all of those to different degrees with experiences and influences that are extensive.

That one has not followed the convention of the traditional family setting does not mean that the individual does not have responsibilities and obligations to keep their own concept of the family unit intact, safe, provided for and secure. There is sometimes that misconception that the absence of dependants means the commitment of means and resources to demands and requirements of others following the traditional family concept.

Assumptions taking liberties

Obviously, in terms of numbers, there is probably more to distribute towards achieving much for the comfort and liberties of the singular, but it cannot be imposed as a duty, just because the person for reason of circumstance, opportunity or fate has not conformed to the heteronormative mindset.

The contemporary family unit now respects no conventions, what is adopted is what is found suitable for the individual or partners in that construct. The composition is fluid as well as committed and decisions that concern that unit then must take all parties into consideration, for partners and dependants alike.

The extended family becomes peripheral to that family unit, their requirements and demands, secondary to the focus needed to maintain family unit cohesion.

Setting your family goals

This can become a source of conflict, if certain do feel ignored or left behind, it might occasion emotional blackmail and put to test the matter of allegiances.

You can love and care for your blood relatives, but in the matter of spousal relationships and the development of those into your own family unit, there should be no question as to with whom loyalties lie, where faithfulness matters and to whom the greater devotion must be found.

It could be a tough course to navigate, but the person with whom you choose to spend life together on matters of the heart and things that evolve from therein must know that they come first and above in the scheme of things.

When you’re in this together

In the evolving commitment within relationships, you begin to affirm a few things, like, we’re in the love together, we grow interdependent of each other, decisions require the consideration of the partner, and for the elimination of any doubt, what each person does is done with the mind that affects both in the relationship and consequently, all around that relationship.

That is the confidence those in that family unit need to have, that progress is a lock-step activity of persuasion and conviction, communication and information, assurance and endurance, and, encouragement and affirmation. Whether it be a large family of one or any other viable construct of relationships that matter to the people involved.

Thought Picnic: Living a storied life

For the quiet around

Even without hearing a sound, there can be a lot of noise, deafening and debilitating noise, banging on your eardrums from the inside of your head.

They say the battle is mostly won in the mind, but how do you acquire the silence and quietude to concentrate on resolving the issues that give you much discomfiture?

I find my comfort in many things, the times when the turmoil proves too upsetting, I would probably just go to sleep. It keeps the thoughts from getting overwhelmed with imponderables and the implausible, hours later in wakefulness, the mind has settled into some resolution and purpose, it is a strange journey to acceptance that I have travelled many times before.

Not for a thing

Worry is an illness that can infect all organs of the body and make you terribly ill. The residue of religion left in me is the insight into how worry can change nothing. If nothing can be changed for the situation, you’re in, why bother expending energy in ruminating over the wastelands about you?

This is where other aspects of the residue come to play, for many stories from the Book have the narrative of coming to pass, rarely ever coming to stay. Nothing stagnates to the point of having no movement of time. Time rarely stands still, things might seem long in passing, but never immovably stopped that all the laws of nature are upturned. This too shall pass, and it will pass into the realm of stories told in the future as if it mattered not at all.

Talk to thy self

Beyond that, I speak to myself, loudly in my Anglicised name, I tell myself, it would come out right, I expect things to turn, I prepare for the future ahead that I cannot see, but know that life creates stories that you are given to help others see beyond their walls, their clouds, their chains, their gates, their inadequacies and anything that makes you think any less of who you can be.

I have a vision of the possible, the possible that walks through the impossible, usually not as miracles, but as the gift of fortune and fortitude with a mind set to rise and be lifted above the fray. Then, because I found it when I was in the Pentecostal movement, I still speak in tongues, it might be gibberish, incantations, prayers or commands that turn nature on its head like the parting of the seas, that is my teaspoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down in a most delightful way.

I can find my peace in storms that rage so violently that the hearts of some men fail, I have stood in the whirlwinds that swirl the dross and dust off me to leave me feeling refreshed and ready for the next challenge. There is a life to live, live it well, for from the very first day, it was a struggle to thrive and a blessing, it remains each day, what I am thankful for, a life so ordinary, yet made extraordinary by the stories I have been given to tell.

Looking like I do, happily

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Of weight and form

For a man my age, I am pretty much comfortable in my own skin, in my identity and generally in the way I express myself. Yet, I do suffer from middle-aged angst about my body, I obsess about my weight even though my doctors would prefer I maintain the weight I have considering I lost 25% of my body weight when I had cancer 10 years ago.

I probably would be happier with myself if I lost a few kilograms. That, along with middle-aged spread that can plague you if you are not committed to an exercise and fitness regime. A gym membership languishes with monthly extractions from my account, the gym in my apartment block has not seen a visit in aeons and the swimming pool that gives my the yearning to learn to swim, leaves me with the best of intentions, good intentions, but intentions do not keep you fit.

FaceApp on WhatsApp

Then with the fantasy of desire and probably the means to acquire, I was visited with a remodelling of my face, a full beard that is attractive to someone but a complete irritation to me. Five days after shaving, every pore of the nascent beard growth is itching stimulus receptacle asking a tug, a pull or a scratch, it is only assuaged with a shave, a good clean close shave with 2 days for my skin to heal.

What I could be in the imagination of FaceApp and none look the least attractive to me.

It drives me to distraction; I would rather I had no beard as I did not even start growing one that responded to shaving until I was in my 30s.

There is much else I could change, male pattern baldness with a dusty brown Caucasian wig as bangs. I know of no other male in my immediate family that has this condition, but when I saw that I was losing the hair, I did not agonise about it, I took it all off especially after watching a film of people with a snake oil remedy for hair growth inject people with hair loss issues with a serum that grew their hair at unbelievable speeds, until it became clear that they were being used as hosts for aggressive follicular snakes. [Body Bags – Wikipedia]

All the makeup MAC can make

Maybe there are things I would have liked to change, my teeth, the front two which I lost in a childhood wheelbarrow game and the stories that follow. It is somewhat unsightly, but I am not that self-conscious about these things, I have faced more life-threatening situations than the absence of a complete set of fitted mandibles and maxilla. I could tamper with my nose and fiddle with my ears, but I would no more be who I am after all that.

Blog - Childhood: Defanged by Misadventure

Then I think of the girl with her boyfriend in the video of TLC’s Unpretty, he was not happy with her as a person, he wanted her to have bigger boobs and persuaded her enough to feel so inadequate that she contemplated cosmetic surgery until it dawned on her that she was just good as she was.

I don’t feel unpretty

The battles we fight in our heads where people who are naturally beautiful get to the point of thinking something is so wrong with their looks that after rounds of plastic surgery, they become grotesque caricatures of their former selves and bizarrely contented with the butchery of their bodies.

I pray I never have to suffer that level of psychological discontent leading to the physiological hacking away of my natural features. I have lost a few teeth, had a crown or two inserted, but for everything else, I am blessed with much more than I have ever been grateful for. No, I don’t feel unpretty, I love my body, I could do much more to be fitter.

A survivor does not owe you a convincing story

A sex story

In the main, I have kept my counsel on a developing story in Nigeria because the commentary covers the spectrum from the totally agreeable to the utterly reprehensible, so much so that one engagement can leave you mired in the completely incomprehensible.

She was twice his age when she called him into the toilet, closed the door and crouched down, then she pulled down his shorts and handled his member, brought him down, centred him to her exposed self and asked him to move in on her. That is all he can remember of that event. Like so many crazily eerie moments that litter over half a century of life, this one still plays back like a slow-motion replay in the inner recesses of the mind.

That was the only instance with her, probably she decided she should look for someone else, but in that seemingly insignificant moment, the seeds of an outrageous scandal had been sown whilst at the same time the treasure of innocence had been plundered by an act of senselessness that you probably would not impute on either party.

Other sex stories

However, beyond that day, there were other instances where those presumably entrusted with the care of minors whilst the parents pursued their careers in the confidence that their wards were safe completely unaware that were being fast-tracked into irresponsible adulthood for the personal pleasure of their male servants.

You wonder why the kids said nothing to those they trusted then because trust by proxy now went through the servants, not that the parents were too busy to engage the children, the parents just naively thought everything was fine on the home front and by inference, fine with the children.

Eventually, a report of one of the servants interfering with the kids got to the notice of the parents, they did all the motions, a hospital visit and a sacking of the servant without involving the police. It would have been too scandalous for such a respectable family. This was three years after that other episode, they had moved to another city by now.

Can’t forget sex

Little did they know that the report came at the instigation of another child, who found that they could easily confide in another child than go to their parents. Without the prompting of the other child, nothing would have happened, and the abuse would probably have continued. The parents were completely caught up in the trauma of the event, that first, they did not bother to inquire whether others might have been abused when one other was previously the plaything of that abuser.

I guess they thought with time childhood memories would be erased and forgotten, if only. If one were to add to this a greater indictment, it is after the servant was sacked the kids were told to watch out for his return, no adult with them as they were terrified of what might happen next, all they had for safety was the instruction to scream, a boy of 10 being the eldest against the servant, 29 years old.

The scars of child sexual abuse run deep and only a few survivors of such events go on to live in healthy relationships with a complete blank on the past. Sexual innocence once lost can never be replaced, but there is a lot parents can do in caring, in nurturing, in showing unusual affection and doing everything to regain the trust and confidence of their children being readily able to report any violation of their bodies.

Earn sex trust

Whilst some parents might find this strange, the trust a child can have in their parents to report sexual abuse has to be earned, earned beyond the standard of just being a parent and expecting every child to worship you from the day they were born. Parental provision is a responsibility on the shoulders of the parent, the child does not have to be thankful for that, but the child would be more exceedingly thankful for the opportunity to open their hearts to their parents long before the problems come.

Yet, what parents concentrate on is ensuring they are respected and obeyed at the cost of everything else. They lament about being disrespected, get out the whip to lash out at every opportunity, make all physical and economic provisions and have no concept of emotional engagement, then later in life think the child owes them everything.

That was lost on the day the child lost their sexual innocence when all the parents did was ignore, scold, treat the child as a commodity and leave to chance the healing of time. In most cases, the child never forgot, that today becomes a day of reckoning.

Unconvincing sex stories

This is a story told, personal and raw, there was a conversation where the legalism of a child became a matter of dispute, and though recent events need attention, past events are no less significant because the seeds sown then mature in the person affected from that time, they have just learnt to cope better with the hurt.

I wrote this because, within the commentary that followed the developing story on Facebook, someone said everything that matters to every victim, every victim of child sexual abuse whether you hear that story immediately after the abuse or decades after that it all seems incredible, implausible or even unbelievable, “A survivor does not owe you a convincing story.” 

To that, I would say, neither does a victim owe you a convincing story. There are liars and blackmailers out there, but to allow those few to determine your view every other story is a grave injustice and too many of these stories cannot be tested to their limits in court, you only need a good lawyer to get a murderer off the charge. What two sides of a story you are not convinced of that would allow you to side with the perpetrator against the victim, victimising them a second time, because the victim can't tell you a convincing story?

There are many stories left untold because the victim and survivor are left second-guessing themselves unsure of whether they would be believed about what was done to them, be it child sexual abuse or rape, they are heinous crimes against the person, to which there are rarely any corroborating witnesses. The victims internalise their trauma and their fate, there is courage in keeping silent and there is unusual courage in speaking out.

Tell your story

The many victims of child sexual abuse I have watched being told to shut up, they have a story they cannot tell about what happened to them, because they cannot make their story dramatic enough, fantastic enough, or convincing enough to the majority who think child sexual abuse or rape must follow a rational course of action by the perpetrator.

One can almost say a murder scene almost definitely yields more forensic evidence than a child sexual abuse or rape event, why that is the case when the victim is a witness to their own violation continues to baffle me.

In that story is a boy, an aunt, a sister, many houseboys, some distant relations and no strangers, all before he was 11.