Canterbury Conservative Experience (Edit)

As expressed below, this piece of writing was at the start of a psychology experiment which is still being conducted. The subject was given suggestions or posed questions in regards to specific thoughts as expressed whilst writing. Being a writer the original of this work followed the subject’s train of thought through word processing software in the form of stream of consciousness narrative, the edits have been done as described below but it continues to follow the structure of specific questions as posed by the psychologist. Therefore, the written work represents the replies to specific prompts in regards to subject-matter.

From the subject; “It’s still going on, I don’t even realize they’re doing it half the time…especially with any “chemicals” inside me…Found out I have A.D.H.D & Bipolar though. This is just a little piece of it all now that they’ve all done what they’ve done! And they know it…the scary part, so publish!”

CANTERBURY CONSERVATIVE EXPERIENCE

Prejudice was the reason for writing this, racism was the reason for destroying the piece from its original state, political power and racism was the only reason why they destroyed the artist.

This was written  in Canterbury, Kent as part of a probe and evaluation into a child psychology programme, it subsequently caused the author to subjected to a political attack which caused severe issues in every single facet of life, this is the edited version, all references to conspirators of this event have been removed for his own protection. The original remains intact insofar as possible, nonetheless, it cannot be published on the website for legal reasons within the said jurisdiction which remains under the influence of the perpetrators. This happened in the Seychelles between May 2011 to the present day, the recollections span a lifetime which should be regarded as terminated by the author’s own family. In regards to originality, I hold these thoughts and recount them merely as a testament to the truth of social divide and its use to control political power. However, the events which occurred following writing this edited version of the Canterbury Conservative Experience display this in the most violent, abusive and politically manipulative way, the engraining of Seychelles politicians’ influence within a family; the use of artist to push for preservation of political powers through destruction of Opposition powers by subjecting them to violations of human rights, restraining freedom of expression, blackmail and subversive deals between these “gentlemen” of the State and political parties, all directed specifically but not exclusively towards the author.

The use of art for political means spells nothing but heartache for the creator.

I remember one of my favourite teachers expressing, during a class on “To Kill a Mockingbird”, that; “Once a man told me, a black man told me, back in England, that I would never be able to understand the way it feels to walk into a room or walk by a person and see them clutch their bag a little tighter purely on the basis of your skin”. When she said this, again I stared in disbelief and imagined that this would be a horrible world to live in. It was always of extreme interest to me to understand the way in which prejudices develop. Without attempting to claim any form of selflessness or any other form of altruistic glorification I simply never understood the notion of judgement of a person’s character prior to uttering a word to them. I do not deny that it is necessary to evaluate a person from their manner, their body language; it is a natural instinct to detect danger. However, a traumatic three-year period in another country, coming from a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean at the age of fourteen (which in my books the formative years of one’s young adulthood in which I am grossly overwhelmed with at the moment) into predominantly white suburbia and experiencing an extreme case of culture shock lead me to be obsessed with this tiny question which I had tried to comprehend as a child and continued to be bewildered by through the years. I hope to narrate a few experiences which I remember vividly, not because I have a good memory…far from it, but because these events are firmly engrained in my head from the intense pain and confusion which they caused. Having now spent, almost a third of my time away from home however, where as I have come to realise I was very much protected from the brunt of prejudice behaviour, not because it was not happening, but at a young age it was possible to glean over most of these in ignorance of their significance. I decided to embark on a small progressive project using myself during my undergraduate years in order to culminate in the Experience this year. Upon arriving in a desolate area in the City, which back home had had a “nice ring to the name”, I was hopelessly disappointed by what I found to be my accommodation for my first year in the City. I was also hopelessly scared, travelling alone, firstly, to a place which I knew nothing about , without the comfort of a parent but with the firm knowledge that I should have some of student pack to help me get through it (which turned out to be noodles, sweets and other miscellaneous items).The Court was essentially a compounded student hall, with heavy but climbable gates for our security but within, for, by chance, that year a considerably lax accommodation office allowed all these first year student from the City and the world over free reign in the big city and the halls which would expose me to even greater culture shock than I had experienced a few years before. I did not leave my room for three days except for food in the kitchen after walking down the street to a supermarket, which I was assured was just down the road and completely safe, smiling at the people passing by, to be faced with looks of doubt and insecurity in some cases and sheer anger in others which quickly made me opt for the closest corner shop instead for the first week. Growing up, although we were amply provided for, it was important to my parents that we receive a good education and this was at the sacrifice of holidays, something which I am infinitely grateful for but this was definitely part of the reason that I experienced such intense culture shock and disconnection some points of my time abroad. I can only claim a certain degree of foresight when I say that the decision to try and disguise myself in order to understand why prejudice exists. I certainly lost sight of the idea at some points, but nonetheless, as I was exposed more acutely through specific experiences like working in the Night alongside some of the best, albeit quirky people on the planet and being fully enveloped in the neon darkness, it was always amusing to me to be asked “Where are you from?” to reply “There” and asked “Where is that?” and after a few seconds of pretending to try to explain settling on either Indian or African I simply had to try and see what it would be like to be “classified”. When given ethnic identification forms I am always amused at the choices given to me as I have been told due to a mix of consorted accents and depending on what length my hair was or what jacket I had on and which part of town I was in that I was Indian by my home friends, African by my Indian friends, Brazilian by bar customers to a confused girl who I heard saying “But…What is he?”. I realised that perhaps I could explore how people react to me at different periods of time and to what extent one had to conform in order to “belong”, or in other words not warranting a flinch or tightening of the bag but rather a smile. A key factor in being able to do this was that as student studying in London it was necessary to move into different places as each accommodation tenancy ended, therefore I was able to see the that being dressed in a suit with curly, disgustingly over-handled hair on the way out in a fairly dangerous Seven Sisters that I was face with one form of suspicion and distrust, and the manner in which I was dealt with in comparison to walking down the High Street in a hoody and unshaved, was with yet another form of suspicion and distrust. My evaluation was based upon one thing, and I have no empirical data to show for it but the way in which I saw people react to me in the first instance in ways which I had never experienced, the looks of surprise when I opened my mouth and a jumble of accents which just did not fit the baggy jeans and hoody that countless, especially older, people have expressed has never ceased to thrill me. It really fucks with people’s head but I could never bring myself to emulate any one accent , fed happily on T.V. or something but instead chose to just say things the way I liked to hear them. In order for me to fully explain why someone would go through the trouble to do this, I quickly talk about my first day of when I immigrated to the City from the island, which was essentially the first time I was in another country when I was old enough to understand to a certain extent what was happening around me. When I walked into school on my first day at a all-boys school in the city and was faced with a lively audience of guys my age saying to my younger brother, who is comedic ally bigger than me, “Whoa man, you’re bigger than him…you can take him man, he’s the big black guy you know?”, I stared in confusion and bewilderment and up until a year ago I continued to be completely bewildered by these very first words from my classmate on my first day school. My brother and I had never been congratulated on firstly, our colour, as most Africans would expect I suppose, but secondly, we had never been linked to violent behaviour. In fact, I still to this day I have failed to reach the opportune moment to “get in there”, so to speak, and falling short of defending me rather easily from a potential scrap in our early teens, I am certain that neither has my brother. Despite the lack of black faces around this impressively polished hall and me in my new uniform which choked me quite uncomfortably, we were too overwhelmed to understand and within that space of time we had somehow been led to another guy my age, but much taller, who was introduced to me as him. He clearly relished the attention and I with the sense of juvenile respect which boys have for their peers who can fight better or get with more girls were as infectious to me as all the other kids but nonetheless I never saw him as the big black guy who you didn’t mess with, the guy you didn’t mess with yes…but never the black guy you never mess with. On the other hand, it very much seemed to be central to his “persona”, as we became better friends , it was with the guy that I was “randomly checked” by police officers whilst riding our bicycles. The guy was rather blaze about the whole process, I was absolutely scared shitless. He told me that this was normal, that it happened to him all the time. What puzzled me more than why we had been “randomly” picked out of the hordes of other City cyclists was why he wasn’t surprised or upset? You see, I was foreign to this reference to colour as fundamentally significant not because I was protected from all forms of racism, but rather because I purposefully locked away these painful jabs of unfairness and insecurity which I developed as a sort of defence mechanism, the ostrich effect, at times when dealing with the actual blatant act of racism leaves one speechless. I am sure this is categorically the worst way to deal with any problem, however it is but one of many vices. Nonetheless, as I got older I realised that although I did not fully understand this phenomenon I was able to sense it, without delving to super-hero fiction, acutely and realised that there existed patterns in the way that people perceived each other based on what they saw. I would try approaching unknown people in different ways as much as possible, and there were different reactions, the majority were great, a few were not. The worst being a guy who I asked if I could borrow a light from on the way back from work in the neon night, to be screamed and told very quickly to “jog on”, knife in hand. Anyway, I resolved halfway during my second year to try and understand where this connection which had been so firmly engrained in my peers’ head at the young age of fourteen came from, that automatic switch which connected my skin to all these things which I had never ever heard of. I decided, having seen the beautiful town as my girlfriend started her first year of university but also noting its strongly Conservative swing, I resolved to experience precisely what it would feel like to play into the stereotypes that had been so constantly pushed upon me. The Experience was my hope to see how it would be to live outside the cosmopolitan safety of London, and explore reactions to me in relatively less tolerable location, to try to understand the startling difference in people’s perceptions.

Cutting my hair, which the very vain young me had overloaded with products and in constant obsession of was gone within five minutes. My friends will confirm my stupid obsession, desperately trying to fit in. But I realised a distinct difference between people’s perceptions, from overweight wannabe-player to a sort of weird skinhead is a weird change and believe me the way in which people treat you are completely different. I found, from people’s reactions around me, specific things was But one important concept was that I did not alter my character to fit this change, I am sure because I paid special attention to this factor lest I become this aesthetic which I heard and felt people take towards me, not dismissing criticism but rather absorbing, not fighting when victimised but rather trying to understand the reason why. So here’s the idea, I was me in morals, habit and manner but looked distinctively uninviting to the prejudiced person. Combined with a serious health and gym regime, I looked less like the spoilt, lost island boy and with the aid of some unplanned scars from a few minor accidents on account of my clumsiness, I noticed a huge difference in the way I was perceived, there was always this sense of unease. It was then that I understood how He felt. You see, he is my elder cousin and he is a heroin addict. As a child, he always had a rebel strain in him which confused me. One day, my grandmother discussing the way in which He had started smoking and acting up, ended by saying “I asked him why he thinks his parents didn’t like him as much? You know what he said? He said it was because he was black”. My grandmother is a strong and brave woman, but also of a warped racist habit and had always shown favour to our Half- European cousins. Nevertheless, this favouritism was most definitely there and my parents know this today, as much as I do. Anyway, another vivid memory of prejudice which haunts until today is blurry as I must have been not more than 8 years old when my grandmother paid he’s ticket for a holiday to France visiting my aunt. When they returned I remember at a family party how he found France, he said it was okay but then my Grandma, in good humour I suppose began to tease him about moisturising everyday and putting on perfume. It produced uproar of laughter from her children; all having grown up with my ever-so-slightly racist grandmother knew the image painted humble man in Europe for the first time. No one knew this, but I remember finding him crying after that. I asked him how it was and he looked down at me, my tall, dark cousin and said “It was okay but they gave me grenn man”. You see, I finally understood how it must have been for my poor cousin, attempting to blend with the environment he saw, only to find that that first stern look when they saw this guy with passion in his eyes, overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle and ever aware of the stares. He could not deal with it, and today if by chance I do meet him, as he tries to earn money cleaning garden to feed his habit, his passion has died. And you see. It was only until I came to the town, prior to finally moving out of City and whilst sitting on a bus behind two local girls and I followed their stares as they looked out of the window and saw an obvious black Londoner donning his headphones. “There are a lot more black people in the town one said”, “Yeah, some of them are okay, but why do they have to wear the massive headphones…and you know, they look mad sometimes, it really scares me”. As I looked down, I didn’t see a scary person at all, just another guy listen to his Beats, not harming anyone, but I saw that same passion that He had in his eyes as he was subjugated to constant prejudice during our childhood. This was not an angry person, it was an insecure person, trying hard to retain individualism. Hence, my resolve, to apply every stereotypical aesthetic possible short of plastic surgery in order portray the image of someone which would make an easy target of prejudice behaviour. A combination of disconnection, mild arrogance and a demand for attention with a staged look on my face allowed me to look just like He did, just like the boy sitting at the bus stop felt. For I had to understand how it felt, I embarked on the Experience. And it was hell. It lead to feeling of complete disconnection from society, countless addictions and a constant state of insecurity which saddens me deeply for all of my people, beautiful dark beings, for my cousin destroying himself. Soft ostracising of the most vulnerable, based on economic wealth, difference in lifestlyes,religion or habits due to this built-in prejudice is an obstacle which must be gotten rid of, and it is a global problem, not just one for the town. It is an amazing place and a showcase of English history and natural beauty with great people and I had the best student experience at the University so far, nonetheless the political importance of the county to the Party is undeniable. I have no business in English politics, it must be understood that this was a project pure convenience and chance through a series of events of which I had little foresight. In fact, looking back now, the project worked precisely because I didn’t concentrate on documenting or thinking about it during my time in the town following a year in one of the more tolerable boroughs of London but rather maintained the aesthetic image I had worked hard to portray and found that people’s imagination were capable of creating any illusion which I could have hoped to pretend. Instead I resolved to live on the brinks of this small town, involved but disconnected and being categorically eccentric in habit and lifestyle, to see just how quickly one could be mentally degraded into helplessness and insecurity which breeds self-destruction of one way or another or just general air of distrust of everyone who is not the same. It worked but it also exposed to me the way in which our society can easily victimise whilst simultaneously taking the higher ground, an action usually pursued by a loud minority, but allowed by the silent majority, who to me are the true culprits of this social dysfunction hence my attempt at social commentary. The truth is essentially this, on a day of fresh skinhead “costume” unless “appropriately” dressed; donning some form wealth you were “just another other one down the street”. How are those trying to rise, better themselves, when faced with the very basic barrier of first judgement and dismissal as some pre-defined label not burn with passion in their eyes when they realise they got a crap deal. Seriously, if I met me four years ago, how blind I was to this social truth, I think it would be my first fight.

Today, with significantly more experience I reached the peak of a story which I feel should be told, not in pursuit of writing a biography, but rather in the hope of commenting on the need for positive harmony rather than constrained tolerance in order for any society to fully comprehend each other and move on from the historic clash of colours which continues to plague us. Forgive my venting of a few brushes with racism which barely touch the tip of racism in our world. Empathy is strength, and in our culture, due to financial circumstances, social matters and the unfortunate influence of politics, humanity is being divided and our common understanding of each other grounded down and it very much every man for himself but in very different playing fields. But hope flows all over, with a click, with a smile; starting with every person from a blank canvass without presupposing their characteristics shall free us and the unity of the majority always overwhelms that of a tainted minority. So spread the word, put yourself in the next “hoody” walking around late at night with a backpack full of the worst thing you can imagine, because they may just be books. These assumptions that seem to be heavily preconditioned across the globe, arguably through the media depictions, and they unfortunately happen to the best of us, however it is with much hope that prejudice can be overcome and the labelling might stop.

“The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly coloured and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while.
Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: “Is this real, or is this just a ride?”

And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say: “Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever,
because this is just a ride.” … and we kill those people.

Ha ha, “Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.” It’s just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as ONE.

Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defence each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.” – Bill Hicks, comedian and social commentator 　(December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994)