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Prisoners'
Justice Day 2002 NOTES AND POEMS ON PRISON JUSTICE DAY August 10, 2003 8:00 p.m. Don Jail---Toronto Brian Burch 20 Spruce St. Toronto, Ontario M5A 2H7 burch@web.ca When Edward Nalon died in segregation at Milhaven Penitentiary on Saturday, August 10th 1974 he did not die alone. Other inmates in the segregation unit tried to get help---but disconnected alarm systems and guards that did not visit the unit ensured that there was no help. He bled to death in his cell---just one more forgotten person. But his death was not forgotten. Both on the streets and in the jails and prisons of this country he is remembered. And on this day, for 28 years, the struggle to remind our society of the needs of our sisters and brothers in custody; those that died and those that have been injured in other ways, continue. We can not separate the deaths in custody, the crime of prisons themselves, from other violence at the hands of the state. From Dudley George to Edmond Yu, agents of the state have proven they will kill those that are different---either for standing up to the state for justice or for suffering from illnesses we don't understand. We also can not separate the deaths of those in custody from the deaths of those killed in war. Those declared an enemy of the state die whether in conflict between nations or in prisons. Bombs don't fall on those seen as being human. Those that die in prison are equally forgotten, dehumanised in the media and overlooked in the midst of our focuses for social concern. On August 9th we remember those that died in the second use of nuclear weapons in combat when the U.S. dropped the bomb on Nagasaki. A world that does not condemn war is one that accepts violence, is one that builds prisons so that members of our communities can be denied their humanity, can die with few questions asked even within the progressive community. During the 1980s I spent a lot of time at the Don for such crimes as handing out leaflets, sitting down on roadways, yelling through a megaphone---petty stuff, but enough to make me all too familiar with the routines of A & D, life on different ranges and the petty, day to day tensions of life with angry, scared, bored and/or injured people. The cells were cockroach infested and often overcrowded. I learned quickly to not judge surface behaviour. During most of the 1990s I spent a lot of time at the Don as a chaplain, seeing from a different perspective how a jail distorts the lives of those that pass through it. It is more than timely in this post-Seattle/post 9-11 world for the reality of prison life and the need to challenge the prison system to be again a priority for action among all those concerned with social change. Some of this should be pragmatism---too many of us have had our dissent deemed criminal and face jail time for speaking out against war, against oppression, against economic injustice. Challenging the criminal justice system should be a part of the lives of all those working for justice because we too easily end up within it. The attitude of Fantino towards the black community is the same as his attitude towards activists is the same as his attitude towards anyone who ends up in the hands of the state. And this pragmatic self-interest is best expressed through active solidarity. People are in our prisons for the crime of being an immigrant; for the crime of not running away fast enough from a police charge through a protest, for the crime of actions taken through economic necessity, for the crime of being damaged by a lifetime of abuse. The state treats all those it deems as outcasts the same. It is time to remember Eugene Debs, the black trade unionist and one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World, who clearly stated "As long as one person is in prison, I am not free." We gather today to remember all those who have died in prison so that they are not forgotten. We gather today to remember all those who have ended up in the hands of the state who face little deaths to the spirit and soul on a daily basis while elected officials and police officials work hard to convince the public that those inside the walls are no longer our sisters and brothers, our children and parents and friends. They are not alone as long as we remember them. They are not alone as long as memory and knowledge leads to action that changes the conditions they endure. These thoughts were in mind as I considered what poems to share today. WE REMEMBER/NAMING OF NAMES (based on the song by Ewan MacColl) In the hills and in backrooms, by hanging and by torture, by cops and death squads, dreamers of justice are killed by nameless and honoured forces. In cells and barracks, behind barbed wire and stone walls, voices of revolution are frozen. We remember them all. We remember Ginger Goodwin, killed for refusing to kill. Joe Hill, framed and murdered. Karen Silkwood, killed holding a union card. We remember them all. We remember Victor Jara, killed while singing Martin Luther King, killed speaking truth to power. Dudley George, killed standing, unarmed, near a burial ground. We remember them all We remember Audrey Rosenthal who opposed apartheid Patrice Lumumba liberator Archbishop Romero martyr Carmen Mendieta campesina We remember them all. We remember We remember those in prison We remember those who died. We remember those without names. We remember. Our freedom is woven with memory. ACCEPTING GIFTS (previously published in I Hate Roaches) Sterilise everything---trust nothing. Especially don't trust gifts. Especially don't trust gifts generously given from your sister-in-law coming back from somewhere warm. Especially don't trust gifts made of brightly hued hand-woven wonders of the colours echoing a prairie sunset, a mountain sunrise. Along with such gifts can be illegal aliens, perhaps eggs that hatch into brownish/blackish cockroaches, cockroaches that find a home in your socks and underwear, cockroaches that are as big as my little finger, cockroaches that intimidate our cat, cockroaches that cause exterminators to shake heads, cockroaches that make the scampering, late night black shelled residents seem pleasantly domestic. Sterilise everything---trust nothing. DON'T CONFUSE POLITENESS WITH COMPASSION Just because I listen politely to you does not make me a friend or even someone who cares or feels anything positive towards you. I could just as easily be picturing you struck by lightning or being abducted by aliens or run down by raging grannies. A smile, a kind word, a gentle insertion into a conversation has no more meaning than their existence. Politeness all too often is the mask of rage. BUT IN WHOSE NAME? (previously published in third space, Recluse, The Peak, Catholic New Times and Time of Singing and accepted by Our Schools/Ourselves and Camel Press) My memory of war is all second hand ---I was not at Mai Lai. I was not running down the road with napalm etching into my flesh. I did not watch my feet rot in trenches or wake up with my neighbour's blood dying my shirt or believed, somehow, that my battles lead to freedom and to peace. I was not on a bridge in Belgrade or at an airport in Grenada or in a schoolroom in Baghdad or in a factory in Dresden or at a church in Nagasaki or in a hospital in Stalingrad or in an office in New York. Nor is my memory of serving peace first hand. I have not sat in the Gulf Peace Camp or prayed in Chiapas or planted trees outside Hebron or disrupted the School of the Americas or handed out leaflets in Burma or sat with the families in East Timor or fasted with the wives outside Gestapo headquarters . But I have held the children of war. I have talked with the veterans of war. I have added my prayers to the voices for peace. It has to start somewhere. In the here and now war is being waged and in the here and now the seeds of peace are being looked for. The war is waged in someone else's name. Not in mine. The work for peace is in the hands of us all, including mine. LAST CALL (previously published in Crash) i voices hang uncertainly in the air, hinting at what is beyond the walls. a train goes by. GO Transit and freight trains add to the murmur. ii an 18 year old sits in his eight by four cubicle. he expects nothing better a bible marks his hours of boredom. iii it is pentecost Sunday and words fall out. god's grace is asked for and may be found lurking, ashamed to show up. iv I walk out the prison door at mimico---using my staff key and not through A & D. in February it took a bail hearing to get out of west detention. prayers for peace expressed through blood at litton wait in the background. prayers of the people at the end of the service sneak forward. v black shirt and white collar afloat in a sea of blue. vi a hunger strike in building 5 one week. a hunger strike and work strike across the jail the next. a gentle call for dignity in the chapel is a pale echo. vii bleach is still banned from the dorm. smuggled works shared between inmates spread oblivion and a bracketed future. viii friends now turn away or laugh or don't return calls. barriers topped with crippling wire are raised. suddenly I'm cut adrift. prison chaplains are still prison guards. ix warrior is back in the system. 11 week turnaround. jail is his home. loneliness, no work, no home can't hold him in freedom. my pieces of silver pay for rent. x paul and silas bound in jail got nobody to go their bail keep your eyes on the prize hold on. I ain't scared of your jail cause I want my freedom I want my freedom now. I'm going to prison so I can be free I'm going to prison for what I believe the magnificat while the walls close behind me and I go home. the last minute call from a girlfriend was not relayed because it's time to go home. freedom is too important to spend responding to the last call at the end of the day. ARTIFICIAL WAVES (previously published in PIRGspectives and The Peak) The pressure still lies harshly on the memories of those whose silence meant others would die. The pressure stills lies harshly on those whose labour went into the tools of death. The pressure still lies heavily on those who turned tools into weapons. The pressure still lies harshly on those whose comfort meant that only discreet inquires were to be made. The pressure still lies heavily on those who waited because the time wasn't right. The pressure still lies heavily on those who felt they were always safe. The pressure still lies heavily on the survivors of the victims of silence. |
