My Heritage – ToersBijns - Culture Shifts, Racism, Shame, Secrets Part II

My Heritage – ToersBijns

Culture Shifts – Racism, Shame, Secrets

Part II

 

Since my mother and father had a special influence on me in my growing years, it is logical and very reasonable to accept the fact that their guidance on my morality and outlook in life was shaped by their values and expectations. Already developing an inner stubborn spirit and being a rebel at heart, this was some deep provoking labor instilled with a sincere dedication to shape me into a man.

My father wouldn’t accept anything less than manhood and responsible behaviors mirroring his own integrity and character he formed during his thirty some years in the military.  Theoretically, this also changed our religious viewpoints and belief factors as we were being converted into a Methodist manner of faith that was significantly different from the Catholic faith my mother practiced.

To make it even more complicated, since my father was born in a Muslim faith family with ties to Islam and so forth, I thought he would retain his beliefs but with sudden and unexplained reasons, he seemed to have voluntarily submitted to a Christian faith and became involved in the church business intimately and very actively.

Moving from Holland to the United States was a grave undertaking with serious cultural consequences for a twelve year old youth and his brother and sister. Crossing the ocean in an airplane didn’t just take a few thousand miles of flying and hours of patiently waiting for the landing gear to touch ground in New York City. It took a heavy burden off my mother and father’s shoulder as they worried about our future and how we would be educated and raised under the perceived limited resources made available to us in Holland.

Other than enduring the weary efforts of long distance traveling for almost a day and a half, we instantaneously saw and felt the difference between the manner the Dutch people interacted and how the American culture behaved. At first, we looked at each other and then the reality hit us really hard – we had landed in the middle of a racist jungle where people were judged by color unlike the environment we left behind in Holland where color, skin tone, eyes round or slanted, blonde hair or kinky hair made no difference to us who came from there.

It appeared that in the USA, it did matter. It mattered a lot and people behaved according to an approach and response stimuli that triggered racism at its worst. If the person you were talking to was white, the response appeared to be respectful and mild toned. On the other hand, if the person you were talking to was colored, the response was condescending, insulting, demeaning and sometimes very vulgar. It appeared to be a natural act without any acting attached to it. I didn’t like it.

Some of the greatest men alive tried to change this discriminatory behavior and died doing so. Early 1965 I knew and heard of a man called Martin Luther King who defied racism with peace and civil disobedience. A tactic that worked some of the time, but not all of the time. Ohio was where we settled and Columbus was a hub of hate for colored people moving into the city.

History would cover this time period with poem, short stories and parables of wisdom on racism and discrimination. It would cover the equality of a man regardless of their skin color and finally they would pass a law making all men created equal. One has to wonder why it took a law to make people realize that every human being is entitled to respect, dignity and compassion regardless of their color or ethnicity.

As a boy who lived and came from another part of the world, this was most shocking and eye opening for me. Since I was dark skinned, and appeared to be a non-white person, I immediately felt the eyes glazing over my presence when a white person stared at me with a ‘what are you doing here’ look that degraded my value and existence. One can further relate that many public or community swimming pools and other recreational halls were off limits to those of color that included playgrounds and public places.

There was an immediate sense of difficulty within me. I had to walk softly on egg shells and be careful where I went, who I talked to and what I did or said to be accepted socially or anything else. It was like living in a different region of the world and you were not welcome here. In other words, white, brown, black, red or yellow, there was a distinct odor of biases floating in the air.

This created a homesickness for Holland to me and my siblings. Although we didn’t talk about it, we could sense the hate when we were around white people who looked at us odd and skeptic as we were hoodlums or thieves. This mixed culture was harsh and toxic and difficult to manage without tripping or pissing someone off regardless how much you tried to tolerate the dislike or detestation addressed at you for no reasons other than your color.

Seldom did you hear the words, ‘let’s play’ or ‘let’s talk’ as conversations and interactions were regulated by peer pressure and social standings. Dealing with growing pains, sexuality changes and now racism, made the adjustment most difficult for me and I wanted to hide somewhere to avoid social contact. In so many words, this made my childhood different and special as I learned tolerances I never had to experience before.

Between the years of fourteen and sixteen, I grew up with a small circle of friends. Some were white, some were black and some we called ‘rednecks.’ We all got along fine until an outsider would probe or poke the whites for hanging with the colored or blacks and then the tension would rise to another level making it uncomfortable and usually ending up in a fight between agitators and us.

My friends lived within a six block area; this was how we were able to socialize and keep the relationships in order as it was a mutually shared burden to put up with outsiders. Our friendship bonds were strong. The circle was hard to be broken and our houses were open to all who shared the time and space with each other under duress and demanding conditions.

Within our neighborhood, where poverty was common and the local stores were owned by Italians of Spanish speaking people, there washed up all sorts of uninvited guests in our locality. Designated a high crime zone by the police, they rarely patrolled in our area and left the justice up to those who could handle the adversities of violence, theft and assaults on their own. It was a way of life that took a hard time getting used to after being exposed to this toxic cultural awakening.

Most of my friends had moved there about the same time we did. Some went to the same church and some didn’t go to church at all.

The most popular spot was a small diminutive liquor store that drew the social misfits to their tiny bar at nights and if you stayed around long enough to see them stagger out and head for home, you would be entertained by drunks walking and staggering on sidewalks too narrow for them to stay on or so it seemed.

We never knew that rats could grow the size of cats and getting rid of them was near impossible. Whenever you killed three or four, you were visited the next day by five more. It was perpetual in body counts as well as the growth of the rat packs that chose our house and many more as their nests and hiding spaces.

Living in Holland made us frequent visitors of the beaches and the North Sea shoreline; making us proficient swimmers and salt water freaks. Trying to find a place to swim in the south end of Columbus Ohio usually ended up in the dirty Scioto River or Alum Creek – both waste water outlets that didn’t bother us too much except when the sewage was thick and muddied the water.

In the house we lived in, a converted ice house, I grew up with my parents, my brother and sister and a newly born baby sister making us a growing and expanding family. The house was cold as ice in the winter and hot as hell in the summer. Poor heating and no air condition made the house shrink and swell with the humidity and heat accordingly making it miserable for us in the Ohio humid weather.

I loved the rainfall – the street were often flooded and the bucket in the kitchen caught all the rainwater dripping through the ceiling. Some of the windows were broken by vandals throwing rocks and as soon as you replaced one, another window was broken. This was at least, a different experience to get used to but we were adapting and growing into the culture more so every day of our lives.

Making new friends in school expanded our circle of friends but we never abandoned each other just because we knew we had persevered the prejudice and hate together for the past few years bonding us as brothers in the poor side of town.

I wanted to be great in sports like Jesse Owens and his likes. There were a lot of good athletes where I lived and competing for a spot on the football team took some hard work and training. These kind of experiences were the good ones I remember and never forgotten. Here, on the team, there were no different colors, no different attitudes and all were focused on winning.  

Oh sure, there were sarcastic remarks, mocking gestures or comments by a few but they were put in place quickly by the coach or other teammates who took their role as captains serious enough to become peacemakers.

Growing up in Ohio was a complicated story. In so many ways, we experienced adversity daily and challenged often to overcome biases and hate of colored people. For some white people, there appeared to be a gross or frequent fascination and embarrassment for color. A lot of hypocrisy as well. Color in my family was not a complicated story. There was nothing to lie about as we were all the same and accepted fate of who we were and where we lived.

So my heritage tells me I am of mixed blood – some say I am Dutch, Portuguese and mixed with blood of my Chinese grandmother and native Java islander grandfather. On my mother’s side there was more European blood or as my mother would call it ‘blue blood’ but that is disputable.

I never believed there was any royalty in our family and I still don’t today. I believe my mother fantasized that t justify her moment of grandeur and pretend she was related to a queen from way back when her fairy tale began.

All said, I was an enthusiastic kid and had so much energy I often got into mischief with the law or school officials but nothing serious. Most violations were trespassing or climbing the fence at the high school and cutting classes or being out of dress code for gym or other activities. I never joined any gangs – I despised cowards who had to group up and beat someone else up with uneven numbers.

I know my family had half-blood running rampant – the war was hard on families and the recovery of losing a man, woman or child was replaced with another man, woman or child. Some were married and some weren’t it didn’t seem to matter to me but it certainly meant a lot to my mother who abhorred out of wedlock relationships and was very critical of such relationships. I suspected a hidden personal motive for such abomination but she gave no clues why she felt that way and the truth be told, she rarely divulged anything personal to us.

Regardless, if you mentioned the word ‘bastard’ in front of her, she went livid and began a tirade that wouldn’t end for days. There were many clues during my childhood that revealed secrets. Secrets that were never to be talked about or discussed amongst us or others in our families. We knew that nothing much was revealed of what happened before the war began and how relationships impacted fidelity or sexuality between family member spouses and other relatives. There was something missing to connect the dots and reveal the truth.

My mother’s first husband was my father’s older brother. We didn’t know this at the time of our childhood but was revealed in later years when my brother went back to Holland to visit an aunt and uncle who invited my mother and Carlos, into their home and asked them to stay there during their vacation in Holland. As my brother explained to me, he saw a wedding photograph of our mother in her wedding dress but the man standing next to her was not our father. It was his brother.

Shocked, dismayed and curious all at the same time, he began to ask relevant questions about the photograph. What he learned was to remain a secret and kept from us until the later years after my father passed away and no harm could be done to his sanity or temperament.

The story told was complicated and intimately revealed facts of our family that makes an interesting soap opera drama on reality television. We knew my mother married our father but they never revealed the date or year they were married. It was one of the many secrets they kept from us through the years.

Other secrets involved our mother’s family’s business dealings and the sudden disappearance of significant funds and wealth due to theft between brothers and relatives who promised to carry the wealth out of Indonesia under the watchful eye of the Indonesian police and smuggle out money to be returned to the family and re-create the wealth in Holland. I suspected slavery, illegal trading and extortion of the native to be the main source of their wealth and income.

My father’s side was never wealthy – they were common folks who were native to the land and lived accordingly. Their occupations were police and military – between my grandfather, my father and his brothers and sisters, all were honorable people and the men, they served honorable and with distinction. His father was a good native born man who married a Chinese woman.

All this did not matter whether they were full blooded native or mixed with European or Chinese blood. The fact that much of this was rarely revealed and concealed purposely, made the relationships appear shameful and because my grandfather had numerous illegitimately born children out of wedlock [since the story was he was actually still married to another woman], he too became a target of social injustice and felt much humiliation and embarrassment thus they chose to keep many of the facts hidden.

It was not like he had a harem of women around him; he was likely more of a womanizer than most of us knew and paid a dear price for such promiscuous or as some called it ‘unrestrained’ behaviors, his morality was in doubt and often hidden from the public opinion or family oriented conversations. One thing was certain, looking at my father’s charisma and solid magnetic charm, I could see where my mother was always so jealous if he even looked or talked to another woman.

The fact that there was a lack of domestic governance among the various family member became even more critical to create a hush hush situation of the past. We wanted to know why my father’s brother left our mother and what circumstances were driving those decisions to divorce him and allow my father to marry her.

 It was a complicated matter that would take some time to explain and rather than explaining this, my parents chose to remain silent and never talked about this until it was brought up later in when I was in my fifties.

So while my mother was bragging being born in a prominent family, it was my father’s side of the family she was ashamed of or so it seemed. One has to guess on this s she never really talked about it as the matter would raise her blood pressure instantly if even a mention of this was brought up in a casual conversation. So now, we found out my mother’s family was into illicit dealings that made them rich and on my father’s side there was adultery and messy divorces that drove families apart or mixed blood lines to no end.

All in all, these secrets or the fact that both sides engaged in concealment and then deny it through pre-arranged silence or forgotten memoirs, turned out to be a tremendous significance. It has been told that both sides of the family has beautiful daughters and handsome men. There must be some truth in this as my father was a very handsome man and my mother was a natural beauty and it is easy to understand how my father fell in love with his brother’s wife.

The truth however, was more complicated that a three ring circus. The personal commitment to hide the truth was based on several promises made by my uncle, my mother and my father to never bring this matter up again as long as they lived. This created an enormous amount of tension in our families and often the cause that drifted them apart and stop associating with each other for decades to come.

Not pointing fingers of blame, they all engaged in this concealment of the facts and all bear the shame they imposed on each other as they judged but failed to allow themselves to be judged as well. These dynamics and social projections were insufferable to defeat. There was no solution in merging bad feelings and starting over.

To forgive and forget was impossible. This family bearing the ToersBijns name could never reconcile their difference and chose to not speak to each other ever again with the exception of the younger generations who wanted to know the truth of all family matters told or disclosed.

You might say this was the dark side of the family and the black sheep in the families from the past. Nobody was worried or distressed about this matter or strong enough to reveal the truth. It was easier to remain silent and keep it buried as all decided to bury their heads into the ground and pretend nothing was wrong with these situations.

Probing, digging and asking questions, we finally found out why my uncle divorced my mother. It was a shocking revelation and unkind to the cultural and social norms of circa 1940’s how this divorce developed. Divorce was a serious matter and it took a serious matter to create enough pressure to annul or break up a marriage between a man and a woman.

As the story was told, my mother worked for the underground during the war and was a messenger and courier for the underground to pass along information where the Japanese troops were, what region they were searching for troops and who was captured and where they were being held in various prison camps on the island.

She worked closely with high school friends turned patriots as well as friends and relatives of all families brave enough to perform such a critical task to spy on the enemy and relay that information to those who could use it to their advantage and upset the enemies plan while occupying the islands.

It was during one such underground activities when my mother was raped by a long time close friend inside one of those hidden tunnels where they congregated to gather intelligence and prepare the dissemination to other couriers. Although she fought hard to prevent sexual penetration, she lost her battle and had to face the harsh consequences of telling her husband, my uncle and my father’s brother, she had been raped by another man who forced himself on her and caused her much pain and suffering emotionally and physically.

For my uncle, it was an ultimate social disgrace to accept her explanation and he walked away from her leaving her behind forever. He adamantly believed she could have prevented this assault and blamed her for it happening. Regardless of my mother’s plight and sorrow, he was unforgiving and literally walked out of her life leaving her feel guilty and ashamed of being a violated and now an abandoned married woman.

It seemed his emotional wellness about his own credibility and reputation outweighed my mother’s pain and suffering. Soon after, my father came to my mother’s side and reassured her he would marry her after his brother divorced her legally and take care of her and raise a family.

 

My Heritage _ToersBijns - Part I

My Heritage – ToersBijns

 Knowing my Mother and Father

 

 Part I –

 

Reaching the later stages of my life, I often reflect back to the days of my youth and the memories I have of my mother and father, as these two people were instrumental and pivotal influences in my life. One might say that I have become what they were and no regrets set foot in my mind that this isn’t so bad at all for me to recognize. I know that my brother and two sisters agree with me that their sustained and sometimes tainted influence over us made us who we are today.

I haven’t said much about my mother or my father because that has always been so personal to me and how I feel. Some ask me, why is that and I answer ‘some things are best left alone and not spoken or written about.’ Well, I am about to break that rule and search for what I have left in memories about my parents and their guidance in my life.

Certainly one point must be made clear, I did not seek any psychological advice or been to a psychiatrist / counselor at any time past or present, as I deal with this experience of reflecting my past and I seriously doubt if any of my siblings need any treatment or counseling as well.

Over a long silent spell, since they have passed away, we have had a lot of time to sort out feelings of the past. Speaking for myself, I find no need or reason to do anything else short of regret about some decisions I have made in my life. So regrettably, I want to deal with my conscious sooner rather than later.

How my siblings feel about this matter of clearing the closet of any guilt is unknown and irrelevant to my own desires. I want to come clean of my inner feelings that has haunted me for the past ten years since my mom died and in doing so, I remember things that were not so pleasant to deal with and some things that should never be forgotten and kept as a memory of value rather than waste,

First off, I look at the death of my mother and father as a milestone in my own life – time has taken away so much of my passion of life, I often forget the good times during the bad times. My life as their son began with a sea going chest or large wooden trunk. A bulky piece of luggage packed with a lifelong collection of clothes and things that belonged to us when we lived in Indonesia back before 1950.

I remember little about those days but enough to say that the day was spent playing in a large plantation courtyard filled with plants and animals that roamed around the house like pets but that remained free.

The collection of native animals as well as domestic creatures like chickens and mongoose are clear recollection of my play time friends under the watchful eyes of my family’s housekeeper and gardener.

The family’s personal wealth was good to the family and when my father was home from the military, we would enjoy quiet moments in this courtyards rather than going into the town where the hustle and noise was annoying and unwanted.

He often disappeared without a warning – the war had been torturous for him as a prisoner of war by the occupying Japanese army almost cost him his life. Sadly, he lost three brothers in this horrific war and suffered greatly with his health and his spirit as he lived on a bowl of rice and water for such a long time.

Released from a hospital shortly after being liberated from the prison where he was held, my father, Carl Ernest was slow in recuperating from the dehydration, starvation and poor medical care for bullet wounds he received before his capture. One thing I do know for certain, he served the army well and was recognized for his courage and leadership qualities by the opportunities and appointments as a soldier with the Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (KNIL] - the Dutch Army.

He was a master sergeant in the homeland army, otherwise identified as a colonial army as the Dutch colonized the islands of Indonesia and this military force was stationed in the larger islands of Java, Sumatra and Lampung, Sulawesi and Bali, during the Second World War.

It is important to talk about my father as a soldier for it shaped a large part of my life as well as my brother and sisters. My father was the strength of our family. His ability to keep us safe, warm, comfortable and fed was a great attribute of his character and inner strength.

Although a much, sometimes too obsessive man, he was a regimented man in manners, he spoke softly and carried a heavy burden most of his life as he chose to raise a family under the most difficult circumstances one could ever imagine. He wore his uniform with honor – he had a collection of ribbons and medals, some awarded for bravery and heroism and others for time and service, he stood tall in his role as a protector for many.

This man was a member of an elite military group. An organism that was a stand-alone homeland defense force that had no direct relationship or connection with the national army of Holland. Although their allegiance was sworn to the Dutch red white and blue flag during the war, it never merged into the rank and file of the national army.

His portion of the army was made up of one third European descent or related soldiers and two thirds natives of Indonesia. In all practical senses, the native companies had largely European commanders and non-commissioned officers and my father was an exception to that rule. No matter where he was stationed, his loyalty, energy and courage stood above the rest and offered him many special assignments during the course of his military career.

These soldiers fought in Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali, Timor and Aceh. The Dutch were notorious slave traders, decades behind the UK in abolishing slavery and because Indonesia was a colony of the Dutch, these soldiers were the enforcers for the government located thousands of miles away in Holland.

The native troops are officered by Europeans, but the sergeants and corporals are always of the same race as the men under them. My father, being a master sergeant, one of the highest rank of an enlisted man before becoming an officer, was given a sub-command of a company of native soldiers that served with honor. His brothers, two police officers and one a lieutenant, also in the KNIL, died fighting the Japanese and left few survivors of the family patriarchs.

In the predawn darkness of 1 March 1942, Japanese Sixteenth Army units landed at three points on the north coast of the 650-mile-long island of Indonesia and captured all who were assigned to defend this land against the Japanese Empire. The struggle against Japan lasted until 7 March 1942, when the Dutch commander-in-chief was forced to capitulate. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, civilian politicians still advocated cooperation with the Dutch colonial government, which did not satisfy military leaders, who preferred armed struggle to gain Indonesian freedom from the Dutch-J Day, 15 August 1945, marked the end of World War II but not the end of military operations for the KNIL.

The Dutch colonial conflict in Indonesia (1947-1949), which ended with the independence of the former Dutch colony in 1949. This was the year I was born and it was hostile to say the least as we were moving constantly to avoid being targeted by the civil war and those fighting on the side of the native rebels. By 1948 the Dutch Army was estimated as about 120,000 men, well-armed and equipped.

 What the rebels (natives) wanted was a lifting of the Dutch blockade and the right to sell their products to any other nation without requiring them to pass through Dutch hands. Eventually, the Dutch were forming a United States of Indonesia where the natives had local autonomy, but where the real power including foreign relations and public defense, was under Dutch control.

The independent Indonesia government, located in Java with CP at Jakarta, refused to go along with the Dutch, as it demanded complete independence. A "Round Table Conference" resulted in the acquisition of complete independence by forming an independent state and the country Indonesia was formed as orders came down to expel or banish all Dutch citizens from the island and directed them to return to their homeland, Holland as soon as possible.

This was happening at a rapid pulsed rate as the newly installed government was busy stripping most Dutch citizens of their wealth and possession before boarding ships headed for Holland. Therefore, my comment of our disappearance in a sea-going chest or wooden trunk relates to those heavy wooden ship loaded crates we used to pack all our personal belongings to travel to the homeland, Holland.

The journey to Holland was a lengthy and difficult occurrence in our lives. There wouldn’t be any good memories from the sea sickness to the sparse food available for those horded onboard of antiquated passenger ships ill equipped and poorly suited for comfort or reasonable living accommodations for such a extended voyage.

Regardless of all the adversities experienced onboard that ship and all the sea sickness suffered along with side effects of conditions contributed by the environment and because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, this was a drawn-out prolonged nightmare for all of us to endure without complaining and relief of such confinement conditions. It was my father who kept us all together and strong throughout the ordeal.

My father was a traditional man; he ate Indisch meals and preferred rice over potatoes. A stranger to meat, our family ate mostly fish, poultry and other vegan items as the price of beef or pork were too expensive or exorbitant to bare. My mother was a well skilled cook and made him his favorite gado with his steamed rice, shrimp and vegetables, as a meal fit for a king. It was the specially prepared sauces that made the meals so delicious. I could see it in his face with contentment and satisfaction.

I never ever, recalled my father cooking a meal – he was rarely allowed in the kitchen by my mother as I recall it and for that I am forever puzzled as she cooked almost every day until she went to work to help the family meet its financial obligations. Helping in the kitchen was a chore assigned to all of us. From the second we got up to the moment we went to sleep, house chores and kitchen responsibilities were clearly defined and expected to be done and carried out without a sound or whimper of whining or complaining.

My father was never a cruel man; he was a man of understanding, patience and we all missed him when he was away on military duty. Never a stranger to us, he made sure that whenever he came home, we would all receive a personal loving hug from him and a big smile on his face showing his pleasure of being with us for one more time. While we were in Holland, my father worked at the Dutch military ministry building in downtown Amsterdam and later on in the first year we were there, transferred to another military building in The Hague.

He was one of the fortunate ones who were able to transfer from the KNIL to the Dutch regular army after the independence of Indonesia was declared. Here he was only thirty minutes out from work as we found an apartment high rise building in Voorburg where we settled in and went to school as my mother stayed home and sewed and cook as a part-time job to make ends meet.

My father played an important role in my life and my work history as his values rubbed off on me with strong favor in integrity and boldness. I can honestly say, my brother and I benefited from his morality and personal characteristics as he taught us through role modeling what it was like to be a responsible person as well as how to act to become a man.

Inside the home, there was no poetry or music – that’s not to say we didn’t have a radio or a record player for we did but it was rarely used. For certain, the television was not yet affordable or available for our family. There was a lot of quiet time in our house and the reasons were mainly due to my father’s exhausting profession and long work days plus a strong contributing factor - my mother’s irritability factor to noise or other inconvenient interruptions.

We all studied hardy in the evenings. Homework was important and our parents checked up on our work often. There was no slacking on homework – that was a firm rule and no exceptions were allowed. I was not good in math. I despised math. I loved history and spent my time in school and at home, day dreaming about journeys over land, sea and air using all the imagination I could muster to make an imaginary vision of my exciting life come true in my dreams.

My sister was more poetic and my brother was well skilled with his hands and also had an imaginary mind. My sister rehearsed her poems until she knew them by heart. At the same time, she would sing her favorite American songs and learn the words quite well even when not knowing what they meant but remembered them phonetically and sung in tune to the sounds of music on the radio.

Perhaps we day dreamt so much to escape the boredom of the stillness in the rooms at night as we all sat silently and watched the coals burn in the coal fed hearth, that kept us all warm on a winter night or day.

By the measly detour or diversion of a dream or a conversation, my mind came into contact with the past of the island and never forgetting the sounds or faces we had as we remembered our moments in the courtyard and the huge spacious plantation dwelling.

Going from that monstrous dwelling to a three bedroom apartment was quite a switch but the mood was positive and the love was swelling to keep us all warm and content night after night, day after day. This was not the kind of home we came from. It was much too small for us to call home but with the situation being like it was, we accepted it and enjoyed its comforts accordingly. In her own way, by planting familiar and native flowers around the house, it made us feel like home and found the adjustment would take some time but that the peace we had was worth every sacrifice made so far.

My father was an artist or so we thought when we looked at his drawings and masterpieces of plastic models consisting of war planes of all sorts. His fascination with airplanes was evident as he could draw a P-50 Mustang in full detail and not miss a dot to represent a bolt or piece of the fuselage in his schematics. We enjoyed seeing a full grown man drawing and coloring these airplane models that were so vividly engrained inside his mind once he saw them in a book or photograph and then copy it without having to look again or trace the outline to make it look real.

In the meantime, my mother, the cook and seamstress was always busy doing the kind of things that needed mending or washing or in some cases, altering or sewing. Her skills were so good, other people hired her to do those things as the money she earned was significant and allowed us a higher level of comforts than we had experienced a few years before.

She even went as far as starting a catering business and fixed or prepared nothing but Indonesian cuisine and specialties. A chef by heart, she knew exactly what spices were needed and what made the meal so deliciously edible and delightful that others wanted to order more food than she could handle by herself.

Thus we had a mixture in our family – we were Dutch by citizenship and Indonesian by culture. There was no denying we were living in a mixed language environment or scene as my parents spoke Malaysian fluently and spoke it when it was something to do with their personal affairs or business. As a family, we were an outgoing group and enjoyed those moments enormously with satisfactory bliss.

The harsh European winters drew us all closer together and the pleasant  Dutch summers gave us good times outside where the open fields offered us fresh air and plenty of space to run and exercise our wildest rides on our roller skates, bicycles and long walks in the dairy fields filled with crops or flowers.

Regardless how we spent the days, it was always side by side with my brother and sister and for special events like carnivals, pageants, parades or civic oriented festivals, our parents would take us and endure the wind, the rain and the sea whenever we went out on an outing that usually ended up as a picnic or other affair.

What turned out to be a routine day at the beach or park, turned out to be a special influence in our life that made us grow stronger and wiser with the guidance of our parents by our side giving us a sense of security and belonging that never left us until the day their died. So special was their influence, it connected us with everything in our acquaintances with life itself.

One day my father came home and sent us straight to our rooms. His demeanor was seriously different than those of other days and as he sat down at the table with my mother Edith, he whispered to her something that was purposely withheld from our ears and kept a secret for days before they brought us in and shared their secret with us.

The two of them had been planning another journey. Another challenge and this time, it was not by sea but by air. They wanted us to pack up and leave to move to the United States of America. A place we had often talked about since the arrival in Holland but never quite mentioned in a conversation that divulged a wish or desire to live there or at the least, go visit it as a vacation outing. None of us had any idea what difficulties this would entail.

The visas, sponsorship and the finances for such a trip were ridiculously expensive and to the best of my knowledge, we were never rich enough to afford such a trip, let alone an new place to pack up and leave to like we did before. Certainly, we were aware my mother’s sacrifices of working extra hard and long on catering projects, sewing works and other side jobs but never imagined she was saving enough money for us to travel to America.

We were migrating to another world; a world that had been the envy of the rest of the world as it was painted to be a land of opportunity and freedoms. Looking on a global map of the Earth, we saw how far this destiny of another voyage would take us and slept soundly that night with dreams of coming to America.

 

Theocracy for America - the wrong road - an opinion

Theocracy – the Wrong road for America - [An Opinion]

I read an interesting survey the other day – it was called the Public Policy Polling PPP] survey on whether or not we should make Christianity the official religion of the USA. This poll was conducted due to recent campaigning by politicians injecting religion into their rhetoric. This action was all based on religious fear mongering that this country is experiencing from the inside, not the outside of our borders.

In this survey, it was revealed that approximately 44 per cent of bipartisan citizens prefer making Christianity the official religion. Realizing that related to these facts, that leave a large majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents not in favor of making Christianity our preferred belief.

This opposition to such a theocracy is interesting as it impacts the First Amendment in varies ways. Those opposed should not lose ground in their resistance to prevent a theocracy from forming and impact the public policy making of our government. For a US based poll, it was revealed shockingly that our First Amendment is under attack.

What is encouraging is the fact that the majority of people still favor the right to choose; while others are clamoring for the elimination of the freedom of religion clause that was placed there by our founding fathers for a reason. This was the basic principle of our creation, our staple of life and our main beliefs that man should be free to choose their own belief or religion without hindrance. We cannot afford to lose this right by any means.

There is a movement to destroy the right to choose a religion as groups have gathered into a powerful lobbyist force and use their personal beliefs as a motivational tool to attack our liberties or so it seems. This ‘faith-deranged’ support has been seen in women’s rights, abortion issues, social and economic support for programs, and eventually, support for wars in foreign countries, etc. and has shown to be led by a group of tax exempt religious based organization, who are pandering religious feelings for support and sympathy.

Using faith to manipulate mindsets and other feelings, this is a dangerous practice and should not be supported by our government or their leaders. One could even see the Pope Francis engaged in this practice to pander as he suggested political moves rather than theological ideas but well within the beliefs of the church he represents.

One main reason for such threat is the means of injecting religious beliefs into our legal system and convert the law into parables of religious privileges and demands. This would give the system leverage on our quality of life and ability to choose what we belief in. Religion should never be included in public policy hence the term ‘separation of church and state’ is critically imposed within our own Constitution.

We have seen what secular inferences and interferences have done to governments elsewhere especially in the countries such as Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc. There is no religious freedom to practice their individual choice of faith without penalties from the religion police. Thus they lose their mere existence, voice and rights to uphold the government’s power to control the people through religion.

The United States should remain a democracy and not turn to theocracy as it would signal the end of our freedoms we have today. People should oppose such movements to embrace a single religion for government direction or policies. It invites oppression, persecution and destruction to our manner of law and rule if we roll over and let secularist run this country.

Arizona tries to buy illegal execution drug

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Haunting – Dead Men Walking

 

Unless you have walked into that death house yourself, you have no idea what it feels like. Realistically, history can tell you who has walked there and how they died.  However, being there in person is so much different than reading about it. The rigorous execution process is confidential and as a former member of an execution team, one can’t divulge specific death house information but can share the human emotions when the day comes and the death warrant is read to the last dead man walking into the Florence  Arizona death house.

 

Based on witnessed acts and rehearsed drills of executing a precision filled procedure, the process is all about making sure that justice is served to those who are dead men walking. Although practiced many times over and over, there are no guarantees that on the day of the death sentence being imposed, nothing will go wrong and chaos replaces the air of temperance, tolerance and spectacled sensations.

 

Today, hundreds of prisoners, sitting quietly on death row, are waiting to wake up and find themselves walking their last haunting walk from their cell to the hygienic killing table situated with leather straps and Velcro strips, where the lethal needle will put them to sleep – forever. Each have their own story how they ended up on death row – some are gruesome and others don’t seem to fit the crime details but nevertheless, here they are on death row – segregated from the general population and held in a cold concrete box until their time to die arrives giving them a brief moment of fresh air on the ride to the death house and within the 24 hours scheduled, die behind an obscure curtain and window of the death room.

 

Some are unwanted, some fiercely hated and some despised for the crimes committed. Regardless, soon they will be disposed of and put into the ground if their body remains unclaimed and face being buried in the Florence graveyard along with the rest of those incarcerated prisoners who died while inside this Arizona prison environment. Since the law now binds and bounds them all together by the fact they are all committed to die by lethal injection, the mood is often somber as those who walk these mostly empty hallways fall to a hush that is deafening to those around the death house.

 

Arizona was recently caught red-handed by the feds in their attempts to purchase illegal death drugs from India and other sources since domestic vendors refuse to make these drugs anymore. Whether it was a moral decision or purely business, it makes access to the death drugs difficult causing administrations to seek black market sources at a very high and elusive price. The irony is the state is willing to break the law to impose the law of putting people to death for a sentence given to them decades ago and now meeting the lawful deadline.

 

Nobody could imagine these officials would go to such an extreme to put someone to death in Arizona but it happens quite a bit as some drugs in the past have been bought, borrowed and traded with other states making midnight rendezvous on the interstate highway a novel means to transfer drugs from one state to another while skirting the law to do so. In the end, the means justifies the will to kill people with untested drugs and follow up on their destined role to be the executioner once again on a Wednesday early morning

 

The death warrant triggers a sterile stone-faced process that begins with a read in the attorney room located in the visiting room with a meditative acknowledgment that the warrant is real and the prisoner is set to die. A short conversation with a witness ensues as the warden reads the warrant verbatim. A short question and answer session follows. The warden nods and leaves the room. Then, the prisoner is taken to the ID intake room where he or she is stripped searched, and dressed in new and fresh clothing. The same goes for the cell that is searched, inspected and then put on a 24 hour constant surveillance watch with an officer sitting in the front of the cell until it is time to move the prisoner to the death house.

 

The food is inspected daily, recorded and visually inspected by a supervisor. The purpose is to make sure the prisoner eats, and gets his or her meals before they are put to death. The last meal is written on a form that gives them the choices of their preferences and then given to the food service manager to procure and prepare. The process is as clean as a whistle and the area becomes restricted to all non-authorized traffic as a special team of officers are selected to work in the area now set up as the pre-death house cellblock.

 

There is no sense of a tragedy waiting to happen. There is only the haunting image of a fully shackled prisoner shuffling their feet slowly as they move to the van that takes them to the death house , a mere ten ,minute slow paced drive with sentries and road guards along the way to ensure a safe delivery to the Florence complex death house.

 

The escorts are selected by name and qualification on weapons used to ensure a safe journey to the death house by armed escorts and posted armed correctional officers along the way. The entire complex is still and the silence is noted as all the other prisoners are locked down temporarily to allow the move to go unhindered and without complications or disruptions. The presence of law enforcement is heavy on the execution day. The press, visitors and witnesses are all neatly horded into the visiting slots of the death house as they walk across the yard of the old Central prison with its high walls and shimmering razor wire.

 

The final walk is less than fifty feet – the holding cell is located to the immediate right as you enter the solid door that blocks your entrance or imprisons you if you are standing outside. Every officer there is a volunteer for the execution – everyone is hand-picked and selected based on duty and ability to carry out the job of putting a human being to death. More are selected to handle crowd control, escorts, and perimeter watch and population mood assessments are made to ensure no disruptions are created or detected among the prisoner population within the complex. Methodically, the plan goes as well and it’s just a matter of hours before everything returns back to normal.

 

There are press reporters taking notes feverishly and asking questions. No photographs allowed as only those visual images on the mind and brain of witnesses, is all that is left for the last moments of someone’s life.  They capture something different – something rarely seen by others as this event is something most people will never observe. The mood is calm – the team is prepared and ready. This is something the public doesn’t get to see. The mood is somber, there are no jokes, only small talk as the commands commence and the final act begins.

 

The silence is deafening. The moment is shattered with the thoughts of grief, pain and sorrow. In an instant moment, or so it seems, a person’s life was taken away, the name will be printed and the story will be lost in time as to why this person died and what crime they committed to be lost to the human race. Some will move on, and some will not be so easily forgotten.

 

The mood is mixed and once the event comes to an end, the lockdown is lifted, the prisoners are released and life goes on the way it did before the needle hit the skin and the drugs were injected into the veins that took the poison to the heart and brain for the final time as the prisoners draws his last breath and dies.

 

As a former death row administrator, it wasn’t easy to confront the faces or the reasons why these prisoners were housed on death row.  Each had their own story to tell – some claim innocence and others brag about the way they took a live or lives.

Looking at them as pure human beings is replaced by looking at numbers and not faces, making the task of making sure they live until they are set to die an obscured priority in this irony of keeping them alive so they can die at the hands of the state that committed them to death ensure once and for all, they walk their last haunting walk to the death house to face euthanasia and death by lethal injection.

 

Cop [All] Lives Matter

Cop [All] Lives Matter

Today’s movement against cops is fueled by misplaced judgments and misunderstandings. Calling the trend of killing police officers a “war of cops” is meant to incite the public and not support the cops. One has to be able to understand the logic being used to provoke emotions todays. Instigators, some as high up as the White House and top law enforcement agencies [Federal levels] are remaining silent on this social movement against the police for a reason. They want dissention, they need distractions and they know that as long as people are divided, they remain in power.

So they support in silence, those who call the police officers bigots and racist cops. Those words are used verbatim because young people can related to the hate spewed and act out accordingly. In all reality, most of the hate comes from the community’s poorer sections of town as designed by politicians who play in favor of those protesting pandering their support and votes come election time. They have no legitimate opinion or stand on this matter, they inflame to get the votes.

So cops are stereotyped by protesters carrying signs created and fabricated by organized groups that want to radicalize the public into cop haters. They develop slogans that depict cops as killers and that resisting them as well as targeting them for retribution and ‘justice’ creates the means to carry out their mission – divide and conquer their minds.

The media, with their own feeble attempts to report the news play right into their hands. They downplay the bigotry of the protesters and lay that label on the police force. They give the impression that cops are aggressive in their nature to enforce the laws even when there are suspects shooting at them during the commission of the crime. It is their own way of justifying their slanted written stories and incite the reader to become involved.

The media has no loyalty to neither the public nor the police. Their loyalty is to their publisher and advertisers. They justify their words in all situations by making a point of erroneous reporting on purpose to incite rather than defuse the situation. Their politically correct headlines are misleading and often allow them more time to follow up on stories that deserve no such broadcast time to begin with. They certainly fuel the “Lives Matter” crowd possibly even joining or partnering with them to some degree.

Pitting one life over another is morally wrong. Cops make mistakes but when mistakes are villainized and propagandized it becomes fuel for hate and violence. On the other side of the perspective, protesters are justified for using force, burning and looting property because they were angry and ‘triggered’ to act that way because of police brutality giving them an opportunity to make a public statement. The media has yet to demonstrate this propensity to put any blame on protesters as they focus on the cops and their actions.

If there was any nobility in this matter, as we must agree that all lives matter, the media and those groups organized to demonstrate and protest police brutality, must act according to the law, not as vigilantes or a lynch mob out to hand the cops for everything they do. Nobility should demonstrate the good and the bad with balance and focusing on the crime not the color of the suspect or perpetrator.

The irony of this situation is the media and the public expect cops to be noble. They expect the police to do what is morally and legally right yet on their own terms, their contempt for such conduct is demonstrated by the quick to judge statements and inclination to blame cops for everything that happens in their communities. If this matter is to be resolved all who get involved must demonstrate patience, and character of having or showing acceptable personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals to deal with the issues at hand.