Opening comments from the Mayor of Frome
Peter Macfadyen has kindly agreed to allow us to share the notes for the comments he made at the start of the walk in Frome on April 14:
Peter Macfadyen, Mayor of Bath.
Wearing ‘Amnesty’ Chain of Office
Forced Walks
Peter Macfadyen…Mayor Welcome to Frome and C&G.
I’m going to start us of by saying something about walking and something about inhumanity
As Mayor I spent time with a chap climbing Kilimanjaro who was in Frome a few weeks ago. So what, lots of people of that… he’s is walking to Kenya from here, part fundraising and part considering his place on the planet.
Another Frome friend is currently walking 600 miles of SW Coastal paths with his brother – entitled Black Dog Walks – again a mix of fundraising and reflection on his own and the mental health challenges of others….
Annabelle has been conducting Universe Walks near here – 1000 steps tracing the story of the Universe…. Doing this has helped me better see how incredibly recent humankind is….
Understanding we are only early in the design phase as a species perhaps makes it easier to understand these lapses when we turn upon ourselves in the most horrific acts of self destruction? And, as we start this walk, 70 years since the staggering inhumanity of Belsen I am very aware that while that was a peak of horror, it was not a one off…..
Indeed there is a constant level of terrible cruelty, then every now and then something especially inhuman.. Except, as I say, it seems such things are not ‘inhuman’ in the sense that they are part of who we are.
I came to Frome to work for an organisation supporting the rights of disabled people including in Rwanda where I spent some time. Shortly after, the Rwandese genocide saw the disabled people’s organisation leader orchestrate the slaughter of his fellow members, before being killed later in revenge. This is the closest I personally have come to the knife edge between neighbourliness and slaughter.
Part of this project is to look at how trauma in one generation impacts upon another, so I need to mention Alice Seeley Harris (who spent many years in Frome and whose husband and daughter are buried in the Dissenters cemetery).
Alice was an extraordinary Victorian who as the wife of a missionary travelled to the Belgian Congo (not far south of Rwanda) and, appalled by the horrors inflicted upon slaves there, took photos and – carrying them back to Britain – campaigned so vigorously that her message was a key part in bringing to an end Belgian rule there. She founded the Anti Slavery and Aboriginal Protection Society – a precursor to Amnesty.
And that takes me to this my Amnesty inspired Mayoral Chain. This chain was made to bring focus on the local Amnesty group’s letter writing campaign. Letters written in support of individuals often subjected to terrible cruelty because of their stand for freedom.
As we set off in a moment, on a glorious Spring day, through land recently brought by the community to keep it forever as meadows, I wish this project well……. and perhaps this focus on one act of monumental cruelty will help us better understand humankind’s capacity for enacting the unthinkable.