The character in my writing today has no given name. She is not fictitious. She is a young child of around five and will be a woman in many years from now. Shakespeare would have written ‘woman thy name is frailty’. I’ll call this child ‘my girl thy name is Anonymity’. What a paradox! Because you are not an anonymous character. I have seen you in the small moving crowd, in the narrow space between the barrier and the van. Moving because your mum, so it seems, was pulling you from this side of the van to the other to have a glimpse of a close one inside the huge almost windowless vehicle.

At this hour, 11 o’clock, you should have been with your classmates. In the circumstances, your right to education has been baffled. You have been brought on the premises of an institution where people are mandated to give justice to all, the erudite, the common man, the professional, men, women, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, so the society can question itself and its population be made to change from bad to good. I see your mother has dressed you in a kind of Sunday clothing and a hair comb which they would not normally expect at school, a colourful string of ribbon tied to your hair tail. Your mother has probably intended to give you the least worries possible. But I saw in your eyes an anguish and a confusion like your mother’s. You may be asking why you have been pulled in a world where other women are standing, all of them mothers with a child hanging to their gowns. I find in you, mother and child, an example of the lumpen proletariat.

But today is a special day where perhaps you are seeing your parent after he has been brought to appear before a person who has to take a decision. In fact, we say the person is a magistrate. So, at this age you are made to look up high at the black and barred window panes on this side and on the other side of the van. I see you can’t see him, I write ‘him’ because it’s a male voice I hear, you hear with an unassuming smile on your face, a hope in your look, even for a few seconds. Your mother cries: ‘kot twa’. He replies he will come down and will see you ‘dans la cour’, not the front yard but inside the hall of the court where sits the magistrate. I wonder whether you can imagine the magnitude of events taking place. Your mother desperately dares to talk to a tall agent, expecting him to say what she wants to hear. Maybe, will he come down the van. Shockingly, from inside, he shouts in her direction ‘kot to pe ale?’ I guess he is worried about where you will be going after he has gone to some other place they call a prison. Maybe your house is no more yours, maybe the co-occupants would reject you, maybe the people of your locality would drop a stigma on you, child. Anonymity will no more be your name. They will say ‘the child of’.

An innocence exposed

My child, you are so small but you can see your father. He has no handkerchief, no towel, no pullover, not a piece of cloth to hide his wrists in handcuffs. So, you see the metal that breaks his morale, breaks your mother’s pride, and puts you both in agony. ‘Kan to pou retourne?’ His voice is inaudible as the van’s engine announces the departure for a place they call prison, which confuses you. He goes like a soul unstoppable, untouchable, unreachable even at a meter’s distance. The scene is almost burlesque but really cruel. My child, you are an innocent victim. You are a child pushed in a world where young people and adults have found their lives entangled miserably. When your classmates are learning about daily weather forecasts, about songs, about Mother’s Day, you are exposed to a narrative which you never requested. Henceforth, you will travel a long distance to the place called prison, you do not know where, when your mother gathers enough for the bus fare. Your mother, a young fragile woman herself, will toil sweat and tears to ensure you have everything for school: materials, food, clothing, shelter and security. There is love in your mother’s eyes when she watches your father hastily climb the vehicle.

My child, thy name is not ‘Anonymity’. Thy name is Innocence, Light, Knowledge, Success. Thy name is Glorious. You will grow into a great woman.

As I write this story my heart aches at the knowledge that there are many children of the age of Glorious.