THERE WAS SOME MYSTERY about his birth. His mother was pregnant before she was married. It was almost a one-parent family. But the groom decided to make the best of it. It was tricky to explain to the families. Was the father some relative? Or a passing stranger. or a randy soldier from the occupying army?
It took some time for the gossip to die down. No doubt the boy heard it when he helped his carpenter father after school. ‘Your son did you say?’ Nudge, nudge. But he went ahead and learned his trade – benches, tables and barns, looms and yokes, chippings and dust.
As he worked he pondered how best to move. Politics were out. The puppet government saw to that. An agitator? Several boys had tried this one. They were silenced before they could speak out. And nobody knows where they are buried.
When he was about thirty, the carpenter identified with a ‘born again’ group led by a relative. But religious revival was only for his own folk, What about the carpenters everywhere else? Something more radical was needed.
At this point he had several ‘offers you can’t refuse’. But he did. He decided to be absolutely and compassionately straight with everyone he met – young or old, him or her, rich or poor. No side, no sentimentality, no judgment. lt was dynamite.
Some young men joined him. They noted down some of the things he said. like:
* Revenge is daft. You can change your enemies into friends
* ‘You people who pretend you've arrived, you stink like whitewashed graves.’
* (And straight from the workshop) ‘let me remove that speck of dust from your eye’, said the fellow with a six foot plank stuck in his own.
He told them:
* ‘Never blame your brother, blame yourself.’
* If you want to make peace – try penitence, not propaganda. The best slogan is ‘sorry’.
He worked with anyone who came clean and could look him in the eye –
collaborators, ‘respectable folk’ and prostitutes. He also did things with people with food and water that have kept the scientists guessing ever since.
The authorities got wind of it. They didn't like it at aII. He might upset the delicate balance of colonial authority. He was undermining everyone’s certainties. In fact they hated him almost by instinct and recycled all the rumours about him.
ln the end one of his own men turned him in. A gang of collaborators grabbed him.
Most of his friends, who hadn’t faced the truth about themselves, ran for their lives. After a farce of a trial, the arrogant thugs of the occupying army drove thick nails through his wrests and ankles and hung him up to die by inches – a ‘deterrent’ to other law-breakers. A few – mostly women – kept him company. The carpenter fought for his ideas to his last gasp.
Since then many have said ‘the carpenter was right’. They have caught his fire and created hospitals for the sick, schools to help people think for themselves, art. music and architecture to celebrate hope for mankind and democracy to give value to every last individual.
Today as in his lifetime, this carpenter makes people choose. He was murdered by ordinary folk with everyday weaknesses, who wanted instant cash, a quiet life to keep their job or reputation, to save their skins. They were too shy to identify with him openly or didn’t care for some of his friends. They cracked jokes to cover their cowardice – till it was too late.
People killed him, people like us – and still do with every day that passes.
But there’s also a growing bunch of men and women who stand with him today and aren’t afraid to say so, in icy totalitarian torture cells, in noisy union branch meetings or in smart cocktail parties.
You can always find the carpenter in his shop. lt is never closed.
English