I’m haunted by the story of Charlie.
He was a young trans boy who for years was bullied and misgendered at school.
He had great difficulty at expressing his feelings and desires, and so got labelled autistic.
And because of that, he was denied puberty blockers.
And because of that, and because he self harmed, he was sent to Prestwich Hospital’s youth mental health ward.
And because the ward was understaffed, and because he was separated from his family, his self harming got worse.
And eventually he was “found unresponsive” in his room in the hospital and died five days later of brain injury.
Every step in this horrible, tragic chain of events could have been avoided; and every step was caused by a lack of empathy.
The lack of the basic but incredibly important human capacity to feel for each other’s suffering and be motivated to reach out and alleviate it.
The National Health Service is the most beautiful expression of a collective empathy; and yet as a society we don’t value it enough to fund it properly, and in particular we underfund our mental health services.
And we fund Gender Identity Clinics even less; and the UK government has just commissioned and published a report to make it look respectable to cause young trans people even more suffering.
And Charlie is the third young person to die in that notoriously understaffed unit in less than a year.
And for the health service to function at all, it needs to depend on unpaid carers.
Unpaid carers who we then, with unspeakable callousness, prosecute for minor infringements of badly framed social security regulations.
Meantime we reward and happily profit from the manufacture and sales of weapons that continue to fuel immoral and unbelievably cruel wars…
Wars that are themselves the result of so total a breakdown of empathy that it allows their combatants to view their enemies as animals.
And less than animals…
Lack of empathy kills.
Which is why we so urgently need to cherish and develop it.
Which is one of the most important functions of theatre.
But then we underfund our theatres…
I think of all this as I read the next terrifying scene from Koffi Kwahulé’s BINTOU.
Bintou’s family conspire to mutilate her; a young white man agrees to betray her and tries to pimp his mother to try to fund his drug habit.
It’s a total indictment of how capitalism works; and it’s told with such compassion…
This is painful, but essential theatre.
We need to open our eyes. We need to understand.
Understand, to quote Queen Jesus, that
“We are all in this together.
All of us here to love, and to be loved.”
BINTOU by Koffi Kwahulé . translated by Jo Clifford.
translation © John Clifford 2000
All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before rehearsals to Alan Brodie Representation Ltd, Barbon Buildings, 14 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4QH. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained.
Us
At Bintou’s parent’s house. The Mother is there with the uncle, the aunt, and
Moussoba, an old woman. Ethnic African music.
Mother: When hands cannot reach, the fruit is picked with a forked stick.
Thanks be given to the Consoler. Thank you for having come, Moussoba, thank you for having heard my cries of distress.
Aunt: Bintou has left school. Each day the Merciful grants us, each day she passes inciting her Lycaons to commit new crimes. She is the worst of the debauched.
Uncle: Even though so young, she’s started to live with one of her “Lycaons”, a young white...
Moussoba: A white?
Aunt: Moussoba, at the bottom of her soul, Bintou does not possess a single grain of shame and pride.
Moussoba: A white! May the Great Pardoner have pity on her soul.
Uncle: Bintou has become a dead branch of the river.
Mother :But does the river allow its branch to dry up and die for ever? No. Oh no. And how can I, her mother, accept what even the river refuses? A quarrel between members of the same family is only hot water, it does not burn down the house. But my daughter wishes to understand nothing.... Oh Moussoba, if you knew how deeply I feel ashamed! My family has the finger pointed at it as the weak link in the community. But I have tried everything in my powers to prevent her turning her own life into a gigantic image of depravity...
Moussoba: What does her father say?
Uncle: My brother has been betrayed by life and has lost his job. Since then, Bintou will not listen to him; he has shut himself up, in there, behind his shame. It’s months now since he last saw the light of day.... and Bintou’s sacrilegious acts all help finish him.
Moussoba: Wanzo, the demon of lust, has crossed the ocean to enter your daughter’s shaft. Wanzo has taken possession of your daughter’s clitoris. Why have you not sent her back to the country to have it removed?
Aunt :Her mother has tried everything, Moussoba, and I can be the witness to that. But you don’t yet know Bintou.
I was there when my sister-in-law called her..
Mother :Bintou! Bintou! Bintou!
Bintou enters. Snatches of oriental music come out of the room when Bintou
opened, then closed, the door. Bintou is out of breath. She must have been
dancing. She holds a switch blade which she continually plays with.
Bintou: Yes, I hear.
Mother: What were you doing?
Bintou: Hurry up mother. I’ve only one more thing to practice.
Mother: Your father and I-
Bintou: My father? What father? I have no father.
Mother: We thought you might like a treat. We thought you might like to take a holiday. To go back to the old country during the holidays. Wouldn’t you like that?
Bintou: Mother, I don’t need holidays. I don’t go to school, so why should I take holidays? Anyway, I don’t know it, this squalid hole, this old country you speak of.
Mother: Exactly. You’ll get to know the other members of your family, you’ll get to know your own country...
Bintou: But mother this is my country. Right here. The city, the district, the concrete, my men... my “Lycaons” as Aunt Rokia calls them. This is where I was born and this is enough for me. I don’t want to know anywhere else.
Mother: Where did you get that knife?
Bintou: So you think I stole it. Any other crime you want to accuse me of? Say it now and get it over with. If you really want to know, Manu gave it me. (calling out) My enchantment! My enchantment! Bring yourself!
Manu: (entering with a blast of the same music, which stays) Bang!
Bintou: Stop. This is no time for that. And close that fucking door, we can’t hear ourselves think. (Manu does this then comes back) She thinks I nicked the knife.
Manu: In that case, old cow, you have got it totally wrong.
Bintou: Manu! Its my mother!
Manu: But Samiagamal...
Bintou: And none of that “but Samiagamal”! She’s my mother. treat her with respect or I ...
Manu (aiming at Bintou with his fingers) :Bang!
Bintou: Manu!
Manu: OK, cool cool. I’m sorry, Madame. The knife is mine. I gave it to Samiagamal.
Bintou: So, you see, I stole nothing. Tell me, Enchantment, what would you say about a visit to Africa?
Manu: To do what?
Bintou :Nothing special. For the hell of it. For a holiday. For nothing.
Manu :For nothing?
Bintou: For free, like I said.
Manu: Well. Yeah, great. Africa. Have to say. the coolest. Yeah, that could be cool.
Bintou: Mother, you want to hear the good news, or the bad news. The good news is that I have found someone for your journey; the bad news, that I will not be going myself. I would be happy to take a holiday anywhere... in China, in America, in Brazil, even Clacton... but not in Africa. In any case not now; I am not yet ready for Africa... Is that all you wanted to say, mother? (Silence from the Mother) Good. Since everyone is agreed, I can go back and dance. You know, mother, I do many stupid things but I often think of you. I don’t like to see my mother spending her life cleaning other people’s houses. I don’t like that at all. Don’t think I spend my life doing bugger all. I am learning to do the dance, the earth dance, the belly dance; and one day you won’t have to clean up other people’s spit and shit.
Don’t forget what I just said, mother. Don’t ever forget.
Come, enchantment, let’s get out of here.
They leave. Snatches of eastern music. Silence.
Aunt: Moussoba, we no longer know what to do. Bintou is slipping away between our fingers. And her father who...Oh Moussoba,.. her father says that my sister-in-law is a bad wife and that she should have known how to control her daughter better. But who can control Bintou? Bintou is like a lizard: you think you’ve got her, but no, she’s slipped away to somewhere else.... She is a fruit too ripe for living. I am afraid she’ll die before spring.
Moussoba: You know the price?
Uncle: Moussoba, the money has been collected.
Moussoba: I do not speak of that price. You know that this country imagines that what we are about to do is a crime? This country which devotes its whole soul to heresy treats us, healers of the soul, treats us like vulgar assassins... Even when drunk, the egg does not dance on gravel. So I demand total discretion. If Bintou refuses to travel to Africa, then I, Moussoba, the queen of the “potters”, I will make her travel to her ancestral home. Travel on the blade of my knife. We need clarity. For now Bintou crosses the empire of uncertainty, of mistaken identity, and of ambiguity; this world of the Unfinished one where a woman is also a man and a man is also a woman. Is it by chance that, being so young, Bintou should command men, beginning with her own father? Bintou knows nothing of masculine authority...What she needs is clarity. For otherwise she will live without a husband. Her clitoris will be a barb on which the men who couple with her will fall. A barb on which they die. If sterility does not close up on her, then her clitoris will be a barb on which her new born child will fall. A barb on which her new born, when it emerges from the great passage, will fall and be killed. She needs clarity. And my knife will cut through the confusion that celebrates the Unfinished. (She holds out her hand. The uncle gives her a heap of bank notes) Tonight, as she sleeps, catch her and bind her. I will return just before dawn to chase out Wanzo, to banish the lubricious demon, from her body: from her body which is still, in the end, the body of a little girl.
Mother: Moussoba, the thing is.. Bintou does not sleep at home now, and has not for a long time. Sometimes she comes here, but it is always without warning.. and I do not know where she sleeps. All I know is that she is often in that bar.. that bar beside the canal.
Uncle: As soon as your decision was known, I paid a young man to do what is needed
Moussoba : I want to know nothing! I will return just before dawn, and I want to see her bound hand and foot.
Uncle: Moussoba: she will be bound. I promise it.
Repentance
An uncertain location. Assassino and Terminator are apart from the others, and seem
to be mounting watch.
P’tit Jean (very excited): So you know what’s happening? I didn’t know it was so complicated.. Not good enough. I knew your plan wouldn’t work, I knew it. She said “Not good enough to wake up a Lycaon”. Not good enough. But you’ve got what you promised me? You’ve got it? Anyway, it would have taken too long. Enter the gang, get to be friends, get to be Lycaon, and then... that would have taken too long. far far too long.
Uncle: Who are those two?
P’tit Jean: Assassino and Terminator. friends. Because I thought of something else.
Uncle: All the better. Because it’s tonight...
P’tit Jean :Tonight? Not enough time.
Uncle: It is all the time I have. It must be tonight.
P’tit Jean: You’ll give me the money?
Uncle: All you have to do is bring her to me
P’tit Jean: Just pick her up and carry her. Like a parcel. From under the nose of those animals she always has with her. You’re crazy! What’s this all about anyway?
Uncle: It ‘s family.
P’tit Jean: Anyway to hell with it. None of my business. Show me.
Uncle: Later. When there’s time. There’s no time now, she has got to be taken.
P’tit Jean: Not later. Now!
Uncle: There’s no need to stand on tiptoe to see what is coming
P’tit Jean: Don’t try your proverbs out on me. I’m not impressed. Show me. Now. Show me. And a gun. I need a gun. Blackout’s got one. Why won’t you meet my mum? I want you to meet my mum. A gun. Money. A lot of money.
Uncle: No. No bloodshed. I don’t want her to come to any harm.
P’tit Jean: Come on. Get real. Where have you come from, you? What do you think I’m going to do? Just turn up whistling a happy tune, turn up in front of her and those angry lunatics she has with her, turn up with my hands in my pockets, just pick her up like a shopping bag and bring her back to you? Christ man you’ve never had them jump on you. Like I have. They’re the mad wise men! They’re real schizos they are. Do you want to meet my mother?
Uncle: Why is it so important to you that I meet your mother?
P’tit Jean: Her telling me I’m not good enough. Her telling me that. But you have to see her... you have to see her to understand that my mother... I’d tear out my own eyes rather than think anyone would hurt her.. If you knew how happy it made me when she let me kiss her feet!
Uncle :I see; she’s got your blood up too. Making it boil.
P’tit Jean: No, not boiling. My blood’s not boiling exactly. Its more like a froth. She’s putting a head on me like I was a pint of beer. Like that beer of your country that my dad used to like. You must have had some? That’s it, that’s what she does. She makes my blood froth... I’d like my mum to be happy, at last happy... you know like that millet beer, its ochre, its warm, its spicy.
Uncle: Millet beer doesn’t froth. Not like you seem to imagine.
P’tit Jean: I know, my dad’s explained it. But as soon as my lips touched her feet I could feel rising in me this head of beer, this froth, ochre, warm, spicy... I told my mother about it, and I told her it was like I had said a good prayer.. but she didn’t understand. Or she didn’t believe me. My mother thimks that the only prayers there are come from the bible. But that girl is so beautiful. Just looking at her, that’s praying.
Uncle: Bintou is much more than...You’re going to burn your wings, young man. Bintou is far too good for you.
P’tit Jean: This body blooming too soon and so incredibly ripe is... but anyway, how do you want anyone to harm a prayer? Those who go around with her don’t understand a thing. They just think of soiling her. With their hands, their tongue, their pricks... Do you know my mother?
Uncle: And don’t you want to? Don’t you want to soil her? Defile her?
P’tit Jean: Why do you want me to take her?
Uncle (handing him a little bag of powder): Take it
P’tit Jean: This time I also need money. For a gun. Don’t you worry, I won’t spill a drop of blood. Not a drop. Not a drop of blood. A magnum. That would make them worry. Anyway listen for Christ’s sake, Blackout’s got a gun too! Samiagamal won’t have a scratch on her I promise... For my mother it would be good... (He offers him money) More. Much more. Because I’ll need Assassino and Terminator. They’re worse than the foreign legion. Much worse. They’re pitbulls.
Uncle (giving him more notes): Take what you want, buy yourself the gun you want, but I want her at the house, without a scratch on her. I said without a scratch! (He is about to leave0
P’tit Jean: Monsieur! (He offers him part of the money he has just received) Do me a favour. You know my mother? It doesn’t look like it but she is still young. You’ll see, she’s still...She’s still a beauitful woman. What have you got in mind for Bintou? (Silence) After my father left -my dad’s got life - she let herself go. ... Not to marry her, not that. Just a few hours a week, nothing more. It’s enough for a man’s look to light her up...the three kings, they paid nothing to wait..for a man’s hands to reawaken the frozen pleasures of her body so that her beauty comes to life again and so she... You don’t like Christian women? (Silence) My mother’s a good Christian, she’s been a good wife, and I’m sure she’ll be...What would be good would be a 357, they blow your head off, those jobs...You have the kind of eyes that make a woman feel beautiful. Do me a favour: I’m asking her like she would ask for grace. See, it screws them up, women, being alone, it makes them grow a moustache, it makes them grow old. It’s brutal, being alone. Just brutal. After my father, after he left, it’s killing her. If this goes on she might die. Die of it. And I’ve got to leave her too, got to, so as not to have to keep on lying to her. As soon as I open my mouth to speak to her, it’s just like there’s a lie there, waiting, a lie that jumps out of my mouth...Perhaps your religion forbids you to do it, but if you have a friend..because I am going...someone good.. because it’s got to be someone good. What is it monsieur, what is the shame of being human?
Uncle (giving him back his notes): I’ll see your mother. I promise. (He goes)
I so love and treasure all of your writing Jo! However, having worked as a mental health nurse for over 20 years, I’m sorry to say that not all of my colleagues had empathy. Infact, I’d go as far as to say that some of them (especially those in senior positions) seemed to have a degree of psychopathy! Yes, we definitely need more staff, but we also need to get rid of managers who perpetuate the status quo out of self interest. Otherwise, I fear we will see a lot more tragedies such as the one you described so empathetically about Charlie.