Posted on February 12, 2014
Dear Andre Cox, Peter Farthing, and James Condon,
It has been 12 days now since my father died. Twelve days since I
found his poor, broken body, sitting like Buddha, in our living room
when I woke, briefly and unusually happy at the recollection of his
pleasure at the previous day’s events, only to go into shock at the
impossibility of what I was seeing when I emerged from my room.
Twelve
days since I screamed and pleaded for an hour for him to please, please
wake up. Twelve days of being unable to think clearly. But I’m thinking
clearly now, so please take the time to understand me and read what I
have to say. Dad
truly believed that he was finally going to
achieve justice for his family, and that we’d all finally be able to be
in a secure and happy place for once in our damned lives. I cannot and
never will be able to get over what your organisation has done to him,
but the only solace I take in keeping on keeping on despite the pain is
that somewhere out there, he knows that I’m continuing his fight, and
when he comes back to check in on us from his latest trip to Centaurus,
or wherever he’s busy exploring, he can feel good about what is
happening to us.
Several organisations and individuals have been in contact with you
regarding reparations for the severe damage your organisation inflicted
upon him and his consequent ‘psychological death’, which resulted in his
lifetime of poverty and despair, and a lifetime of poverty and despair
for his family. I have been told by many that your organisation has
agreed in principle to reparations in conversations with such people,
but not one of
you has told me (or any member of my family) of such. You have made
no
approach to our family in furtherance of what you have been recently
referring to as your “restorative justice approach” (did you lift that
expression from Dad’s site –
http://lewisblayse.net/about-2/ ?).
Perhaps you’ve been giving us ‘space’ to grieve?
If so, I can tell you now that I will
never stop grieving for a
life stolen far, far too soon. A life taken because of the accumulated
toll of the disabilities your organisation ensured he had to live with
. Disabilities
that not only prevented him from achieving the very great heights he
should have achieved, but that resulted in a miserable, deprived life,
punctuated only briefly by moments of joy that in themselves were
painful because they were so obviously transitory. Through your
organisation’s actions and its failure over
decades to make up
for what it did to him, it ensured he lived a life that placed such
great pressure on his health that he was taken from us far, far, far too
early.
Through your organisation’s almost complete lack of concern for his
welfare, it also created disabilities that meant that the family who
loved my father so hopelessly and utterly deeply felt daily in our
bodies and our minds the pain he endured. We will
never stop feeling this pain. I especially will
never
forget the years I have spent crying or stunned in helpless rage at my
inability to make his suffering go away, at his humiliating life of
poverty, and at having to watch him fail,
over and over again, to overcome the consequences of his multiple abuses. Every year, the damage has compounded, and it did so for
more than 50 years.
It continues to compound as his family lives on. And it continues to
compound in the struggling and pain-wrecked families of your
organisation’s many other victims.
I think you have
no comprehension of what it really feels like to feel “disturbed.”
Do forgive my scepticism, but I have waited too long and I have lost all patience. I’d
like
to believe you’re giving us ‘space’, but after 12 days of silence, I am
more inclined to believe that you’re just waiting for this all to blow
over. I’m sure you have the very best crisis management team that money
can buy. Perhaps you’re all sitting around feeling pleased with
yourselves at your stellar performances over the last couple of weeks?
I’ll give it to you, it was pretty good. Yeah, I also remember all too
well how your reputation survived intact after the 2003 airing of ‘The
Homies’ (go ‘Team Salvos’!), and I’m sure your PR company is being
very reassuring
right now. You may like to get a second opinion on that one, though,
because I assure you that there is an ever-growing chorus of voices who
know the truth, and they will continue to speak out.
I
do hope you had a nice break over the Christmas / New Year
period, because I predict that you’re in for a year of pretty stressful
crisis management activities. Do take the time to care of yourselves.
Eat well. Relax as much as possible. Maybe fit in a couple of trips to
the Bahamas if you can? It’s not going to be easy. I may be just one
voice, but please be assured that I will
never stop agitating
until my father, through his surviving family, achieves true restorative
justice for what your organisation did to him and what you did to us. I
almost feel sorry for you.
But I will tell you that I’m sick of listening to your sophisticated
spin. From where I’m standing, and from where I’ve stood all my life, it
seems to me that your reputation
is all that matters to you, no
matter what you say. Your reputation, after all, is your source of your
staggering wealth, isn’t it? Your tremendous and carefully nurtured
reputation allows you to do sweetheart deals with organisations that pay
you massive sums for a little bit of your glossy, well-crafted
reputation to place on their websites and advertising materials, not
aware of the truth. Your reputation leads millions of kind-hearted but
ignorant souls to give generously to your organisation and its ‘good
works’. In your own words, you’re “one of the most trusted brands” out
there. Congratulations.
Oh yes, you
say now your reputation matters not a bit, and that the Salvation Army “no longer considers its reputation a priority.” Yes, you
say now that you’ve just now figured out that your previous approaches were “flawed.”
I
know, though, that you’ve said the same old stuff before, and your
organisation’s many, many victims have not forgotten that either, even
if most everyone else has.
Stuff your glib statements about your new approach. From where I’m standing,
I see no evidence of it being true. You know
full well that your organisation was approached by our family
years before the 2003 airing of ‘The Homies’, and we were ignored. You know
full well that your organisation was exposed for its abuses in earlier enquiries. You know
full well that you waited a
very
long time after ‘The Homies’ was aired to throw my father the pennies
you provided to a desperate and humiliated man in no position to do
anything but take the pittance you offered. You know
full well that you’ve had nearly a fortnight to approach my family and deliver justice, but have failed to do so.
Andre, James, Peter, I am
not going to “come forward.” You know who I am, and you know who my father was. It is for
you to come to
me. It is for you to come to
me and tell me
what my father’s life was worth.
And if you can’t figure it out for yourselves, perhaps you might like
to consult with some of the “incredibly large team of people” working
under you? Perhaps somewhere in your organisation’s ranks there is
someone who truly understands, because I
really don’t think you do.
It’s
not “too late” now to finally do the right thing. Give it a try. You might find it feels good.
Aletha Blayse
