Resistance

You may have been wondering why I have not commented fully on the various acts of resistance that take place here. I was hoping that the media would pay proper attention to our plight. Instead they have fallen for the same old publicity stunts trawled out by the Universities with the local collaborators acting as cheerleaders.
Until recently I thought like a victim. Now I will no longer look to my oppressors to alleviate my suffering. I will not ask the Universities to discipline their students. I will not be made a fool of again. I will not ask the police to protect me. We all know that that won't happen. I will not ask the Landlords to soundproof their properties. They are determined to torture every last one of us into an early grave if we can't escape.
The victim mindset is hard to break. When a neighbour is beaten by students she considers moving into a hostel. I know of one family that did just that a few years ago. They foolishly beleived that they would be better off. The truth of the matter is that there's always a circle of hell deeper than this one and hostels are it. I know because I've been there.
Victimhood means giving into fear. It means curling up in the corner and waiting to die. Victimhood nearly killed me. I couldn't sleep with the noise. I couldn't eat with the stress. I wasted away and nearly died of pneumonia. I will never give into fear again. I'll die on my feet, but not on my knees.
When a neighbour tells me he has to get drunk in order to sleep at night I understand him. We're all either on medication or self-medicating. It can never be the answer. Two more of my neighbours are selling up. It's a luxury they can afford. If I'd known better, I'd have tried to buy this house years ago. Almost all of us that remain lack the means to buy our way out. We are prisoners. I would ask what did we do to deserve this, but I don't beleive that we live in a just world. We can't pray our way out of this hole.
We could follow some scriptural fatalism and accept the maxim that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer as they must. But for the oppressed there is always the option of resistance. It was Sartre who said that we have a moral obligation to resist our oppressors. I will not disagree with him.
Every act of resistance defies victimhood. I remember a cop's indignation at an act of arson,
"What a disgusting mess! These assholes have to come and ruin everything!"
Beside him stood the landlord, my violator. Where was the cop's indignation at the rape of this community? Does our pain not exist for him? Or is property sacred and are we but little nothings to be criminalised?
If we are criminals, so be it. But one by one we are ceasing to be victims. I don't know how we'll get justice, but if we want it, we'll have to fight.