What a difference a year makes. And ready access to vaccines. If activity hasn’t resumed to pre-pandemic levels, my diary is a damn sight busier than the previous autumn. I keep flashing back to what I was doing this time last year. I shudder at the thought of my first Sunday morning service at Fresh Wine Ministries (FWM) also being my last before the second lockdown. That memorable conversation with Pastor Mike, both fateful and comforting. I think of how the few (mostly, not intentionally) male contacts I made started to act up and/or drop off.
One of them was Gerry Rose, whom I have seen occasionally at FWM since doors re-opened.
After service one Sunday, he accosts me on the underground. My feelings are ambivalent at best. A bit hostile, to be frank. There’s a conversation we need to have but there never seems to be a good time. It doesn’t help that he barely engages with the church beyond the main Sunday service.
As nonchalantly as he can, not oblivious to my irritation, Gerry asks where I’ve been.
Where have you been? is more like it.
This precedes an hour or so of what is at first, tense if elucidating conversation before becoming just frustrating. Gerry explains he was sick for a number of weeks. Then his phone clapped out and he lost his numbers. He wondered why I hadn’t reached out during time and supposed I had definitively left town. On the other hand, I assumed he’d just reacted with the same whimsy as the majority of men I’ve met in Brussels; acting strange and/or disappearing completely when I promise nothing beyond friendship.
It’s clear that there’s been a misunderstanding based on a series of unfortunate, although not fatal, coincidences. This isn’t enough for Rose. Throughout this impromptu meeting, I have the sense that he holds me responsible for the breakdown of communication. He believes I still have his number. I eventually admit I do not. He asks why I didn’t approach him at church. I explain that I thought he was avoiding me. I’d seen him from a distance numerous times and could only presume he’d also spotted me. Since I believed he’d abandoned ship, shifty behaviour on his part would hardly be a shock, if disappointing.
Gerry points to one occasion a few weeks back when he reacted to my presence with surprise. I recall being baffled whilst wondering if it were all for show.
Rose claims he looked for me after that service to no avail. I point out, multiple times, we should have had other chances to reconcile. That is, if he hadn’t been such a lone ranger; vanishing after service and never involving himself in the church community outside of a Sunday morning. This observation of his consumer-style attendance at FWM hasn’t endeared him to me. It only adds to the impression of a certain immaturity drawn from our earlier interactions. Back then, I had to overlook it. I didn’t have much choice.
Gerry follows me off the metro. He’s preventing me from getting on with my day. This drawn-out, repetitive epilogue grates me and any constructive element evaporates. Perhaps that’s why when he asks to exchange numbers again and meet up for a drink, I blurt that I’m no longer interested in the latter. There’s an irrational aspect to my reluctance, I’m aware. Gerry’s side of events is credible enough. However, our first encounters awfully resembled that of a man with romantic intentions, although he now denies this. Predictably. Yet I can’t shake that air of suspicion. And whilst our breakdown in communication can be attributed to crossed-wires, at this stage it makes no difference. Rose’ insistence on I-don’t-know-what doesn’t help his case either. It’s a relief to have finally cleared the air and I hope for civil relations going forward. However, when so much conspires against it, maybe it’s a sign that full-on friendship is not meant to be.
That’s not to say I’m not open to meeting new people. I’m just not as desperate as I was a year ago.
On the way back from the concert, wading my way through the bustling Friday night central BXL crowd, I bump into Lauren, the head of TTUO. It’s a cordial exchange and I thank God for the grace to be...well, gracious. A couple of months to the end of my current contract, management haven’t done the courtesy of telling me where I stand. This is a stark contrast to the efficiency of my previous renewal. At best, it’s negligent, at worst malicious; for reasons that have both a lot and nothing to do with me. I have made enquiries about any potential breach of duty on the part of my employer but being on a fixed-term contract, my rights are lot more limited. My team, including my union rep Demetria, are wonderfully supportive. We’re all disconcerted by the appointment of our new manager, Gina; a woman with a chequered reputation- to say the least- and a penchant- no - a compulsion for micromanagement.
There’s more I could say but I exercise caution. As remote a chance it is that the bosses could read this, you never know.
The situation is highly stressful. It has been a drag on morale that I haven’t felt since the nadir of lockdowns.
À chaque jour suffit sa peine. I have a job for today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.
There are always reasons to be grateful. I now have people whom I can call friends; who care about my fate in Brussels.
Back at work, a refreshing two-day course on Active Listening is the first offline training I’ve done in forever and a break from the tense norm. I’m even more pleased to meet the tutor; a Franco-Caribbean woman with luscious natural Afro hair. During the course, I have a chance to speak at length with Cheryl; a young Italian colleague with an elderly English woman’s name and a passing resemblance to a younger Jennifer Aniston. She also has good politics. When I hear she’s actively involved in the Free Palestine struggle, I tell her about a series of related events I plan to attend that weekend; at the unpronounceable Beursschouwburg in the city centre. We make plans to go together that do not materialise because of her hectic schedule.
By chance, this mini-festival is jointly-organised by a fellow I met exactly three years ago at the 2018 Afropean symposium. I didn’t expect to bump into him again.
The first event is a stimulating retrospective on the past 50+ years of Palestinian resistance via campaign posters, by Lucas Catherine; a long time veteran of the movement's Belgian contingent.
During the Q&A, I seem to spark some controversy when I ask a question about the contested use of Zionism, even by Jews on the radical left. I cite the belated David Graeber’s family as an example. Even if I doubt that Zionism can be redeemed as a concept, it’s not my place to ignore the disparate Jewish voices on the issue. I’m nonetheless interrogated to varying degrees; some more easy-going than others.
The second discussion is supposed to link the Palestinian resistance to other anti-colonial struggles by way of a book launch. The speaker, an African-American academic, is a disciple of one Dhoruba Bin Wahad, an obscure member of the Black Panthers, wrongfully imprisoned for almost two decades and with some tenuous link to Afeni Shakur, the mother of Tupac. The speaker appears to take Bin Wahad’s every word as Gospel.
What starts as veiled, vaguely anti-Christian salvos at the Civil Rights movement, transforms into outright barbs. He goes for BLM as well. I pull him up on his over-simplification. His gripe is rather with them being co-opted and sanitised, rather than perhaps the movements themselves. MLK was unpopular with white America in his lifetime and hounded by the FBI, before being assassinated. For crying out loud. Mr Academic goes on the defensive and is positively obnoxious. He qualifies the Civil Rights movement as a “pain in the a*s*” and I detect something that looks a lot like misogynoir in his critique of BLM; an observation I have no qualms vocalising. Sadly, it's a line of thinking with which I'm not unfamiliar.
For someone who himself is so disparaging of elitism, including that within academia, the speaker does a very good impression of the snobbish academic with a fragile ego. I note that apart from one of the other organisers, we’re the only Afrodescendants in the room. The audience looks uncomfortable; not sure what to make of this melanated clash. Others also take issue with some of his framing and certain inconsistencies (such as his admiration for Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Touré, who started out in the youth chapter of the MLK-led movement).
Noting that he would not be genuinely interested in a constructive debate, I head home just before the close.
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