From November 21-25, the Palestinian, East-African, Afri-Cultural, Stop the Traffik and Jordanian societies came together for Justice Week, to spread awareness and start discussion on the injustices that are happening everyday. The first day the Palestinian society hosted an open mic night called ‘Our Voices Unite’, where anyone was free to speak his or her mind through spoken word, poetry or song. Having never attended an open mic night before, I was not prepared for the emotions that I experienced, as I listened to the performers pour their heart and soul into the stories of injustice that they told through verse.
The first performer was inspired by a documentary about a girl who was forced into sex trafficking. The performer put herself into the girl’s shoes in order to discover how it truly feels to be trapped and treated as nothing more than sub-human. The words ‘I am a human too’ echoed in my mind as I imagined the girl’s call for help. I’m sure the entire audience had a new outlook on what men and women go through when they are sold into the sex trade. The poem that really put the entire event into perspective was a poem titled ‘Get Mad’. The performer highlighted her fury over the terrible things that are going on in this world. It is sad to say that these everyday tragedies would be far too much list in this article, however the author created this poem to encompass every injustice. The author encouraged the audience to stand up for what is right through the repetition of ‘get mad’, declaring that we should be outraged about the devastations that are happening, and it’s within our hands to make changes.
The performances by my fellow students challenged the way I view myself. Only by chance I was born into a loving family who provided me the means to attend school, which further enabled me to study at university. Any of these examples of injustice that were brought up that evening could have been me. We are the lucky ones; we have the power to make a change to bring justice for the people that are shouting for help.
Make sure you get down to the rest of Justice Week, Thursdays event ‘Representing the Present’ is the last one!
Edited by: Immy Hibberd
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