With the Liverpool scarf I wore on the terraces of Leppings Lane, Hillsborough, Sheffield, April 15 1989.
Images from the Hillsborough Vigil, 27 April 2016 A video I shot, along with the public statement I recorded at St Helens Town Hall.
Here's a public statement I made at St Helens Town Hall 29 April 2016
In standing close together, shoulder to shoulder, side by side, year after year, the Liverpool family of friends have shown the world how to challenge and change a system that's morally wrong. The actions of the Hillsborough campaigners will live on as an inspiration for all those who thirst for truth and justice in the world. They have given an example of solidarity, love, loyalty, care, compassion, courage and resilience that will endure for so long as human beings remain in touch with their core humanity. They have shown how togetherness in a just cause can change the world for the better. This is not just a case of ‘sticking together’. It matters a great deal with whom we join with and the reason why. The cover-up lasted for so long because powerful people stuck together and had the weight of existing institutions on their side. But their cause was unjust and those institutions were corrupt. The Liverpool families and fans have shown the extraordinary things that supposedly ‘ordinary’ people can do if they stand together in a just cause and never give up hope, hope in themselves, hope in the world.
An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Justice for the 96 is justice for all people. The families and fans took on immense odds, but never flinched. Because they had truth and justice on their side, and never let the calumnies and injuries they suffered turn them away from their innate goodness. Good people with right on their side. Their actions have written another chapter in the history of the great city of Liverpool. Here is a place where the soul of man and woman never dies, but takes flight on its own wings and soars high. They will be remembered for their contribution to bringing about a better world, a world in which the innate goodness of each and all is enabled and not denied, a world of truth and justice. A world very different from the world of today. But a world that that the Liverpool family has shown to be within our reach.
As a Hillsborough survivor, I can tell you why we refused to give up and carried on against seemingly impossible odds for over a quarter of a century. It wasn’t just the truth. The truth we knew from the first. We wanted everyone to know the truth, of course. And we wanted justice. We wanted the record, distorted by lies, insults and abuse, to be set straight. But more than even those things, we acted out of love. The victims of Hillsborough were loved and are loved to this day. All of them. Those who died. Those who went to a football match, never to return. Those who went to the game. Those who stayed at home. Those who suffered. Those who grieve. All those affected for life. Different experiences, but each a unique part of a collective suffering. The fight for truth and justice was a fight taken up out of love. Love is life, the ultimate source of hope in humanity. And, unlike the system we fought, we never lost faith in either.
Never lose hope. Throughout history, in particular times and places, the ways of oppressors, deceivers, murderers seem irresistible. Such rulers appear invincible. It’s an illusion. Their power crumbles. Love, truth and justice prevail and endure as the innate goodness of the world and of people. Love incarnated through the way of truth and justice is the only way to live right and live well. This is not the survival of the fittest as the mightiest in terms of institutional power and monetary wealth. It is the survival of the most loving, of people who are rich in their relations, each a member of the other. The Liverpool family of friends have shown us the way.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
‘When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.’ - Gandhi