This Woman’s Work
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I first became aware of Gary McKinnon’s case: I have lived in the UK for almost 16 years and it feels as if his story has always been there, in the background. It’s not far off: it will soon be 10 years since the case made headline news.
I can, however, clearly remember the circumstances that made my path cross with that of Gary’s mother, Janis Sharp. Almost exactly this time last year I’d signed up on Twitter. It was three days before Christmas and I was caught in the excitement of the online campaign, led by Jon and Tracy Morter, to get Rage Against The Machine to Christmas Number 1 on the U.K. charts. Jon Morter was one of the first people I followed. One day I saw a message to Jon from Janis Sharp, in which she thanked him for re-tweeting one of her earlier messages. I didn’t really understand how Twitter worked back then, but I retweeted something too. Janis immediately wrote to thank me; I followed her, she followed me; I sent her a tarot reading I had done for the case; she was kind enough to humour me and read it, she even comment on it. I was touched by her kindness and I noticed that she would personally thank anyone who showed support.
A year passed and day after day I’d see tweets from Janis, always relentlessly working on behalf of her son. I used Twitter intermittently at the time and didn’t have any further direct contact with Janis, not realising that there were other people involved in the campaign.
Every now and then, the case would be on the news: they would show footage of Gary, but it was always Janis who spoke out, pleading for her son. Over the years, Janis’ face had become a familiar one to me, an avid consumer of news. Janis reminded me very much of an English teacher I had back when I was a 19-year-old language student in London; she had the same gentle features, the same long hair and shaggy fringe, the same rock’n’roll look that my teacher - a huge Beatles fan - used to have. They were both the kind of women who always made me think: why can’t Italian women over the age of 40 look like that?
Inevitably, I watched countless interviews on TV where Janis would always speak passionately but without ever sounding aggressive, or vengeful. There would be footage on the news about the latest updates on the case; Janis would inevitably be there, a microphone shoved in front of her, for the umpteenth time. She would reach out via the cameras - the incongruous image of an unassuming, softly spoken Scottish woman with bright red hair, surrounded by the High Profile Supporter of the Day - people like Nick Clegg, David Cameron, Sting’s wife Trudie Styler. I’d think, surely with all these friends in high places it’s only a matter of time before Gary is off the hook?
Meanwhile, I started to use Twitter more frequently and so it was that one day, for reasons that I can only ascribe to fate, a tweet from Janis caught my eye again and I retweeted it. One thing led to another and within a couple of days, I found myself an unofficial and rather accidental member of the Tweetstorm4Gary campaign.
And this brings me to what I really, really wanted to say.
On any given day, I look at my timeline and there they are, Janis’ tweets - each and every one of them a single, desperate cry for help from a mother who is fighting with every single breath in her body to stop a faceless, nameless, heartless SuperPower from taking away her only son forever. Sometimes, when I don’t have to get up early the next day, I’ll be on Twitter late at night and I’ll see that Janis has just posted something, or retweeted someone’s message of support, or linked an article, or video. It might be 01:00 AM and I’ll imagine Janis, sitting in front of a computer screen, typing away, still fighting, using the social networks as a lifeline to her son’s freedom.
Every late night tweet from Janis feels like a message-in-a-bottle and breaks my heart; I am not a mother, but I can only begin to imagine what Janis must be going through, relentlessly battling against The Justice Machine, tirelessly campaigning and still finding the strength to get on Twitter every night, constantly reaching out to spread the word that her son needs public support to remind our politicians that he is a human being rather than just a number, a ‘case’ to be closed and extradited and left to die, forgotten by his own country, in a US prison.
Gary McKinnon, in his tragic circumstances, is very lucky to have a mother like Janis. A man with Asperger Syndrome, his face betrays very little emotion on camera and the media seem to almost deliberately pick his most unflattering images; a blank, emotionless expression will look impenitent; a blank stare, a blink of a lazy eye seems calculating. No wonder the US prosecutors have thus far managed to portray Gary McKinnon as dangerous, scheming terrorist. He is the perfect scapegoat; just another pawn to use in that imaginary chessboard called ‘War on Terror’.
So that’s why it’s down to this woman’s work to show the British Government and the US Government that there is a human being behind that case number: there’s a vulnerable man who has been living in a state of terror for almost 10 years and who is on the brink of self-destruction. It’s this woman’s work that keeps the campaign going to remind anyone who is prepared to listen that her son is still in trouble and that he must not be forgotten. It’s this woman’s work that keeps a clinically depressed man alive, and gives him hope, and reassurance that everything will be ok.
And finally, it’s this woman’s work that reminds me every single day that if there is anything, anything at all that we can do to stop a tragic miscarriage of justice happening and destroying a man’s life forever, then, whatever it is, however small, we absolutely and categorically must do it.
The day when Janis Sharp will finally be able to turn off her computer, cancel her Twitter account and quit tweeting is going to be a day of celebration.
The day when this woman’s work will be done.
Follow Janis Sharp on Twitter @JanisSharp
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