Dire Straits

Perception often shapes injustice and misunderstanding. Songs like “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits, “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan, and “Here’s to You” by Joan Baez challenge how society judge’s others. They highlight how unfair perceptions can lead to wrongful accusations.

Perception, Compassion & Injustice: Lessons from Music & Life.

My mother, with her deep compassion, saw beyond the label of “Crazy Dien”, a woman misunderstood by our village. While others judged her, my mother treated Dien with kindness, embodying the importance of forming our own opinions. Her empathy taught me that true social justice comes from looking beyond surface judgments and understanding people's struggles. Music and personal

There are many song lyrics that keep pointing out to me how unfair the world can be to some people, or is the world always unfair? My favorite lyrics are "Brothers in arms" a song by the Dire Straits, with Marsame name as the song. Mark Knopfler was inspired for this song by his grandfather, who had fought in the Vietnam War, and wondered aloud the sense and nonsense of this war.

What were the other songs from the past?

This song released in 1985, which opened my budding eyes, contained the following sentences: "There's so many different worlds", so many different suns, and we have just one world, but we live in different worlds. Yes, we are all different, but how many people are aware of this? How many people on earth know the meaning of the word perception? Two other lyrics that touch me again and again are those of the songs: "Hurricane" by Bob Dylan (1975) and "Here's to you", Nicola and Bart, (2009), by Ennio Morricone and Joan Baez. These last two songs are also about unjustly accused people, who in retrospect have been innocent in prison.

What does perception come from?

Perception is the collection of events, and the corresponding upbringing that people have received from their parents. If you must do something as a human being, you often draw on your experiences, or the "wise" words you have heard from others. From these experiences you then form an opinion about something or someone. I remember that we used to have to wear "Sunday" clothes at home on Sundays. My mother wanted other people's perceptions of her children to be positive. Nothing had to show that we were not the richest family in the village, people would think something negative about us, imagine that these people got a negative perception about us!

So, people think differently about the same people?

Yes, your neighbor probably has different thoughts than you do about the greengrocer in your street. Two ladies lived in my native village, one was happily married and had eight living children. The other lady was also "happily" married and had eight children. The ladies were once born in the same city and then moved to the same village later in life. In that second village they lived two streets away from each other, in a working-class neighborhood. While the first lady led a reasonably prosperous life, the second lady often had a hard time in that small village. This second lady was often visited by social work, and the police also regularly came to her door to look. The people of the village called the second lady "Mad Serve"

 Did the two ladies mentioned have contact?

Yes, the two ladies had regular contact. In the village there was a clubhouse where ladies' evenings were regularly held. The ladies played games together and made clothing, such as knitted sweaters. But these ladies had even more in common. As written before, they were born in the same city (Doesburg), in the same year of birth (1916), and they had both lost a child. The second lady from the less social family lived with her family in a house that was declared uninhabitable, the family was poor. At a later point in time, this lady was declared crazy by almost the entire village in which both ladies lived. This was partly due to her own "behavior", but how would you behave if you were vomited out by your entire village?

Was the second lady protected?

The second lady who was seen as antisocial in the perception of many villagers, was even transferred with her family by the local government to another uninhabitable house just outside the village. But the first lady always kept in touch with the second lady, who came from the same hometown. When I spoke to the first lady, she always told me that she knew that the second lady had once grown up in a monastery, and spoke French fluently, and was quite nice, she also visited the second lady regularly. As a young boy, I sometimes wondered why the first lady had such a different opinion about the second lady in the village than the rest of the village?

Who was the first lady?

A book has recently been published about the second lady, which was written by Renie Hesseling with the title "Crazy Dien." Through his research, he found out that "Crazy Dien" had more to offer than most residents of my native village Velp had ever dared to think and thought in their perception. In the book, the author mentions that "Crazy Dien", in the last years of her life, even recited very beautiful poems in the Catholic church of the village. It is a pity that the first lady (My own mother, God rest her soul) died in 1981 at the age of 64, and the second lady left us in 1997. I hope that both ladies (my mother and Dien) embraced each other in heaven in 1997, and that my mother was able to contribute to a better opinion and associated perception about Dien, God have both their souls. I am still so happy that my mother taught me not to always believe everything someone else says!