Chichester-based novelist Kate Mosse is Honouring Courageous Women
Chichester-based novelist and historian Kate Mosse makes the point that “these days the megaphone is held by the least inclusive and the least good people.”
She will be doing her bit to redress that with a special talk entitled Honouring Courageous Women as part of Chichester Marks Holocaust Memorial Day (in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre on Tuesday, January 27 at 2.15pm and also at 7.15pm; tickets from the theatre).
She offers a new one-woman show celebrating courageous, trail-blazing women who have stood firm against tyranny, fought for humanitarian rights and marched for equality.
“Chichester Marks Holocaust Memorial Day is a wonderful and important thing. We need, all of us, to remember that there are terrible things happening but also good things everywhere even though we are living in a world where divide and rule is happening and is working.
“We all know that we need to be in a world where everybody is treated with respect and dignity and where they are not discriminated against because of their faith or where they are from or what they look like. But at the moment we are in a world where the least good people have the megaphone.
“For me this is about reminding everyone of the people that have made a difference and it is about celebrating the good people that have used their voice to advocate for other people. I still believe that the majority of people want to live in harmony with friends and family and their neighbours and that the majority of people believe that everybody should be treated the same and treated well. Therefore we need to raise our voices to drown out the opposite view.
“This is a reminder that we must not go back to the way things were. All it takes is for good people to be silent for terrible things to happen. We must remember the incredible horror and cruelty of the Holocaust and the suffering of not just the Jewish people but all the other people that were victimised and destroyed by a murderous regime.
“I'm talking about women of courage who in different ways have shown bravery in the face of obstacles, sometimes threats to their lives or their livelihoods or maybe sometimes just obstacles to what they wanted to do. Some are warrior queens and some are quiet revolutionaries.”
Among them is Sophie Scholl: “She was a young woman, a German Christian who refused to accept the ideology of the Nazis. She set up with her brother and friends an organisation called the White Rose to put out pamphlets to argue against anti-Semitism. What was so powerful was that she was a white Christian saying that the Nazis didn't speak for her. She was caught and she was executed but she never let her courage fail. Her story always bears repeating, particularly now.”
Showing a different kind of inspirational courage was Junko Tabei, a Japanese mountaineer, author and teacher – and the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
“When she was growing up she was told that women didn't climb mountains, they stayed at home. But she set up an all-women's climbing group and she climbed many mountains until finally she had her chance at climbing Everest.”
While doing so, an avalanche struck their camp. Tabei and four of her fellow climbers were buried under the snow. Tabei lost consciousness until sherpa guides dug her out. And yet she still completed the climb.
On her return to Japan, she wanted none of the fame, though: “She just carried on what she was doing in her own quiet way but made it possible for other women to become climbers. And in later life she continued to climb Everest but to bring down the litter. She became an environmental campaigner. She had the courage to continue to be herself and not to have her head turned by the celebrity or the fame.”