‘My name is Kaminicha.’
‘Kami…what? I’m going to call you Kam.’
Casting a nickname onto someone or attempting to shorten another person’s name without their consent can certainly be seen as a proprietorial act, along with other behaviours involving subtle or not so subtle body movements such as placing an uninvited arm around the back of another person’s chair or invading -sitting or standing- someone’s personal space and oh, my, so much more.
Presidents, Prime ministers and Politicians love to spar with each other on who has the upper hand when they meet on the international stage with press photographers. The hunger to convey to the world, and to reassure their own citizens that they are a power to be reckoned with is amusing at best, disingenuous at its worst, despite the staged smoothness it is executed with. And all that bold back slapping is often an attempt to stake ones national flag into someone else’s back, for psychological and territorial reasons, much like the chair. But theses are micro snapshots and sobering reminders of behaviours played in the real world all the time, 24/7, that we do not always process on a conscious level or straight away.
Refusing to embrace a person’s name, choosing to abbreviate it without the person’s consent is a way of saying, ‘I own you.’
And then we had this compelling scenario where no one wanted to own or have anything to do with Britain, at all.
Terresa May’s reception among her EU ‘chums’ was heightened – with the help of the press and the world stage – with a more sophisticated(?) version of what goes on in many school playgrounds.
I don’t know about in other parts of the UK, but here, the secondary school kids would call Mrs May well and truly ‘owned’. In essence, kids here say ‘owning’ someone means that the ‘owner’ has had the best comeback, the last say and the one ‘owned’ has been put in their place.
Well, she was ostracised, excommunicated and the last say was deafening.
But regardless of politics, I wonder who will gain in resilience and strength?
Hey ho, Wonderful opportunities in character study. Don’t throw anything away, dear writer. Don’t throw anything.
Wishing all readers a happy and peaceful Christmas. Many thanks for reading xx
