Joy Attmore considers the impact of the Hillsborough Disaster and last month's verdict, on the people of Liverpool.

Joy Attmore

In 2009, whilst I was studying abroad in Brazil, I got a verse from the Bible tattooed across my shoulders. It reads:

'Let justice flow like a mighty river.'

Those words are taken from the book of Amos in the Bible and have become my heart's cry and spirit's prayer ever since. Acts of injustice have always stirred me, from devouring every book that John Grisham published and getting caught up in the stories of ordinary people taking on the giants of injustice, to marching round our house as a child shouting, 'votes for women!' after learning about the Suffragette movement. My automatic response is to lurch into action. What can I do, what can we do, to turn this around, to see truth and justice established in this place?

Stood on the steps of St George's Hall in Liverpool, England, last week, the city's mayor, Joe Anderson said these words:

"It's in our DNA to fight against injustice at every opportunity."

I couldn't agree more.

On April 15th, 1989 Liverpool was playing in the semi-final of the FA Cup against Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Rather than that day being remembered for the score at the completion of the match, it is now marked with tragedy as the 'Hillsborough Disaster'. Ninety six Liverpool fans were crushed to death, as a result of the decision made by the South Yorkshire police to open one of the exit gates into the stadium, allowing an influx of fans to enter, but with no room to move into other than forwards, crushing those standing in pens three and four of the arena. From the moment the travesty began unfolding, rather than those at the top taking responsibility for their poor leadership decisions, the story that was spread nationwide put the blame on the Liverpool fans, saying that they were drunken, disorderly, stealing from the dead and wounded and essentially killed one another.

Since that day of devastation, the survivors, family and friends of the 96 victims have been campaigning for the real truth to be told and to have their loved ones exonerated from the label 'murderer'. This week, on Tuesday April 26th 2016, after 27 years of fighting and campaigning for truth and justice and a two year inquest into the day's events, the verdict that all of Liverpool had been waiting for was delivered:

"The jury found that the fans did not contribute to the danger unfolding at the turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday's ground on 15 April 1989."

Tears of joy and relief spilled out citywide.

I've spent the majority of my life living in Liverpool. It is home to me. If someone asks me where I am from, my response is always a proud, 'Liverpool, England, and yes, I do support the reds!' Now living as a resident of the United States, I followed this week's news from across the pond and choked back tears as I saw images of St George's Hall draped in a banner reading, 'Truth' and 'Justice' along with every name of the 96 victims.

As I watched the memorial service, attended by thousands of Liverpudlians, I was struck by how much this one day, from nearly three decades ago, had marked my home city and everyone who identifies with being from there. Memories came flooding back, from the whole of my life so far, of jokes that I had been the butt of, names that I had been called and an identity that I had been plastered with purely because I said I was from Liverpool. "You're a northern b******." "Oh watch your stuff, there's a scouser around!" "I hate that city." "Scousers can't be trusted." "Liverpool? Why would you want to live there?"

The events of one day, and the lies that were told in its wake, tarnished the character and integrity of a city and the generations residing there. We can respond in one of two ways to a false identity. 1) We can take it on as truth and wear it like an ill-fitted suit, believing we are no more than the words others have spoken over us or 2) fight for our true identity and refuse to believe that just because the world says one thing over us it doesn't mean that it is true.

This week it hit me that I too had been affected by the Hillsborough Disaster, purely because I am a child of the city that was blamed for the atrocity. Unknowingly, I had taken on a stance of defense towards anyone that would speak against my fair home town or label me as a pick-pocketer, scoundrel or criminal. I never fully understood as a child why being from Liverpool therefore meant that I was a thief, but all of a sudden I was subject to these 'jokes' and all I knew was that it wasn't true. In a flood of memories and news reports, the dots were suddenly connecting and I was discovering a whole new truth about my city and the people inhabited there.

Injustice has a ripple effect on individuals, families and communities for as long as it is allowed to reign. Like water, it will carry on seeping out and covering everything in its path until a barrier is formed strong enough to prevent its advance.

I look at Liverpool and see the image of a child rejected, labeled with untruths, who has spent her entire adolescent years trying to prove her worth, seeking approval and love and crying out for someone to acknowledge who she really is. This week I saw that same child lifted up and embraced, a journey of healing still ahead of her, but she has finally been told that she's beautiful. Now as that child grows and blossoms, she will have to choose how she will steward her newly received identity, whether she will reach out in grace and extend forgiveness or walk forward in self-protection and self-sufficiency.

As for me, I am a daughter of Liverpool, the 'pool of life', and with pride and honour I wear that title. I choose to lower my pointing finger of judgement to those who did our city wrong and instead speak out forgiveness. I offer a hand of connection and pray that this verdict of 'truth and justice' will result in true restoration, rather than further division.