The Good Fight

When the BBC’s Big Read project asked Britain’s book lovers to nominate their favourite novel they produced an interesting and eclectic top 100, from Dickens and Austen to JK Rowling and Terry Pratchett. Not surprisingly the list was dominated by British authors. The top ten included only one entry by a non-Brit. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee placed sixth. Why does this book mean so much to so many people? 

It was the author’s debut novel, it was published without fanfare and Lee’s own editor told her she couldn’t expect to sell more than a handful of copies. Within a year of its publication in 1960, Lee won a Pulitzer Prize and saw production begin on a film version that would prove to be almost as widely loved as the book itself. By the time the BBC compiled its Big Read top 100 list, “To Kill a Mockingbird” had sold 30 million copies and been translated into 40 languages.  

The story is told from the point of view of a young girl growing up in a small town in the American south in the mid-1930s. She has no memory of her mother, who passed away when she was an infant. She and her older brother are guided and protected by their father, a lawyer. Atticus Finch is widely regarded as one of the greatest heroes of 20th century literature. 

This challenges us to pinpoint our own definition of heroism, and of success. Atticus Finch spends his life striving to be a good person, a good citizen, and is repeatedly thwarted. He falls in love with a younger woman, has two children and wants to be a good husband and father and raise a happy family. The outcome? His wife dies. This happens before the narrative begins but it’s critical to everything that follows. His attempts to be a good family man are dealt a tragic blow.  

As a lawyer, he is given an unenviable task; to defend Tom Robinson, a black man unjustly accused and on trial for his life. He has the option of refusing the brief but his conscience won’t permit it.  

In accepting the case, and in every subsequent action, Finch rejects the easy option. Before the trial begins, he sits guard outside Tom Robinson’s prison cell at night, knowing a group of townspeople are coming to lynch him. A lynching would be convenient for the town, sparing everyone the sham and the shame of a trial. It would be most convenient of all for the defence lawyer faced with an unwinnable fight and forced to become a lightning rod for anger and prejudice. All he has to do is let it happen. No one expects him to guard the man. It’s not his job, and no one will blame him if Tom is killed. How easy would it be for Finch to tell himself that a lynching would only be bringing forward the inevitable? But he doesn’t. He sits outside the man’s jail cell and quietly guards his life. Why does he do it? Because he can. Because that’s the thing he can do to be a good man that night.  

Every day we have a choice. Every morning when we open our eyes for the first time we have the power to say “I’m going to do my best to be a good neighbour, a good person today.” We don’t know what form that will take. We don’t know precisely what will be asked of us or if the fight will accomplish anything. We can only hope our actions make a positive difference to at least one life. We should certainly wish for better things for the people around us than the fate that befalls Tom Robinson.  

And this is where it gets tricky, because viewed with cold objectivity, Atticus Finch fails. He’s a lawyer who loses his case. He’s a lawyer whose client ends up dead. He’s a father who tries his best to protect his children from the evils of the world, but does he succeed?  

In a short space of time his son and daughter see the bigotry that costs an innocent man his life. They see the poverty and ignorance that drives people to violence. Finally they come face to face with that violence, and it almost kills them both. Their father can’t protect them from it. It’s only the intervention of a third party that saves them. So, on more than one count, Atticus Finch is a failure. 

Or is he something different, simply because he tries? One of the novel’s pivotal moments comes when Finch explains the behaviour of an elderly, terminally ill neighbour. Her doctor’s prescriptions have addicted her to morphine, and she is determined to break the addiction before she dies. Finch tells his son that the greatest form of courage is shown by those who know the odds are against them, that they might even be beaten before they start, but they keep fighting anyway and see the fight through to the end. That’s a choice we can make too. It’s just a difficult one, and not always obviously rewarding.  

Farah and Nader came to the UK from their native Lebanon in 2016 seeking asylum, bringing their five-year-old daughter, Lea, and their three-year-old son, Karim. In 2018 they welcomed a third child. Mia was born in Singleton hospital, just a few miles from their family home in Manselton. Nader brought a wealth of experience as an architect, and for years he pored over job adverts calling for people with an understanding of design and construction, longing to contribute but unable to apply. With no opportunity to earn money and be the providers they wanted to be, Farah and Nader refocused and committed to doing what it was within their power to do. They vowed to be good neighbours, helping those around them face the challenges of a cold winter, a pandemic and all the vagaries of day-to-day life. And they vowed to be good parents, raising Lea, Karim and Mia to be kind and respectful to everyone.  

In February 2023, while waiting for news about his family’s application for Leave to Remain in the UK, Nader told me of his pride as a husband and father. 

“When teachers tell me my children are doing well at school, when neighbours tell me they are always happy to see their children playing with mine because Lea, Karim and Mia are well-behaved and kind, when local community leaders tell me my children’s eagerness to volunteer their help with projects to support vulnerable people are making Swansea a better place, it fills my heart. My wife is my rock, and her strength helps me every day. When I see this same strength helps our neighbours, and when they tell me speaking to Farah has helped them to face the challenges of a difficult day, I realise how lucky I am to be married to such a person.” 

That same month, Karim showed the community how fully he had embraced his parents’ example. Having saved what little money they were able to give him from their family’s living allowance, Karim had accumulated enough to buy something for himself. Then he had a different idea. Each week, a group of retired women meet at a local community centre. Their second meeting of that February fell on Valentine’s Day. Karim spent all of his money, every penny, on a bouquet of roses, large enough to give one to every woman in the group.  

I asked him why, knowing that his school friends had told him to do what they did with their money and buy games or toys. He told me he bought the roses because these women had always been nice to his family and he wanted to say thank you for that. He told me he knew that many of them lived alone, and it made him sad to think of them not getting a Valentine. 

Karim’s kind gesture came at a time when his native country was threatened by natural disaster. Earthquakes on the border of Turkey and Syria killed almost 60,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Neighbouring Lebanon was deeply affected, with tremors leading to large-scale evacuations. Swansea’s response to this humanitarian crisis was admirable. People who'd spent the winter working hard to make ends meet in the face of an unprecedented cost of living crisis dug deep to contribute to a relief fund. Many people I spoke to told me they donated because families like Farah and Nader’s, who had come to Swansea from the Middle East, had become such valued members of the community. Their new friends in Swansea felt a bond not only with them but with the countries they came from. It was a reminder that while these countries may not be places of safety, their people carry with them a culture of kindness, dignity and respect. These qualities brought out the best in their new neighbours, making them want to fight the good fight too.  

As asylum seekers, Farah and Nader had limited power to change their circumstances but they chose to contribute to their community by being good parents and good neighbours, day in day out. They did this with no agenda, and with no guarantee that being good citizens would bring them an opportunity to make this their permanent home. When Karim bought the roses on Valentine’s Day, he didn’t know his family were applying for Leave to Remain. He didn’t know what Leave to Remain meant. He only knew that he had an opportunity to say thank you for a kind welcome and make people happy. He did it because he could. How many people do you know who’d spend every penny they have to put a smile on a neighbour’s face? I’m grateful that I know one.  

At the end of “To Kill a Mockingbird” we see a man who has kept fighting, made choice after choice to be a good man and walk the difficult, unforgiving path. And that has still left him at the mercy of events he can’t control, bringing him within a hair’s breadth of losing everything he loves. Still, he doesn’t give up. In the novel’s final scene, he chooses to do the one thing that’s within his control. He keeps a vigil at his injured son’s bedside. 

“He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” 

For all its simplicity, this is an immensely moving and revealing closing line. The next time this man’s son opens his eyes, he will see his father by his side and he will know that he is loved. Once more, Atticus Finch is doing what he can do to be a good man in the moment. A simple expression of a parent’s love for a child is presented through the eyes and in the language of a young girl who understands who her father is.  

All through the novel we’ve seen this man through the eyes of a loving daughter. We’ve seen how the admiration the child has for the parent grows the more she learns about him. Young children often put their parents on a pedestal, and when they realise that the mother or father they idolise is fallible, prone to mistakes, not immune to failure, it can be a painful awakening. It doesn’t always have to be, though. Atticus Finch’s daughter loves him - and the reader admires him - not because he wins but because he tries. 

Sometimes it may seem as if we have no power over our lives. Sometimes it may seem as if every attempt we make to do something good and meaningful falls short. So do we give up? Or do we choose to take action that’s within our control, that will make things a little better, that may let someone know they’re not alone or just give them something to smile about? Let’s fight the good fight.