What Does Law Mean, Mumu?

The story begins as Mumu and a group of young people, later to be called Learners, leave Verity to the airport. She was a French exchange student and now returns to start her law studies in France. Sad to see her leave, the group is cheered by Mumus idea to start a pen friend project through which they can find out how the law works in France. But, as a first step, they need to know something about how it works nearer to home. The group embarks on a nomadic tour with Mumu, in a one thing leads to another style to learn a little about what the law does; and why we need it. With the objective of nurturing curiosity and engaging the Learners in the theme, Mumu introduces them to some conventional systems as well as aspects of Alternative Dispute Resolution processes that are non-adversarial and facilitate the amicable resolution of disputes. For the theme music to the audio book and podcast series, I used a piece of music given to me by my friend the late Jolyon Jackson, entitled Fledgling, which seemed so apt. In the book, Mumu tells the group of young people about Seamus Heaneys reference to every generation being on its own conveyor belt. One of the desired outcomes of the book is that young people step off the conveyor belt of their generation from time to time; scrutinise information; confront group think and peer pressure; speak truth to power; hold to account the systems and administrative processes; and test them against all the good criteria of justice independence, transparency, and fairness with a view to testing whether they sustain a landscape for social justice and peace. The heroes of the book are the fledglings. I give the last words to one who offers a tone of optimism. After a sad discussion about the cycle of conflicts and people not listening to the words of wisdom from WWI anti-war heroes like the last Tommy, Harry Patch, she says: But, like the acorns that were planted by Harry Patch, we will grow.