This is in response to Andrew's "Smile and Wave" blog. I've been thinking about similar things since I've returned to Cape Town--how people, strangers, interact in different environments. In Gisenyi I became accustomed to, and quite enjoyed, not only meeting people I knew as I walked around town, but greetings between strangers. Now that I'm back in a "big" city (and a fairly hostile one at that) I'm again faced with a very different reality. One in which those who can afford it avoid walking or public transport, and those who chose to walk (or have no other choice but to walk) must constantly be aware of the potential dangers they will face. As a result, people are not only withdrawn as you commonly see in cities, but they intentionally avoid interaction (apart from the street sellers and beggars of course). One finds themself suspicious of everyone. The suspicion is not unwarranted--as you often hear here, it's not a question of IF you will be mugged or otherwise attacked, it is only a question of WHEN.
When, for Rich and I, was last night--we were fortunate that no one was hurt and nothing was taken. Rich was able to fight the guy off and chase him away, but what struck him the most was the anger in the boys eyes and his willingness to use violence--which caused Rich to question why that was the case. It began a brief discussion of how violence can become the norm, as opposed to an extreme, when it is so common in your daily existence for a long period of time. I often wonder though, why is violence so common here? Yes, one can argue that there is a long history of violence rooted in the apartheid struggle, but other areas have long histories of political struggle, and also continue to face extreme poverty, but do not exhibit the extreme violence that is so common here.
In several countries in Eastern Africa, protecting people and punishing criminals was taken into the hands of the community. They decided that if they couldn't depend on the police to protect them, they would protect themselves. If someone sees something happening (usually a pickpocket or the like), they start yelling and everyone else around chases down the criminal, returns the goods if necessary, and inflicts punishment (according to the story I heard in Rwanda, the punishment was a beating and public humiliation, I've heard that in Uganda the criminal is often killed). Last night when I repeatedly screamed--within hearing distance of a guest house and an open gas station, and as it turned out a taxi driver sitting in his car--no one responded. Why is it that the public here takes extreme steps to protect themselves (car alarms, high walls, barb wire, electric fences, home alarm systems, private armed guards, etc), but shows little interest in building systems to protect the community at large? Granted, the criminals in Eastern Africa tend not to be armed, so the people running to assist are not necessarily putting themselves in harms way.
I have no good solution or suggestions. It does seem to me that getting a car or taking cabs everywhere, the response of most Capetonians, is not a solution. I do think that rather than putting on a bad-ass don't-mess-with-me face, a smile and greeting could help both myself and other innocent pedestrians to feel a bit more positive about our commute around the city. And maybe, maybe, it would catch a potential attacker off-guard enough to ward off the threat. Perhaps that's impossibly optimistic of me. But I know I feel better when someone randomly greets me with a happy smile, so why not share a tiny dabble of something positive to balance out the negative vibes?
10 June 2009
12 May 2009
Neighbours
What is a neighbour? I anticipate this very question to be one of the chapters of my thesis. Emma's description societies divided by a highway in Mumbai reminds me a lot of Cape Town, where the scars of apartheid still impair the landscape and determine quality of life.
But in Rwanda geography does not divide as history does. As many point out, the genocide was committed by average civilians, by neighbour against neighbour. Today the people who live next door to each other, go to school together, go to church together, stand in the same lines for water and go to the same market, they may be so terrified and angry at each other that those emotions dictate their lives. Perhaps they walk a certain path because they do not expect to pass a certain person there. Or they buy from a certain seller at the market, or go for water at a certain time of day. Maybe they choose to sit inside their house when resting in the afternoon if they see a certain neighbour sitting outside. But that neighbour is always there, reminding them of what was said, of lost loved ones, of the threat to their own life, of the threats to their future. It doesn't matter if you are Hutu or Tutsi, both are afraid, both are angry, both feel lost and hopeless.
In an ideal world, to be a neighbour means being able to ask for help in times of need, it means communal watching of children, it means doing your work--washing clothes, preparing meals, digging--together, it means sharing what little you have and enjoying each others company. It is, in such poverty as the people I know exist in, a relationship of dependency. Social networks are so broken in post-genocide Rwandan that having people close-by who are a source of support (emotionally and physically) is an urgent need. But some have no surviving relatives, many moved to areas where they knew no-one, and the suspicion between social groups creates all the more boundaries and limitations.
The work of reconciliation here is not a vague and abstract ideal with little tangible meaning in daily lives of people (as it may be suggested it has been in South Africa). It is, in reality, about survival. It is not only about a visible peace where people are not killing each other and everyone is treated equally, it is also about an inner peace that allows you to feel free to move about in your own neighbourhood at your pleasure, to build relationships with those around you, and to have hope in the future.
But in Rwanda geography does not divide as history does. As many point out, the genocide was committed by average civilians, by neighbour against neighbour. Today the people who live next door to each other, go to school together, go to church together, stand in the same lines for water and go to the same market, they may be so terrified and angry at each other that those emotions dictate their lives. Perhaps they walk a certain path because they do not expect to pass a certain person there. Or they buy from a certain seller at the market, or go for water at a certain time of day. Maybe they choose to sit inside their house when resting in the afternoon if they see a certain neighbour sitting outside. But that neighbour is always there, reminding them of what was said, of lost loved ones, of the threat to their own life, of the threats to their future. It doesn't matter if you are Hutu or Tutsi, both are afraid, both are angry, both feel lost and hopeless.
In an ideal world, to be a neighbour means being able to ask for help in times of need, it means communal watching of children, it means doing your work--washing clothes, preparing meals, digging--together, it means sharing what little you have and enjoying each others company. It is, in such poverty as the people I know exist in, a relationship of dependency. Social networks are so broken in post-genocide Rwandan that having people close-by who are a source of support (emotionally and physically) is an urgent need. But some have no surviving relatives, many moved to areas where they knew no-one, and the suspicion between social groups creates all the more boundaries and limitations.
The work of reconciliation here is not a vague and abstract ideal with little tangible meaning in daily lives of people (as it may be suggested it has been in South Africa). It is, in reality, about survival. It is not only about a visible peace where people are not killing each other and everyone is treated equally, it is also about an inner peace that allows you to feel free to move about in your own neighbourhood at your pleasure, to build relationships with those around you, and to have hope in the future.
18 April 2009
Banning minerals from DRC?
As a follow-up to my previous blogs on the conflict in DRC and the mining operations that fuel it, I found yet another article (a popular news item of late). It argues that "banning" minerals from DRC is a mistake because it will cut many ordinary citizens off from the only livelihood available to them. He makes the very apt point that the situation in DRC cannot be compared to Sierra Leone's blood diamonds. Instead, he argues for better support of good governance:
"There are a number of people who are actors in this trade because the trade serves their profit motives. So, if we can put the right incentives in place for these actors to also benefit in peacetime from these trades, then we could form a constituency that would allow us to reform the trade and ultimately disconnect it from the military aspect that currently has a severe negative impact on the trade, as such."
With the combination of difficult terrain and widespread insecurity, how can any organization be imposed on the mining operations? Garrett says, "Ultimately, the main reason why a number of these armed groups, including the Congolese army, are allowed to benefit from this trade is the general lack of governance in eastern Congo, which is ultimately due to the severe under-capacity of the Congolese institutions."
He calls on the international community to support and help rebuilding Congolese institutions "to lay the foundation for a large reform process." This includes a well-trained, well-paid national army. "Unfortunately, at the present, the Congolese army is a major source of insecurity instead of a force for order," he says."
(read the full article here )
I agree that there is great nuance in the people and motives involved. But what incentives can be given to the group which is making a lot of money out of doing nothing but being threatening with little chance of reprisal? The banning option takes away the profit, which is probably the easiest and quickest method to impact them, but has the unfortunate side effect of taking away the income of people trying to make an honest living by mining. As such the long-term impact could be increased poverty, which generally leads to increased violence and vulnerability, and more poverty.
Is it possible to design a policy that is effective and that does not ban all minerals from DRC? Wherein mineral purchases are restricted to select companies or organisations that monitor where the minerals come from, who is mining them, and who is controlling the mine? Building local cooperatives could help significantly if there was a structure in place to ensure rebels and the military did not infiltrate them. Of course, this process requires more time and money to set up and monitor initially, but how much is the international community spending now on aid in the refugee camps and the UN peace keeping mission? Prevention is always more cost-effective than a response after-the-fact. Pro-active planning and spending could save a lot of money in the long run if it helps to build sustainable peace.
"There are a number of people who are actors in this trade because the trade serves their profit motives. So, if we can put the right incentives in place for these actors to also benefit in peacetime from these trades, then we could form a constituency that would allow us to reform the trade and ultimately disconnect it from the military aspect that currently has a severe negative impact on the trade, as such."
With the combination of difficult terrain and widespread insecurity, how can any organization be imposed on the mining operations? Garrett says, "Ultimately, the main reason why a number of these armed groups, including the Congolese army, are allowed to benefit from this trade is the general lack of governance in eastern Congo, which is ultimately due to the severe under-capacity of the Congolese institutions."
He calls on the international community to support and help rebuilding Congolese institutions "to lay the foundation for a large reform process." This includes a well-trained, well-paid national army. "Unfortunately, at the present, the Congolese army is a major source of insecurity instead of a force for order," he says."
(read the full article here )
I agree that there is great nuance in the people and motives involved. But what incentives can be given to the group which is making a lot of money out of doing nothing but being threatening with little chance of reprisal? The banning option takes away the profit, which is probably the easiest and quickest method to impact them, but has the unfortunate side effect of taking away the income of people trying to make an honest living by mining. As such the long-term impact could be increased poverty, which generally leads to increased violence and vulnerability, and more poverty.
Is it possible to design a policy that is effective and that does not ban all minerals from DRC? Wherein mineral purchases are restricted to select companies or organisations that monitor where the minerals come from, who is mining them, and who is controlling the mine? Building local cooperatives could help significantly if there was a structure in place to ensure rebels and the military did not infiltrate them. Of course, this process requires more time and money to set up and monitor initially, but how much is the international community spending now on aid in the refugee camps and the UN peace keeping mission? Prevention is always more cost-effective than a response after-the-fact. Pro-active planning and spending could save a lot of money in the long run if it helps to build sustainable peace.
12 April 2009
the wealth of DRC
I wrote several months ago about the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (a region known as North and South Kivu). It's a complex issue that has developed and changed over the decades. What is highlighted most recently is the presence of a rebel group known as the FDLR (the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda). This group was formed primarily by genocidaires who fled Rwanda in 1994 after the RPF victory that ended the genocide. The RPF up to that point was itself a rebel group, made up of Rwandan refugees in Uganda who had fled previous massacres in Rwanda, and who had been fighting a war with the Rwandan government since 1990, a war that ended when the RPF took control of the country and stopped the genocide.
The FDLR continue to pursue the Hutu Power ideology to exterminate Tutsi's by terrorising the Tutsi population in Congo. In my previous blog I wrote about the violence that broke out the end of last year when the CNDP (The National Congress for the Defense of the People) threatened to take control of Goma, stating it's goal to protect Tutsi's. Following this a landmark agreement was made between President Kabila of DRC and President Kagame of Rwanda to conduct a joint operation to "root out" the FDLR, considered the source of much bad relations between the 2 countries (Rwanda has invaded DRC twice claiming to be seeking out these genocidaires). The Rwandan military has come and gone, arresting the leader of the CNDP (Laurent Nkunda) in the mean time, and declared the operation a success. Possibly 3000 refugees have returned to Rwanda as a result--when the genocidaires fled the country, they took with them their families as well as Hutus who did not participate in the genocide but feared reprisals from the RPF nonetheless. However, only about 300 of these were combatants and the fact remains that thousands of FDLR remain in the bush of North and South Kivu, and as the Rwandan military left, the rebels continue to attack and terrorise the population.
I pointed out in my previous blog that a big part of this conflict is economics. While ethnic divisions are certainly a motivation, so is money. DRC is an extraordinarily resource rich country. The rebel groups would not be able to sustain themselves without financial support--this is true anywhere. In DRC mining or controlling mines is very lucrative. I've attached two recent articles below that speak to this issue. The first is from the BBC, and while it is long and not incredibly well written, it helps to paint a picture: a villager working in mines to make a living who must bribe the rebels for access, a rebel leader who denies any knowledge that mines even exist in the area, a businessman in town who buys the minerals, and tin cans sitting in your cupboards. (There is also a little tease about the role of China--the newest African colonizer?--the article really doesn't get into it, neither will I except to say that China agreed to build roads in exchange for unregulated access to DRC's mineral wealth):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7991479.stm
Next I offer a piece of a solution--awareness and cooperate responsibility:
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2009-04-01-voa30.cfm
And just as I was about to post this I found yet another, I wasn't able to listen to the report though, so let me know if he had anything good to say!
The public, as consumers, has a voice and has the power to make their voice heard. Globalisation has made access and production simpler or cheaper, but also much more difficult to trace responsibility. Historically there is an attitude that conducting business in the 'third world' means there are no "rules of engagement" and we must continue to break down such colonialist, hypocritical, hierarchical practices. It is encouraging to see the movement towards this understanding in an unrelated article where a judge declared "That level of wilful blindness in the face of crimes in violation of the law of nations cannot defeat an otherwise clear showing of knowledge that the assistance IBM provided would directly and substantially support apartheid."
The FDLR continue to pursue the Hutu Power ideology to exterminate Tutsi's by terrorising the Tutsi population in Congo. In my previous blog I wrote about the violence that broke out the end of last year when the CNDP (The National Congress for the Defense of the People) threatened to take control of Goma, stating it's goal to protect Tutsi's. Following this a landmark agreement was made between President Kabila of DRC and President Kagame of Rwanda to conduct a joint operation to "root out" the FDLR, considered the source of much bad relations between the 2 countries (Rwanda has invaded DRC twice claiming to be seeking out these genocidaires). The Rwandan military has come and gone, arresting the leader of the CNDP (Laurent Nkunda) in the mean time, and declared the operation a success. Possibly 3000 refugees have returned to Rwanda as a result--when the genocidaires fled the country, they took with them their families as well as Hutus who did not participate in the genocide but feared reprisals from the RPF nonetheless. However, only about 300 of these were combatants and the fact remains that thousands of FDLR remain in the bush of North and South Kivu, and as the Rwandan military left, the rebels continue to attack and terrorise the population.
I pointed out in my previous blog that a big part of this conflict is economics. While ethnic divisions are certainly a motivation, so is money. DRC is an extraordinarily resource rich country. The rebel groups would not be able to sustain themselves without financial support--this is true anywhere. In DRC mining or controlling mines is very lucrative. I've attached two recent articles below that speak to this issue. The first is from the BBC, and while it is long and not incredibly well written, it helps to paint a picture: a villager working in mines to make a living who must bribe the rebels for access, a rebel leader who denies any knowledge that mines even exist in the area, a businessman in town who buys the minerals, and tin cans sitting in your cupboards. (There is also a little tease about the role of China--the newest African colonizer?--the article really doesn't get into it, neither will I except to say that China agreed to build roads in exchange for unregulated access to DRC's mineral wealth):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7991479.stm
Next I offer a piece of a solution--awareness and cooperate responsibility:
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2009-04-01-voa30.cfm
And just as I was about to post this I found yet another, I wasn't able to listen to the report though, so let me know if he had anything good to say!
The public, as consumers, has a voice and has the power to make their voice heard. Globalisation has made access and production simpler or cheaper, but also much more difficult to trace responsibility. Historically there is an attitude that conducting business in the 'third world' means there are no "rules of engagement" and we must continue to break down such colonialist, hypocritical, hierarchical practices. It is encouraging to see the movement towards this understanding in an unrelated article where a judge declared "That level of wilful blindness in the face of crimes in violation of the law of nations cannot defeat an otherwise clear showing of knowledge that the assistance IBM provided would directly and substantially support apartheid."
09 April 2009
April 7th: 15th Anniversary of Rwandan genocide
Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. April 7th is the National Day of Commemoration and marks the beginning of the Week of Memorial. Each year the government selects one of the many memorial sites throughout the country to hold the National Commemoration ceremony at, and this year Nyanza was chosen. It is in Kicukiro (kee-choo-kee-ru), outside of the city of Kigali, and just up the road from where I stay when I'm in Kigali.
At this site, on April 11, 1994, 2500 people were massacred. Only hours before they had been under the protection of UN soldiers at Kicukiru Technical College. But after 10 UN soldiers from Belgium were killed trying to protect the woman who should have taken over the presidency after President Habyrimana's plane was shot down, the UN decided to pull out the vast majority of their soldiers (that is, the white ones). Only about 150 UN soldiers remained in Rwanda, charged to fulfill their mandate of "preserving the peace". At Kicukiro Technical College, the UN soldiers were told to evacuate the westerners and abandon their post. People tell me that as the soldiers were preparing to leave, Interahamwe (the trained civilian militia) were standing outside, with their machetes and clubs in hand, just waiting for the opportunity to begin killing those inside. People begged the soldiers not to go. They begged the soldiers to take them away. But they had orders from UN Headquarters--sitting in their offices thousands of miles away in New York, making decisions that determined the lives and deaths of millions, seemingly unaware that these were actual humans they were dealing with and not pictures in a video game. So the soldiers left, they left those thousands desperately seeking refuge at the school, and they left millions in Rwanda lost in a horrible nightmare that some never woke from. Some, passing me on the roads today and working their fields, still sometimes get lost in that nightmare, unsure when it began or if ended.
After the UN soldiers left, the victims were marched up the road and into a patch of forest, where the many facets of the fragility of humanity played out in horrific proportions. 2500 were killed. Men, women, children, for nothing more than a word: Tutsi. Decades of prejudice, economics, power plays, politics, and social stigma worked hard to create the opposing dichotomy of Hutu and Tutsi, divided by a canyon filled with fear, anger, hatred, and greed.
That patch of forest is now the Nyanza Memorial. Yesterday tens of thousands gathered there to honor the memory of loved ones and countrymen, to remember what happened and reaffirm their promise (the promise of the world, I might add): "Never Again". It was a formal affair and most of it was in Kinyarwanda so I didn't understand much of what was said. "Icyizere" (which means hope) was frequently affirmed, especially by President Kagame. Cal Wilkins, who was in Rwanda when the genocide happened, and stayed throughout those hundred days, shared his story and spoke about the power of Presence and the power of standing together. One of the survivors of Nyanza (there were only hundred, or less), also shared his story. Many around me wept. Some women, in listening to his story, remembered their own and were overwhelmed with grief. First I heard one woman wailing loudly in the distance, then another, and another. Some of them, wailing does not describe it, they were screaming as if they were under attack at that moment. Some of them were screaming words, I do not know what they were saying, I only understood "OYA!" which means "NO!". Their wails were heart-wrenching. Their screams eery and disconcerting. At one point a foreigner sitting behind me whispered to her companion "Oh my gosh, this is just too much." There were Red Cross and other medical staff there to help them, carrying them to an area away from the crowd to counsel and comfort them. For the next few hours the silence of the crowd, the encouragement of the speakers, and the comfort of the songs were periodically pierced by the wails and screams of women lost in their memories. There is a price to remembering.
For me, bearing witness to their pain is to too small a cost. For me, remembering the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 brings shame--shame that the Western World, which declared after the holocaust that it would ensure genocide would happen "Never Again", failed to recognize and respond to blatant and forewarned genocide Rwanda. Needless to say the Clinton administration is not terribly popular here, and while people are huge fans of Obama, there is trepedation that he has filled the White House with so many staffers from Clinton's administration.
I watched part of a film called "Rwanda '94", it was powerful and I highly recommend it. In it, one woman tells her story, and she ends by saying that she asks only for people to listen to her words because if you cannot bear witness to her life and to the history of genocide, then your ignorance is as bad as the genocide itself. In his speech Cal Wilkins said your story is the most powerful thing you have. Don't let their voices fall on deaf ears. Listen, though it is painful. Learn, though it will disturb you. And pay attention to the world and to our leaders: peace, like war, does not happen accidently, we must actively pursue it.
At this site, on April 11, 1994, 2500 people were massacred. Only hours before they had been under the protection of UN soldiers at Kicukiru Technical College. But after 10 UN soldiers from Belgium were killed trying to protect the woman who should have taken over the presidency after President Habyrimana's plane was shot down, the UN decided to pull out the vast majority of their soldiers (that is, the white ones). Only about 150 UN soldiers remained in Rwanda, charged to fulfill their mandate of "preserving the peace". At Kicukiro Technical College, the UN soldiers were told to evacuate the westerners and abandon their post. People tell me that as the soldiers were preparing to leave, Interahamwe (the trained civilian militia) were standing outside, with their machetes and clubs in hand, just waiting for the opportunity to begin killing those inside. People begged the soldiers not to go. They begged the soldiers to take them away. But they had orders from UN Headquarters--sitting in their offices thousands of miles away in New York, making decisions that determined the lives and deaths of millions, seemingly unaware that these were actual humans they were dealing with and not pictures in a video game. So the soldiers left, they left those thousands desperately seeking refuge at the school, and they left millions in Rwanda lost in a horrible nightmare that some never woke from. Some, passing me on the roads today and working their fields, still sometimes get lost in that nightmare, unsure when it began or if ended.
After the UN soldiers left, the victims were marched up the road and into a patch of forest, where the many facets of the fragility of humanity played out in horrific proportions. 2500 were killed. Men, women, children, for nothing more than a word: Tutsi. Decades of prejudice, economics, power plays, politics, and social stigma worked hard to create the opposing dichotomy of Hutu and Tutsi, divided by a canyon filled with fear, anger, hatred, and greed.
That patch of forest is now the Nyanza Memorial. Yesterday tens of thousands gathered there to honor the memory of loved ones and countrymen, to remember what happened and reaffirm their promise (the promise of the world, I might add): "Never Again". It was a formal affair and most of it was in Kinyarwanda so I didn't understand much of what was said. "Icyizere" (which means hope) was frequently affirmed, especially by President Kagame. Cal Wilkins, who was in Rwanda when the genocide happened, and stayed throughout those hundred days, shared his story and spoke about the power of Presence and the power of standing together. One of the survivors of Nyanza (there were only hundred, or less), also shared his story. Many around me wept. Some women, in listening to his story, remembered their own and were overwhelmed with grief. First I heard one woman wailing loudly in the distance, then another, and another. Some of them, wailing does not describe it, they were screaming as if they were under attack at that moment. Some of them were screaming words, I do not know what they were saying, I only understood "OYA!" which means "NO!". Their wails were heart-wrenching. Their screams eery and disconcerting. At one point a foreigner sitting behind me whispered to her companion "Oh my gosh, this is just too much." There were Red Cross and other medical staff there to help them, carrying them to an area away from the crowd to counsel and comfort them. For the next few hours the silence of the crowd, the encouragement of the speakers, and the comfort of the songs were periodically pierced by the wails and screams of women lost in their memories. There is a price to remembering.
For me, bearing witness to their pain is to too small a cost. For me, remembering the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 brings shame--shame that the Western World, which declared after the holocaust that it would ensure genocide would happen "Never Again", failed to recognize and respond to blatant and forewarned genocide Rwanda. Needless to say the Clinton administration is not terribly popular here, and while people are huge fans of Obama, there is trepedation that he has filled the White House with so many staffers from Clinton's administration.
I watched part of a film called "Rwanda '94", it was powerful and I highly recommend it. In it, one woman tells her story, and she ends by saying that she asks only for people to listen to her words because if you cannot bear witness to her life and to the history of genocide, then your ignorance is as bad as the genocide itself. In his speech Cal Wilkins said your story is the most powerful thing you have. Don't let their voices fall on deaf ears. Listen, though it is painful. Learn, though it will disturb you. And pay attention to the world and to our leaders: peace, like war, does not happen accidently, we must actively pursue it.
21 February 2009
Journey into Rwanda
On the eve of my departure for Rwanda I went to Kalk Bay with my housemates for dinner. The wind was blowing fiercely so it was too cold to walk in the harbor after we ate. But we had to stop on the drive back to Cape Town, the scene was to beautiful to simply drive past. The light from the full moon burst bright upon the turbulent surf of the Atlantic. Large boulders scattered the beach and I stood atop one absorbing the moonlight, reflecting on reflections. The whipped my hair and my scarf about, wrapping and unwrapping me, pushing me and pulling me. I had wished I had my camera, but the image lingers with me nonetheless and somehow evokes the journey I now embark upon. The fierce wind, the crashing surf, even the power of the moon over the earth--sometimes gracing it with glowing light, sometimes hovering above imbued in darkness--it all calls to mind the struggle, the hardship, the anger, the fear, and the pain I expect to encounter; all the remnants of a society so violently mangled that the world around them can never be perceived in the same way again. And yet . . .
And yet there was beauty and peace in this night. The wind was violent and stripped me of the the warmth of my scarf, and yet at times it also wrapped my scarf about me, the pushing and pulling both forceful and a kind of gentle prodding. The surf was rough, foreboding, icy, and yet beyond the breakwaters it was calm, reflecting the moonlight in such a way that provokes the imagination and a sense of peace. I was compelled to exclaim the beauty of the world before me (repeatedly).
I am often asked how it is I feel capable of doing work with, shall we say, communities experiencing trauma. All too often it seems hopeless, and it is disturbingly easy to be overwhelmed by the horrors of this world. And yet, piercing through the most hideous of evils there is always the purest love. If the atrocities that people are capable of inflicting can throw you into despair, then the selfless, generous compassion and simple determination for life rooted deep in humanity can restore your hope for this world and the future.
And so it is, this turbulent beautiful night sent me into Rwanda. As I listen to people's stories I know I will find glimmers (or bursts!) of hope: like a lotus blooming in a murky stinking swamp. Not necessarily dramatic stories of rising above or overcoming that Hollywood thrives on, but rather stories of survival, of life, of the everyday. After all, that lotus flower did not float away out of that swamp, it exists within it. So in Rwanda, perhaps more dramatically than in some other places, I expect to find both extremes of humanity: despair and hope, atrocity and beauty, violence and peace. The question for me now is where does reconciliation fall in the negotiation of these extremes?
And yet there was beauty and peace in this night. The wind was violent and stripped me of the the warmth of my scarf, and yet at times it also wrapped my scarf about me, the pushing and pulling both forceful and a kind of gentle prodding. The surf was rough, foreboding, icy, and yet beyond the breakwaters it was calm, reflecting the moonlight in such a way that provokes the imagination and a sense of peace. I was compelled to exclaim the beauty of the world before me (repeatedly).
I am often asked how it is I feel capable of doing work with, shall we say, communities experiencing trauma. All too often it seems hopeless, and it is disturbingly easy to be overwhelmed by the horrors of this world. And yet, piercing through the most hideous of evils there is always the purest love. If the atrocities that people are capable of inflicting can throw you into despair, then the selfless, generous compassion and simple determination for life rooted deep in humanity can restore your hope for this world and the future.
And so it is, this turbulent beautiful night sent me into Rwanda. As I listen to people's stories I know I will find glimmers (or bursts!) of hope: like a lotus blooming in a murky stinking swamp. Not necessarily dramatic stories of rising above or overcoming that Hollywood thrives on, but rather stories of survival, of life, of the everyday. After all, that lotus flower did not float away out of that swamp, it exists within it. So in Rwanda, perhaps more dramatically than in some other places, I expect to find both extremes of humanity: despair and hope, atrocity and beauty, violence and peace. The question for me now is where does reconciliation fall in the negotiation of these extremes?
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