Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category

Recently I had another great conversation. Over a coffee in a small cafe, my friend and I talked about what we always seem to gravitate to when we get together – world need, refugees, the Darfur catastrophe, unwanted children…. Then my friend asked me a question: ‘How come it’s ok for rape to be used as a tool of war?’ How would you answer that? I had just been reading articles sent through from another very close friend, who was in the finishing stages of completing her Honours thesis on cross border aid and the R2P (Right to protect) protocol. Several of the articles I actually could not read beyond the first several paragraphs. The testimonies of women who had survived war and ethnic cleansing – from Bosnia to Afghanistan to Sudan – but who had suffered the terror and humiliation of rape – were too sickeningly graphic and I began to feel sick reading them. In every case, these women and young girls had been raped and mutilated by militia forces. Somewhere in the worldview and cultural practice of these men, it was ‘ok’ to do this. In the context of conflict it was acceptable to deliberately, as a tool of war, destroy a woman’s body,dignity and life.

‘How come it’s ok?’, my friend asked me. And then other issues began prompting the same question. How come it’s ok for human beings in 2009 to be bought and sold as slaves? Hadn’t we dealt with that some years back?? And how come it’s ok, in 2009, for children to be working 16 hours a day in cigarette  and brick making factories so their families can eat? And how come it’s ok for the rest of us to be shocked and horrified for a few moments…. and then leave it to someone else to speak out about it and do something to make a difference – somewhere, somehow for someone?

We wouldn’t say it of course, and we don’t consciously think it, but by our indifference we are saying, ‘It’s ok’. Or we may be saying, ‘Don’t Tell Me’ – as someone back in  Australia said to me when I started sharing with him about similar issues. At least this person was upfront in his reaction though. Many people I have met have shouted at me ‘Don’t Tell Me’ without ever opening their mouths.

As we finished our coffee, I said to my friend, ‘That’s a great opening line for a song.’

I’d like to share the song that was birthed some weeks later from that conversation.

how come it’s ok

for us to turn away

shrug our shoulders cause it’s just another TIA

how come it’s ok

for us to hope that things will change one day

then turn the channel in our heads cause pain’s passe

and the rivers run red across Sudan

the sky’s raining lead in Afghanistan

how come it’s ok

for girls and boys to not know how to play

cause they’re smashing rocks on roadsides all day

how come it’s ok

for people to be bought and sold as slaves

and hey, what can I do anyway

and the rivers run red across Sudan

the sky’s raining lead in Afghanistan

boys in Uganda are terrified tonight

they’re sleeping in a train stop so they don’t have to fight

women beg for mercy in the burning sun

there are ways of waging war without wielding a gun

people are labeled and somehow we agree

they’ve all done something wrong

cause they’ve got HIV

how come it’s ok

for rape to be a tool of war

in this enlightened day

how come it’s ok

for us to save a tree

but turn our hearts on 40 million refugees

and the rivers run red across Sudan

the sky’s raining lead in Afghanistan

boys in Uganda are terrified tonight

they’re sleeping in a train stop so they don’t have to fight

women beg for mercy in the burning sun

there are ways of waging war without wielding a gun

people are labeled and somehow we agree

they’ve all done something wrong

cause they’ve got HIV

how come it’s ok

how come it’s alright

for us to turn away

push people out of sight

how come it’s ok

to be horrified

for a moment and

so believe we’ve tried

how come it’s ok

when we’re all at war

to destroy a woman’s body for the cause we’re fighting for

and the rivers run red across Sudan

the sky’s raining lead in Afghanistan

people are labeled and somehow we agree

they’ve all done something wrong

cause they’ve got HIV

how come it’s ok

for billions to be outcast

cause they’re trapped by what indifference doesn’t say

A friend and work colleague here at Crossroads always ends his emails with  this thought provoking phrase: numbers have faces and faces have names. Statistics are informative, but by their very nature can dis-enable us from  seeing the faces  of the people which make them up -or hearing the voices of those whose voices are not heard. Not being overly fond of numbers, I tend not to be drawn to graphs and columns, but THESE figures have made me think…

Since 1996 over 2 million refugees have fled Burma and sought refuge in the camps on the Thai Burma border.

There are over 1 million Internally Displaced People (IDPs)  hiding in the Burma jungles from the military dictatorship of the Burma Army.

Nearly 4 million Iraqis have been displaced by sectarian cleansing, violence and kidnap. 2 million have fled into neighboring Syria and Jordan.

A quarter of Zimbabwe’s population of 12 million have fled to neighboring countries in the last several years.  In 2007 more than 7,000 Zimbabweans applied for refugee status in South Africa.

The UN has stated that more than 240,000 Darfurians have been newly displaced, or have been re- displaced, in 2007, as violence in refugee camps increases.

And what is the difference between me and a refugee? Only circumstances!

This is a question that lodged itself into my conscious thought some months ago and it just won’t go away.In this information saturated ‘global village’, as is the politically correct term at this time, there is much that we are able to learn about many things. It is not too difficult to be ‘aware’ and even less so to have an opinion. But what increasingly is concerning to me, is that when does one begin crossing the very defined line between ‘being aware’ and ‘informed,’ and actually start to act in some way that reflects a personal decision to become involved? And if one ‘gets involved’, a phrase that has long joined the tired ranks of cliche, then why? Motivation, I am slowly learning, continues to reside at the core of all that one ends up doing, or not doing.

Why become involved in a cause or a mission or anything remotely satisfying or noble? To get out of mundaneness (whatever that may mean to us); to feel deeply that we have actually achieved ‘something’; to add some legitimate excitement and value to our days; to even vindicate a deeply held belief or idea that is worthy enough to sacrifice for.

For many months now the word ‘refugee’ has dominated much of my conversation, thought and even songwriting. What started out as an interest and desire to learn more about what it means to be a refugee, has now become….what HAS it become? I am now asking myself this question because it very much ties in with the title of this post, ‘If I know, am I responsible?’ Without any conscious realization of where this ‘learning more’ was taking me, without any road map or signs to warn me where my heart was heading, the desire to know increased…..and THEN…… I was privileged to meet and spend three amazing hours with the leader of the Free Burma Rangers when I was in Thailand last year. I met his Karen medic and saw the bullet holes in his body, fired from Burma military guns. I heard stories about the one million internally displaced people (IDPs) hiding in the Burma jungle. Stories of villages destroyed by fire; fathers and grandfathers and brothers shot or tortured by the Burmese soldiers; children abducted and made to be porters and human minesweepers for the Burma army; young girls forced to join the army to service the junta’s soldiers as wives or concubines; schools and churches destroyed and rice barns burnt to the ground. In three incredible hours I gained much information, and from a man I had never dared to even hope to meet. But what does one then do with all this knowledge and awareness? I began to meet refugees from across Africa, and began talking with them, and having lunch with them…..and then one day I sat at the piano and the words and music to Do You wove themselves together.

At that time in April last year, I remember thinking that this song might be useful here at Crossroads, especially as we have a powerful simulation called Refugee Run, which allows people to experience something of what it would be to ‘have no face’ and ‘have no voice’.

No one could have imagined the journey this song has been on ever since, and the fact that it has led to the recording of a new album, which we  plan to be ready by the end of May.

I also could not have imagined that I would be privileged to make two trips to meet the Kachin refugees in Malaysia and see, hear and experience myself what it is to be a refugee in a country where you are not welcome.

The transition from awareness to desiring to be involved has been a slow one, and began with the inevitable news reports and statistics. These are necessary, but for me it only became ‘real’ when I began meeting the people -both those who are dedicating their lives to humanitarian relief and the battle for justice, and those who ARE on the run, dispossessed, living daily in fear, with no rights or access to even the most basic of services.

The knowing is no longer just in my head. My life is being changed by these people, especially the Kachin in Malaysia.

And I want to tell their stories…and I want to go back!