PICKING UP THE PIECES

Watching the snowball effect of the UK riots became a nightly episode of disbelief, as suburb after suburb, city after city, came under attack. Besides the level of violence, destruction of property, and complete disregard for anyone’s safety, one moment I found disturbing was a radio interview on the streets with some teenage girls who thought the whole thing was great fun. Their forays into the night were netting them some free booze which they seemed to think they were entitled to, no matter whose it was or where it came from.

For them it seemed to be something of a Robin Hood paradigm, robbing the rich to give to the poor, except in their case they saw themselves as the worthy recipients, while blaming the government for the whole mess and distancing themselves from their own culpability.

Talking with friends in London they are the first to admit the chasm between the social classes in Britain is vast, with a growing underclass viewing a bleak future where they believe they will never have the chance to crawl out from under and live any other sort of life than what they know. So, given the right circumstances, it’s not difficult to see how a situation where some seized the opportunity to “redistribute some wealth” quickly escalated into a free for all mob mentality.

The ‘have nots’ are not necessarily dreaming of a life rolling in money and instant pleasure, but one where they have some sort of worth in the society in which they live, even if they’re unemployed. Taking some responsibility towards achieving that isn’t always simple, especially if you come from a dysfunctional family or one that may be second or third generation social security dependent. Many see education as the ticket out, but not everyone has the ability to see it through, so the possibilities shrink more and more as life grinds on relentlessly with no change in sight.

Hope is lost, despair sets in, and inevitably that despair will manifest itself in anger and violence as someone is found to blame for their misfortune. Whether those who become the victims have anything to do with their plight can be irrelevant, as the UK riots clearly showed.

What did encourage me though, were my friends reporting that more have come out of the woodwork to help with the clean up than came out for the riots. Using the same social media networks that spurred on the rioters from one region to the next, those of good will identified the areas which needed help and also came out en masse to show their support and start picking up the pieces.

How does a nation learn from such an event? How do those in high places with power and influence work to create a more just, inclusive and equitable society? I guess if we had the answers there’d be a lot less strife around the planet. The powers that be can formulate policy to stimulate employment and economic growth, better social cohesion and all manner of things, but I think it comes down to individuals and neighbourhoods to bring about real social change.

The authorities may bring things under control, but it will only be as we take the risk of getting to know our neighbours, participating in community events, believing we have a role to play in creating a sense of social cohesion where those who feel on the outer can be included, that individuals will feel hope rise. To be encouraged to dream, to reach your potential, to be affirmed as you achieve things and care for others, will all go a long way to uplifting someone’s self esteem, no matter how fragile.

A friend had this Johann von Goethe quote on his blog this week which I’m borrowing as it felt appropriate.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGE

With United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in the country at the moment, the Australian government is on notice that it could very well be in breach of the United Nations refugee convention if its proposed deal with Malaysia for processing asylum seekers goes ahead.

For her, it is not enough to hear verbal assurances that the key elements regarding the processing and treatment of refugees will be adhered to. She condemns people smuggling, but while our government spends so much time debating how to stop the people smugglers dumping their desperate cargo on our shores, she challenges us to work out how to accept these people once they're here rather than sending them somewhere else.

All member countries who have ratified the UN refugee convention are reviewed by their peers to monitor whether their policies and procedures adhere to its requirements. Australia was reviewed in 2009, and questions were asked back then about prolonged mandatory detention as well as the government's intervention in Northern Territory indigenous communities. Very little has changed since then, with the consequences being played out for all to see on the nightly news.

People become homeless for many reasons, most of which are not of their own making, but to lose your home, family, friends, employment, educational opportunities, community networks, cultural identity, country itself, is to lose your sense of place in the world. To be so displaced, to have nothing of your own, nothing familiar, only adds to the trauma from which you’ve fled. You lose your sense of identity, your individuality, you become yet another nameless face on yet another boat.

In The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy wrote of the disenfranchisement of indigenous cultures.

We’re prisoners of war…we belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough….to matter.

What an indictment on our government, on us as a country, on us as individuals, if we care so little that those in dire need of a safe haven just don’t matter.

BATTLEFIELDS BIG AND SMALL

The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena, but the small clearing of each heart. Yann Martel – Life of Pi

Have had this quote on my fridge for several years, a constant reminder that even in the light of huge conflicts being waged around the world, we all still have to face inner battles on a daily basis in order to face the world with any sort of integrity.

Prior to the presidential election in Nigeria on April 16 three nationally recognised youth leaders appeared on Nigerian television praising the country’s young people for their exemplary conduct during the parliamentary elections the previous week. One we know of who is part of the national youth monitoring team for the elections appealed to young people to not get caught up in any potential violent activity which might be instigated by politicians intent on their own agenda rather than working towards cohesion and progress within Nigeria.

With high hopes for a positive outcome from the election, everything turned on its head within two days as incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan’s main rival Mohammadu Buhari rejected the outcome of the election. In almost no time at all violence erupted, with the political animosity taking on a religious dimension, as Muslim supporters of Buhari went on a rampage burning cars, buildings, churches and pursuing Christian supporters of Goodluck Jonathan in what they declared a holy war.

In the midst of all this our friend who has a deep love for his people and seeks to build community in villages and towns and care for those who are marginalized, was in a dire situation. In the three days and nights it took before troops arrived to restore peace, he and other Christians feared for their lives as young people were sought out and killed. Despite his experience in community and youth work he found his core values challenged, a very confronting experience for him. I’ll let him tell it in his own words.

During that period I was very annoyed, I was filled with hatred and vengeance, I had wanted to kill any Moslem on sight. I kept asking the question: what wrong did we do? Is it a crime to be a Christian in a secular state like Nigeria? The innocent people that were killed what was their crime?

But I asked myself the tough question: what will Christ want me to do? He wants me to be a peacemaker. He was innocent but was declared guilty and sentenced to death. I have put the past incidents behind me. I have come to look at this from the perspective that this trouble was caused by people who don’t want Nigeria as a country to move forward. I have forgiven them personally and have looked at what steps to take towards reconciliation and National healing.

It will take a long time for things to return to normal…I don’t know what I am feeling right now but we’ve got to be strong. Please pray for us as we look at ways to bring lasting peace, reconciliation, and development in Nigeria.

To see gains in community work go backwards, to see the Cholera Relief Effort come to a grinding halt after the recent cholera outbreak, to see relationships and networks fractured, would make it easy for many to throw up their hands and walk away and leave the mess to someone else. But our mate is not giving up. The community looks to him for leadership, and despite his feelings of inadequacy in the light of the riots and the task ahead of bringing healing and a lasting peace, he is not backing away.

To confront the dilemma of choosing to care for those who only days before had you literally in their sights, is no small thing. I can only wonder what my choice would be if my life was threatened. Finding the right response in such a situation is to embark on a minefield, no pun intended, but to deal with the myriad conflicting emotions and values and overpowering survival instinct, having to make decisions with little or no warning, I’m certainly not one who’s going to judge the actions of another under such duress.

Most of us will never have to make such a decision, but wherever we confront situations where our values are challenged, where injustice is staring us right in the face, how are we going to respond? How am I going to respond? I can wax lyrical about what I think I might do, but unless I’ve really done the work on the inside that gives me a solid foundation from which to live, the positive outcomes I would like to see happen out there, in the public arena, will never happen.

Would I be able to put self interest aside and reply with a resounding “yes” to the tough questions like our mate in Nigeria faces? Confronting to say the least.

THE MULTICULTURAL CHOOKYARD

In the light of the relentless incidences of racial, ethnic and religious tension and persecution around the globe, I had to smile the other day when I dropped off my food scraps to my friend’s chooks. No sooner had the peelings hit the ground and the chooks were foraging, what should stroll up and join them for breakfast, in broad daylight no less, but a female possum.

I made a rather stern suggestion that she get lost, only to discover she is actually blind and pregnant and has been hanging round for months gleaning what she can from the pickings delivered by friends and neighbours. The chooks appear to tolerate her presence quite well, and don’t seem the least perturbed at sharing either their home or their food.

Presumably without the presence of a developed brain which can reason and calculate all manner of other clever things, here were two very disparate species content to live side by side, sharing space and resources without feeling the need to dominate or drive the other away. We humans on the other hand, with so much resource and knowledge and reasoning power, seem hell bent on erecting barriers, excluding what is unknown and therefore a supposed threat, challenging those who don’t see eye to eye with us, and avoiding those who look different, dress different, talk different, smell different, worship different, and whatever else it might be that prevents us seeing beyond what for us is an obstacle.

True, the possum was blind, but she was still very aware she was on someone else’s turf, and no doubt thankful for permission to stay without fear of eviction. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt us to be blind once in a while to the differences we see in others, and given the chance to rub shoulders a little more closely with those we feel awkward with or threatened by, we might actually discover in the process that real people are involved here, and that the awkwardness and suspicion they may also feel can be overcome and have a positive outcome.

And not just tolerance of each other, but a better understanding and a willingness to be open to something and someone outside our normal sphere of what is comfortable.

To steal a line from Elvis, we can’t go on together with suspicious minds. And another from the Bible, where the way a nation and its people treat their widows, orphans and aliens is the measure by which they are judged. It doesn't take much to extrapolate that into the current equivalent of widows, single parents, homeless kids, neglected kids, refugees, victims of every persuasion.

If a few chooks can take a blind pregnant possum under their wing, then surely we're capable of the same.

OUT OF THE ASHES - PART 2

Oh how I love the “specials” table at Birchalls in Launceston, my most frequented destination when I’m running low on reading material. I picked up another gem recently, I am Fifteen and I Do not want to Die by Christine Arnothy. Born in Hungary in 1930, this first novel by Arnothy chronicles her experiences as a fifteen year old during the siege of Budapest in the dying months of the Second World War, and the journey over the ensuing years to find freedom and a new life.

With Budapest occupied by the Germans, and with Russian soldiers encircling the city, the resulting barrage from both sides left the city in ruins and tens of thousands dead. Retreating to the basement of their apartment building, Christine spent several months with her family in what had been the coal scullery, while other occupants of the building created space for themselves in the dark, cramped conditions, hoping and praying that their makeshift haven would stay intact as the bombs rained down, taking out several apartments above them.

I often struggle to read biographies and autobiographies, and even memoirs can be a bit dry, but Arnothy’s account of those turbulent years in her life is written with such poignancy that you have no difficulty seeing through her eyes the horror and brutality of war, as well as a young girl’s dreams for a future where such despair and destruction can be replaced with hope.

Thrust into living together in the basement, the residents find they have to rely on each other for their survival, and surrounded by this mixture of people Christine finds solace in writing, recording her observations of how each react to their privations and destitute circumstances. Managing to escape Budapest with her parents, Christine spends the next three years in rural Hungary, then despite the war having ended, they finally take the arduous journey into Austria as refugees, crossing frontiers with no identity papers, risking detention and deportation.

Christine’s dream destination is France, having long harboured a love of France and what she imagines life there would be like. Succeeding in 1949 to leave Vienna, her dreams are dashed as she spends the next years in virtual poverty in Paris, scratching out a living while dreaming of being a writer, finding eventual refuge with her young husband and newly born daughter in Belgium.

The publication of I am Fifteen and I Do not want to Die when she was just twenty four years old thrust her into the limelight, earning her accolades worldwide for what was regarded a masterpiece of war literature. Sponsored by the French daily newspaper Le Parisien Libere, she was awarded Le Grand Prix Verite in 1956 (The Grand Prize for Truth).

What amazed me throughout was her belief that there was more to her life than the tragic events of war. Not to be defined by it or overcome by fear, danger, deprivation, starvation, and the stark reminder of the images of war in her dreams and memories, the little flame of hope that a future beckoned always flickered, however small.

With my thoughts recently concentrating on the numerous natural disasters occurring both here in Australia and overseas, I have the utmost admiration for those who have had to literally pick themselves up out of the ashes and ruins of what was once their life, to forge a whole new one.

Where do you go for help? Where does one’s identity go when faced with such an overwhelming task? There are those who are so traumatised they cannot face even the simplest task, and that is quite understandable, whereas others seem to be able to just roll up their sleeves and get on with it. Undoubtedly, even for them there’s a lot more going on under the surface than they might let on. Disasters can bring out both the best and worst in people, so to see others not touched by tragedy going out of their way to help those affected make a new start and get some sort of normality back into their life, keeps that faint light of hope burning.

Christine’s flight from Hungary to what her family believed would be a life of freedom and safety has its present day sequel. In no matter what corner of the globe, every violent conflict produces its share of refugees, ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. As if that experience isn’t traumatic enough, they then often have to battle for years before being able to reclaim their lives and start a new life in a foreign country where unfortunately many feel isolated and unwanted.

Like the tee shirt says, How far would you go to save your child’s life?

I know I don’t want to be the one to snuff out someone else’s flickering candle.