BOOK REVIEW - Left to Tell

I recently read the book Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin. This was an incredibly powerful book. This is the first person account of a women who survived the horrific mass genocide that occurred in Rawanda in 1994. She did a lot more than survive that unimaginable atrocity. She emerged from the experience with a deep connection to God and found the power to forgive ... not just forgive those who said something nasty or slighted her in some way socially, but to truly forgive people who had brutally hacked her family to death with machetes. This woman does not sugar coat what happened. In harrowing detail she describes how her homeland unravelled into senseless violence that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of her people.
(From BBC News: "Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days")

She goes on to describe how she hid from the killing spree that murdered most of her family, spending 91 days huddled in a small bathroom with seven other women, nearly starving, waiting for the maddness in the street to stop.

During that time the thing that allowed this woman to hold on to her sanity was to immerse herself in prayer and scripture study. She gave over her whole soul to knowing God as everything she new unravelled around her. She rode through waves of terror and rage, absolute shock and horror - and yet came out the other side having found a level of peace that almost defies understanding.

This book raised so many questions for me.

How is it possible that human beings are capable of such senseless violence toward people they knew and cared about?

How is it possible for anyone to fully forgive that level of insane cruelty?

Why is it that so much of the world turned their backs on this atrocity, allowing hundreds of thousands to die without interveneing and yet when WHITE faces are the ones being murdered in other parts of the world (Such as Bosnia)we are so much quicker to step in.

How much did US policy contribute to what happened in Rawanda? Who's version do I believe? (Michael Chossudovsky gives some very unsettling accounts in Part II of Chapter 7 entitled "Economic Genocide in Rwanda", of the Second Edition of The Globalisation of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, 2003. This text is in part based on the results of an earlier study conducted by the author together with Belgian economist and Senator Pierre Galand on the use of Rwanda's 1990-94 external debt to finance the military and paramilitary. )

This book makes me seriously ponder many global issues. But it also moves me to reflect on my own faith and willingness to forgive those who have harmed me - in matters from the trivial to the profound.

The writing is clear. The message is clearer. We may be utterly powerless to control what happens TO us, but it is entirely up to each one of us to determine what happens WITHIN us in response to whatever challenges life brings.

Powerful book that I will be thinking about for a very long time.

LANDMINES

Up to my usual insomnia tricks, tonight I stayed up to watch the movie "Beyond Borders" with Angelina Jolie and and Clive Owen. I'm familiar with the reviews that call this flick a dog. Still, for me, it was very powerful on so many levels. If you are not familiar with the movie - the basic premise is summed up HERE.

As I watched the movie I thought about a lot of different things. But what got to me the most was not the scenes of famine and war in Ethiopia. It was not the horror of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It was not the brutality of Chechnya.

It was the landmines.

I first became aware of the seriousness of the problem of landmines back in the early 90's when I participated in a Michigan International Development Outreach Network (MIDEON) conference at Michigan State University.

MIDEON was formed by faculty members from Michigan universities and community colleges who were concerned with teaching international development issues. Rather than present information to the regular student population, they focused on teaching other teachers. They provided a forum to exchange ideas and experiences, sponsor workshops, and promote the idea of development education. The idea was that by planting seeds of awareness into the minds and hearts of educators the impact would be far reaching as those teachers would go on to teach differently from there on.

It worked. The summer institute that I attended had a very powerful affect on how I think and how I teach.

One of the issues we talked about A LOT at that conference was the problem of landmines.

The average American does not usually think a whole lot about landmines. I do. But what have I actually DONE between that long ago training and now? Not nearly enough.

There are so many issues in the world today clamouring for our time, our attention, our money. Save the whales, recycle, stop global warming, plant a tree, the list goes on and on. From the old posters of Smokey the Bear saying "Only YOU can Prevent Forest Fires" to the fight against AIDS to the war on drugs...there are so many social problems it can make a person's head spin.

It's easy to see why some people get to overwhelmed by it all they numb out, become immobilized.

I am reminded of the time my father took all us kids to see Ringling Brother's and Barnum & Baily Three Ring Circus when I was a child. Most of my siblings had a fabulous time. Not me. I was so terribly frustrated. To me, it was awful. If I watched the clowns I missed the bears. If I watched the bears I missed the trapeze lady. If I watched the trapeze lady I missed the dancing horses. If I watched the ...oh, you get the idea. No matter what I focused on, the sense that I was missing out on something truly spectacular just ate away at me. I finally just cried and went to sleep to avoid the total sense of overwhelm and anxiety.

Sometimes, when I try to support worthy causes, I feel much the same way. I believe in microfincance, so I share dollars with Kiva. Every month I also donate dollars to Humanitarian Aid and the Perpetual Education Fund. I give blood to the Red Cross. I help pick up litter along our local highway. I also volunteer my time to help specific individuals in need.

But no matter how much I do, there is so much more that goes undone. Sometimes that truly haunts me.

The idealist in me wants to make a difference, remembering the words of Margaret Mead who said: "Never doubt that a few committed individuals can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."

The more pragmatic side of me says to remember the Starfish story, and to take solace in the fact that I DO make a difference to those particular people whose lives I touch.

But sometimes when I remember the burning desire I once had to get involved in the issue of Landmines (or other social causes that caught my passion in my youth) and then face up to how little I've really done I can't help but hang my head in chagrin.

We grow older. Our priorities shift. That's natural, I suppose. Or maybe it's just a cop out.

I guess for me, the challenge is to stay AWAKE and present to the problems around me and continue to reach out and take action in whatever ways I can, instead of going numb with frustration or overwhelm and turning my back on it all as I did at the circus as a child. It's so much more pleasant to focus on pretty things. There is a time and place for that. But it's all a question of balance. And if I'm not willing to give some of my focus, my time, my resources, to the ugly things of this world, then I become part of the problem. How much is enough? That's something each person answers for them self, I suppose. For me...I need to do more.

I just need to remember the words I have posted on my Kiva Lender page - a quote from Edward Everett Hale who said: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

Myth vs. Reality

I have just finished listening to the audiobook “Mayflower: A story of Courage, Community and War” by Nathaniel Philbrik. It was a powerful, well told tale that gave credit where credit was due to those early settlers we know as the pilgrims However, with impeccable research, similar to that in his earlier work "In the Heart of the Sea" about the whale ship Essex - the true story upon which Moby Dick is based - Philbrick takes painstaking care to reveal as much as records (rather than legend) can show up about who those early Pilgrims were and what the legacy was they left behind.

Like literally thousands of others, I can trace my lineage directly back to William Brewster, one of the spiritual leaders of the Pilgrims, so I've always felt a bit of bond with that boat that brought him to this country. One of my cousins still has a plate that has been carefully handed down in our family which is said to have come over on the Mayflower.

However, the tale that Philbrick unfolds has more to do with genocide of the native peoples than it does of friendly folks standing around celebrating the first thanksgiving.

While I am more than a little impressed by the powerful words of the Mayflower Compact which my ancestor signed and may very well have helped originate, I cannot help but be troubled by the repeating cycle of war and mayhem, blatant genocide and arrogant exploiting that were part and parcel of the Anglo takeover of this country.

Whether we are talking about the mass extermination of groups of native peoples in this land, the legacy of Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia, the horrors of Rwanda, or current events in Darfur, misery and killing seem to be a reoccurring pattern of human history.

I think of how we have this romanticized notion of who the pilgrims were and what their relationship with the Native peoples were like. Reality is far from myth we want to believe.

It isn't just national histories that we twist to shed a better light on our forbearers. I think of how I have at times created my own myths - like what my first marriage was about, the pictures I hold in my head about my college years, or the meaning I give to other significant events or relationships I have been a part of. No one likes to think of themselves as lazy, unkind, petty or cruel. So we mute our memories of our misdeeds and shed the spotlight of recall on our more honorable moments. We build up stories and legends in our head that can take on the power of myth that Joseph Campbell speaks about.

Lately I've been trying to sort out some of those distortions in my own world...piece by piece looking at what things I believe about myself, the world, and my place in it. What things have I made up because it was more comfortable to believe them? What truths have I avoided? What have I exaggerated? What can I hold on to for keeps?

Philbrick did his research by going through historic documents. My task is a bit more complex than that since most of my "records" are memories...which are by their very nature slippery, elusive things.

When I get together with my siblings we often talk of past events from our growing up years. Rarely do we recall those happenings in the same way. So is truth relative? Is MY truth valid because it impacted me the way I imprinted it even if it may or may not be historically accurate? Or what of cases where I have heard a certain family (or national) story so often it FEELS like a memory even if there is no possible way I could have been there?

I think that what we believe about our history - both personal and political DOES matter. Only by being willing to wrestle with truth and self deception can we ever fully come to terms with making sounder choices for our future, in our families and in the world.

(prints of the above painting of the Mayflower by Mike Haywood can be purchased HERE)