Are you a refugee who sticks to your clan because you feel at ease with those who know what you’ve been through?
And you think that the rest of the world would never understand it anyway?
You believe “they” wouldn’t even understand your jokes, let alone your dreams and fears?
Of course, your fellows in war, or whatever, will understand you better but is that all there really is to friendship? Don’t you think you’re missing a lot if you just stick with one group of people gathered around the same idea or need? Aren’t you as an individual made up of a little more than only one experience no matter how much it influenced you?
Or you may be one of those people who instead of sticking their nose into other people’s business and life prefer to think about who they are and what they are here for?
Well, that is a good start, I would say, a precondition for any self-improvement! However, sitting alone in your room, mulling over things and pondering might not yield many answers to your questions. Are you even aware of what you like and don’t like? How can you know whether you like mango if you have never tried one? How can you explore yourself if there is no one you can relate to? The physicists would put it like this:
Imagine yourself alone in the midst of nothingness and then try to tell me how large you are. (Eddington, A. S. The Nature of the Physical World).
People often forget that through meeting other people not only do you discover what connects you but also what differs you. How else would you know what makes you distinct and one of a kind? And how far do you expect to get in this self-exploration process if you restrict yourself to hanging out with people with whom you only have certain things in common? And if this always happens to be the same group of people?
Just as you can recognise that you were (un)fortunate to get your nose from your father or flat feet from your mother so you can recognise little pieces of yourself in your friends. The more different these pieces are, the more puzzles you’ve put together. The only downside may be birthdays and other social gatherings when all these people you have something in common with are, well, seated next to one another only to discover that they are mutually not very compatible.
However, as birthdays are once a year, I think the idea should not be altogether rejected. It came clear to me after reading a book by Anthony Storr on the Integrity of the Personality. After describing the process of how a young soul gradually acquires its form within a family, he continues to follow its lifelong development and emphasises the role other people also play in modelling it. I think the following passage sums it all up nicely:
Personality is like a harp with many strings. Not all the strings are plucked at once and some may lie silent throughout life. Others may be set into vibration by the impact of personalities with the same frequency.
The beauty and the complexity of the melody you will produce is therefore not just up to you but rather up to you in relation to other people. Each and every person that has entered our lives and stayed there at least for a little while has struck a chord or two, added a few tones, minor or major, some already familiar and some never heard before.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The music of a war child
If you are a teenage refugee, lucky enough to be able to continue your education in the exile, you’re likely to be confronted with some or all of the following questions and comments:
And the thoughts usually never spoken out loudly but commonly simplified into “hm, well, no, I don’t know...” would be:
In fact, at the time, having a boyfriend was the last thing on my mind. Namely, the differences between me and other non-refugee kids were not only in the appearance. Even greater discrepancies were obvious on the inside.
An average teenager detests school and looks for every possible way to escape it, spends minimum time with the book and most of the time with friends. According to what I’ve seen, an average refugee teenager usually reacts to school and education in one of two very opposite ways:
They either completely give up on everything in life including school, thinking “What the hell it matters when everything is falling apart? Why bother with school, only criminals and war heroes prosper.”
Or they more clearly than their peers see education as a means to help them out of a life they don’t like, the only tool left for realisation of their future dreams.
So you can imagine my misery when I heard that I might not continue my school semester because of the war escalating, and nothing made me as horrified as the possibility of missing a school year. What a teenager!? After the experience of losing everything over night, school seemed like the last tiny straw of future hope and I hang on to it desperately.
Unfortunately, the majority of refugees falls into the first category and nobody is there to set some values back into their heads. There is nobody to encourage these kids to fight for themselves and not to give up, not to waste their talents and spend the rest of their lives in bitter disappointment and despondence. To make it worse, such hopeless attitude is often encouraged by equally disoriented parents and the society resembling the Titanic crowd concerned only about saving their own lives, even if it means stepping over dead bodies. In such circumstances, you are a nuisance to everybody.
One of the most moving and convincing confessions I have heard of a refugee struggle and the importance of education was given by Emmanuel Jal, a war child refugee speaking at one of the TED conferences. He was lucky enough to get some education and smart enough to realise the importance of it.
So, what sort of music do you like?
What’s your favourite band?
Fancy a smoke?
You don’t smoke?!
(After scanning you from top to bottom) “Interesting” shoes, where did you get those!?
How about plucking your eyebrows?
Where do you go out?
Why don’t you go out?
Got a boyfriend?
What did you say? You’ve got such a funny accent!
Why are you so quiet?
And the thoughts usually never spoken out loudly but commonly simplified into “hm, well, no, I don’t know...” would be:
It’s hard to tell about my music preferences after a year or more of living mainly without electricity or otherwise having a priority of listening to the war field reports and how’s the enemy progressing, which was occasionally interrupted with war chants that were supposed to encourage people for the fight, boost up the moral and the like. At night I would often fall asleep listening to the guns and cannons roaring and thumping here and there.
When I last went to a normal school we were still kids. How come everybody is now wearing make-up, peeling off all the traces of hair (except for those on the scalp) and smoking? Did I miss a decade? I feel like Sylvester Stallone playing a frozen cop who wakes up after 20 years or so.
Well, I don’t have any clothes of my own. I didn’t have time to pack it up with me and I have no money to go shopping. Especially not for branded ones that are a must have around here. The shoes belonged to my older relative and the sweaters and T-shirts to my brother or again relative. A few have been kindly tailored by my aunt (such as a silky tracksuit made of an enemy flag).
I don’t really feel like going out in a weird looking clothes and wouldn’t have money for drinks anyway.
You happen to speak in a funny way too, you know. But you were lucky not to be uprooted and displaced to a place where you’d be a minority. Can I finish a sentence without somebody repeating words after me, if you mind? Oh, I guess it’s easier not to speak at all or only when I have to.
Not having a boyfriend is quite self-explanatory in the above mentioned circumstances.
In fact, at the time, having a boyfriend was the last thing on my mind. Namely, the differences between me and other non-refugee kids were not only in the appearance. Even greater discrepancies were obvious on the inside.
An average teenager detests school and looks for every possible way to escape it, spends minimum time with the book and most of the time with friends. According to what I’ve seen, an average refugee teenager usually reacts to school and education in one of two very opposite ways:
They either completely give up on everything in life including school, thinking “What the hell it matters when everything is falling apart? Why bother with school, only criminals and war heroes prosper.”
Or they more clearly than their peers see education as a means to help them out of a life they don’t like, the only tool left for realisation of their future dreams.
So you can imagine my misery when I heard that I might not continue my school semester because of the war escalating, and nothing made me as horrified as the possibility of missing a school year. What a teenager!? After the experience of losing everything over night, school seemed like the last tiny straw of future hope and I hang on to it desperately.
Unfortunately, the majority of refugees falls into the first category and nobody is there to set some values back into their heads. There is nobody to encourage these kids to fight for themselves and not to give up, not to waste their talents and spend the rest of their lives in bitter disappointment and despondence. To make it worse, such hopeless attitude is often encouraged by equally disoriented parents and the society resembling the Titanic crowd concerned only about saving their own lives, even if it means stepping over dead bodies. In such circumstances, you are a nuisance to everybody.
One of the most moving and convincing confessions I have heard of a refugee struggle and the importance of education was given by Emmanuel Jal, a war child refugee speaking at one of the TED conferences. He was lucky enough to get some education and smart enough to realise the importance of it.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Too familiar to hate
A refugee girl was telling her life story on TV when the interviewer asked her:
“How do you feel about the people who belong to the nationality that caused you and your family so much pain?”
and the girl answered:
“I know that people who belong to the same nationality are not all good or bad, but I still feel very uncomfortable with the issue. I cannot forgive or forget what happened…”.
If couple of years ago somebody had asked me the same question, my answer would have been similar. And, oh wonder, in her case I was one of those people she was referring to! My nationality gives her creeps and nightmares! She would be uncomfortable in my company! Somebody sees me as a threat!
To make it even more absurd, in the first part of the interview the girl talked about the lack of understanding people belonging to her nationality showed for refugees such as herself. And yet, there I was, her much feared and anxiety giving fellow human, sitting and thinking how familiar it all was to me. I would have known much of what she’d been through even if she hadn’t said anything further from the word refugee.
It left me wondering about what really connects people. Is it nationality or experience and hardship that you go through?
And what is a nationality after all? Something devised to divide people and make them fight? Would this world be simpler and more peaceful without it?
Perhaps in a fairytale if you ask me. As long as there are greedy minds there will be wars. People are not evil but are easy to manipulate and anything can serve the purpose: nationality, religion, colour of skin, shape of eyes, nose, toes, you name it. I see people as kids with beards, mustaches, breasts and grown-up voices. They've learnt a lot but are still quite naive. You can easily trick them into believing anything you want and then also doing anything you want, even if it is hating, fighting, killing...
However, connecting opposite sides, listening to the life stories of the "supposed-to-be-enemies" can help you realise that both you and your neighbours had been manipulated into hating each other because the stage was perfectly set by a group of manipulation experts, and then sure you can refuse to be a part of it! Killings cannot be easily written off as childish behaviour and the ravaging mass of deluded people is much to be feared of. Yet, no matter how fanatically deviant the world may seem at the time, you should always keep in mind that some human goodness lies hidden back and works silently and anonymously.
After all, is it possible to be enemies with somebody who speaks your feelings and thoughts even better than perhaps you would yourself?
“How do you feel about the people who belong to the nationality that caused you and your family so much pain?”
and the girl answered:
“I know that people who belong to the same nationality are not all good or bad, but I still feel very uncomfortable with the issue. I cannot forgive or forget what happened…”.
If couple of years ago somebody had asked me the same question, my answer would have been similar. And, oh wonder, in her case I was one of those people she was referring to! My nationality gives her creeps and nightmares! She would be uncomfortable in my company! Somebody sees me as a threat!
To make it even more absurd, in the first part of the interview the girl talked about the lack of understanding people belonging to her nationality showed for refugees such as herself. And yet, there I was, her much feared and anxiety giving fellow human, sitting and thinking how familiar it all was to me. I would have known much of what she’d been through even if she hadn’t said anything further from the word refugee.
It left me wondering about what really connects people. Is it nationality or experience and hardship that you go through?
And what is a nationality after all? Something devised to divide people and make them fight? Would this world be simpler and more peaceful without it?
Perhaps in a fairytale if you ask me. As long as there are greedy minds there will be wars. People are not evil but are easy to manipulate and anything can serve the purpose: nationality, religion, colour of skin, shape of eyes, nose, toes, you name it. I see people as kids with beards, mustaches, breasts and grown-up voices. They've learnt a lot but are still quite naive. You can easily trick them into believing anything you want and then also doing anything you want, even if it is hating, fighting, killing...
However, connecting opposite sides, listening to the life stories of the "supposed-to-be-enemies" can help you realise that both you and your neighbours had been manipulated into hating each other because the stage was perfectly set by a group of manipulation experts, and then sure you can refuse to be a part of it! Killings cannot be easily written off as childish behaviour and the ravaging mass of deluded people is much to be feared of. Yet, no matter how fanatically deviant the world may seem at the time, you should always keep in mind that some human goodness lies hidden back and works silently and anonymously.
After all, is it possible to be enemies with somebody who speaks your feelings and thoughts even better than perhaps you would yourself?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Who is your fellow Martian, oops, I mean refugee?
If you look up the word in a dictionary, it might give you a clue http://www.thefreedictionary.com/refugee but I'm sure it will still sound pretty abstract. What danger is it about? Do these people just walk away? Maybe they did something bad so they were rightfully kicked out of their country? Are you to trust these people?
Try to imagine your life changes over night. Or maybe not over night but too fast for you to keep up with all the calamities that strike one after another. People react to it differently but a complete shock is unavoidable. It's like somebody plunges your head under the water and just when it pops back to surface the hand pushes you back again leaving you no time to grasp some air in. Again and again. You wonder if your life before was a dream or the moment you are in is a nightmare.
You might refuse to accept the changes by shutting yourself in and trying to ignore the reality as much as you can, because the reality cannot be for real, right? You can only accept that it is a short period of confusion and madness, similar to a tropical storm that strikes randomly, out of blue, but eventually calms down and then everything slowly gets back to what it used to be. Or as close to it as possible. Of course, it never does, but at that turning point in life it's hard to believe anything else. Too painful. The experience stripes the world off its fancy clothes right in front of your eyes and you stare in disbelief. You never forget the picture and it might take a while before you figure out how to best deal with it.
However, life can only move in one direction and that is forward so sooner or later you must learn to embrace whatever comes your way. People react to pain differently. Some become more inert, some more active, some more observant and tactful and other more angry and resentful. Some seek to fight the universal wrongdoing whereas other seek personal revenge. Perhaps it would help if all of them could work this out together, exchange ideas and compare possible answers?
When I first found myself in a group of people tagged as "refugees" I thought everybody outside this group would without much explaining be familiar with all the emotional luggage that goes along with it and then perhaps show some understanding. It seemed only natural because to a person affected this uninvited turmoil equals a huge global catastrophe and then comes another disappointment when you realise that other people look at you as if you were a Martian. Or even worse, an intruding, threatening and unwelcome Martian.
To be honest, this viewpoint is not far from the truth in some aspects. Refugees are unlike most of their fellow non-refugee humans, lost in time, space and universe and, moreover, depleted of everything they'd learnt about the ways of the world. They have to start from the scratches, not only in finding their new home but in finding their place in this chaotic universe.
Most people don't bother to dig in much further than "Hello Martian" attitude, and yet even those who are willing to share some of their burden are usually just left wandering about those high thick walls people build around their pain.
I've decided to throw some light on this matter hoping that it might help somebody somewhere, whether it be a refugee or not. And it doesn't have to be all that gloomy if you approach any experience as an opportunity to learn and grow, as a personal challenge. This is how, after a lot of brooding and questioning, I've decided to view this substantial part of my life and it made it a whole lot easier.
Oh, by the way, I'll leave out the unimportant details such as my name, family name, nationality, country of origin or exile, continent, planet. The juicy details such as the names of presidents, politicians and other puppets are equally irrelevant for this matter or any other matter if you ask me. They are being given too much publicity anyway.
Try to imagine your life changes over night. Or maybe not over night but too fast for you to keep up with all the calamities that strike one after another. People react to it differently but a complete shock is unavoidable. It's like somebody plunges your head under the water and just when it pops back to surface the hand pushes you back again leaving you no time to grasp some air in. Again and again. You wonder if your life before was a dream or the moment you are in is a nightmare.
You might refuse to accept the changes by shutting yourself in and trying to ignore the reality as much as you can, because the reality cannot be for real, right? You can only accept that it is a short period of confusion and madness, similar to a tropical storm that strikes randomly, out of blue, but eventually calms down and then everything slowly gets back to what it used to be. Or as close to it as possible. Of course, it never does, but at that turning point in life it's hard to believe anything else. Too painful. The experience stripes the world off its fancy clothes right in front of your eyes and you stare in disbelief. You never forget the picture and it might take a while before you figure out how to best deal with it.
However, life can only move in one direction and that is forward so sooner or later you must learn to embrace whatever comes your way. People react to pain differently. Some become more inert, some more active, some more observant and tactful and other more angry and resentful. Some seek to fight the universal wrongdoing whereas other seek personal revenge. Perhaps it would help if all of them could work this out together, exchange ideas and compare possible answers?
When I first found myself in a group of people tagged as "refugees" I thought everybody outside this group would without much explaining be familiar with all the emotional luggage that goes along with it and then perhaps show some understanding. It seemed only natural because to a person affected this uninvited turmoil equals a huge global catastrophe and then comes another disappointment when you realise that other people look at you as if you were a Martian. Or even worse, an intruding, threatening and unwelcome Martian.
To be honest, this viewpoint is not far from the truth in some aspects. Refugees are unlike most of their fellow non-refugee humans, lost in time, space and universe and, moreover, depleted of everything they'd learnt about the ways of the world. They have to start from the scratches, not only in finding their new home but in finding their place in this chaotic universe.
Most people don't bother to dig in much further than "Hello Martian" attitude, and yet even those who are willing to share some of their burden are usually just left wandering about those high thick walls people build around their pain.
I've decided to throw some light on this matter hoping that it might help somebody somewhere, whether it be a refugee or not. And it doesn't have to be all that gloomy if you approach any experience as an opportunity to learn and grow, as a personal challenge. This is how, after a lot of brooding and questioning, I've decided to view this substantial part of my life and it made it a whole lot easier.
Oh, by the way, I'll leave out the unimportant details such as my name, family name, nationality, country of origin or exile, continent, planet. The juicy details such as the names of presidents, politicians and other puppets are equally irrelevant for this matter or any other matter if you ask me. They are being given too much publicity anyway.
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