Feeling Small and Helpless These Days

      There was an article in the Washington Post on Friday written by a man who fled Kosovo when he was 16 years old. It contained quote that I Immediately understood and have been trying to convey in my real life, which sadly, seems to contain a few (thankfully only a few)  fearful, hateful racists.  It was this:

        "Abandoning your home during wartime is not a choice or a political opportunity. It’s a survival instinct, a frantic attempt to protect yourself and your children from violence, starvation or death. "

      I am tired of people with such small imaginations and such luxurious lives that they cannot fathom what suffering must be like, and worse, cannot even consider helping. I am furious that harper's first response was that continuing the war effort in Syria was the most helpful thing Canada can do. I wondered why no one commented on the fact that we had just agreed to sell a whole bunch of arms to Saudi Arabia. (I hate Stephen Harper and his supporters with the heat of a thousand suns.  He is a small, small nasty man with no heart and I will never forgive him for the social damage he has done to this country.)

      I can go to meetings to get 2 freaking years worth of paperwork started to be able to bring a family to my community.  I can give money to the Red Cross.  What I want is to do this:

        I want to get between all those people and those bullets.  I want to shout "STOP!" And what real use would that be? How can I get between a whole neighbourhood and a barrel bomb?  

     When I read about people who think the refugees are a bunch of jihadists and that North America is in some kind of peril I think it is nothing but a self fulfilling prophecy.  I think the more we react to this situation with hate and fear and unkindness, the more reason we give them to fear and hate us. There has been  a great deal of war and destruction throughout history in Europe, Asia and Africa. I often wonder how long it will be before it comes here. Because it will come here.  

      Climate change is a huge factor in what is going on in Syria.  Climate change is driving great masses of people out of their homes. No nation is addressing its contributions to climate change quickly or thoroughly enough that we will ever stop that. When our homes become utterly hostile to our existence, we have no choice but to leave.  And when we in the north who have NOTHING BUT SPACE! for Christ's sake choose to turn the fleeing away, I think we are only ensuring that we will eventually be met with violence.  

     The right thing to do is feed and shelter and care for our fellow persons. 

     The whole history of humans is about subjugation to some small, hateful group.  It is always a struggle for some kind of freedom.  I doubt that its going to change.  Maybe I'm an idiot, but when I don't know what to do, I ask myself, "what would love do?" And then I just do that.  Today I just feel so monstrously impotent.  Some day I hope I will figure out which tank I need to stand in front of.  

     Last weekend Michael Enright played a reading of Warsan Shire's poem "Home."  I knew two lines of it, but I had never heard the whole thing.  

Home - by Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you

breath bloody in their throats

the boy you went to school with

who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory

is holding a gun bigger than his body

you only leave home

when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you

fire under feet

hot blood in your belly

it’s not something you ever thought of doing

until the blade burnt threats into

your neck

and even then you carried the anthem under

your breath

only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets

sobbing as each mouthful of paper

made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,

that no one puts their children in a boat

unless the water is safer than the land

no one burns their palms

under trains

beneath carriages

no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck

feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled

means something more than journey.

no one crawls under fences

no one wants to be beaten

pitied

no one chooses refugee camps

or strip searches where your

body is left aching

or prison,

because prison is safer

than a city of fire

and one prison guard

in the night

is better than a truckload

of men who look like your father

no one could take it

no one could stomach it

no one skin would be tough enough

the

go home blacks

refugees

dirty immigrants

asylum seekers

sucking our country dry

niggers with their hands out

they smell strange

savage

messed up their country and now they want

to mess ours up

how do the words

the dirty looks

roll off your backs

maybe because the blow is softer

than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender

than fourteen men between

your legs

or the insults are easier

to swallow

than rubble

than bone

than your child body

in pieces.

i want to go home,

but home is the mouth of a shark

home is the barrel of the gun

and no one would leave home

unless home chased you to the shore

unless home told you

to quicken your legs

leave your clothes behind

crawl through the desert

wade through the oceans

drown

save

be hunger

beg

forget pride

your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

saying-

leave,

run away from me now

i dont know what i’ve become

but i know that anywhere

is safer than here