Awareness Rising

Over the past 21 months, I have been a part of many meetings, trainings, discussions, and seminars.  The common denominator, in the end, is the firm belief that the real problem is everyone outside the room: from the colonisers, to the Banyamulenge, to the president, to the civil servants, to the NGOs, to the planning/implementation/monitoring/evaluation process of any given project, to the village chiefs, to the villagers, to the gas in the lake.

Everything is the problem.

Everything but you and me.  And I’m not too sure about you.

So I sit in these meetings, biting my sharp tongue and waiting for an opening to set up my soapbox in a rattling land cruiser, quiet office, or along the obstacle course that we call a road.

Recently, one such seminar proved to be a surprise.  Headed by the Provincial Division of Health, we were learning how to manage stress in the workplace.  The oily civil servant serving as our facilitator had firmly pushed the full responsibility of funding all public services onto the shoulders of local NGOs and, in consequence, their donors.  Only one doctor, a wizened character with a disturbing tendency to cackle, was willing to face the truth.  As I fully expect to resemble him in the future – with bulging red eyes, a complete disregard for human relations, and unparalleled rage released in the form of inappropriate giggles – I took notes and have tried to quote him as best I can.

“The community approach?!  Community approach?!  It doesn’t work!  Who is the community?!  It’s us!  It’s our responsibility as civil servants to change our government – to charge our state to take responsibility of its people and services...  There are always good results [with projects] – as long as there is [financial] support!  But what happens after the support?!  This is what we should always be thinking about.  Think about what will follow:  What will we do after?  We won’t receive aid forever...  No country has ever been developed through aid!  Never!  ...I’m looking at you – look me in the eyes.  What do we do now?!  You’re right:  This work requires a lot of money!  Who will give you this money?!”

After a rousing monologue - liberally interspersed with both our triumphant cackles and the frantic scratching of my pen - as my coordinator regarded me in fond exasperation, the room fell silent.  Our facilitator tried to rally.

“Look, I’ve noted this problem from the beginning.  The state just does not have the means--”

“You have the means; you don’t have the will,” stated one woman firmly.

The room at large hid their smirks as the deflated facilitator continued to gurgle excuses. 

Over our lunch break, I shook the eccentric doctor warmly by the hand and thanked him for his honesty.  My coordinator interjected that this was the sort of thing I rambled on about all the time.

Now she’ll never shut up was heavily implied. 

He is not wrong.

But it was back to business as usual in our other cluster meetings – led by various UN groups that try to unify the many actors working in a given field to ensure maximum protection and care of civilians.  When one facilitator noted that a lot of money was soon to arrive in this province due to incredible human rights violations in the south by the national army and armed groups alike, the excitement of the NGO representatives who worked in that area was palpable; the others projected a general air of resignation, content to hope that militias in their respective provinces would soon start attacking women and children or burning villages so that they, too, could keep their jobs. 

There seemed to be a general increase in attacks by local militias in the recent past, although it’s hard to gauge; sometimes it’s a shock to balance the experience of hearing of, for example, 90 rapes in a certain zone, and knowing that a significant portion of the population of this city grins indulgently at the possibility of election-related violence as though they are mentally in Geneva.  The most bizarre story this month was the attack of women by local militias on the hunt for gold and other valuables in - you guessed it – vaginas; now there’s an unbeatable Family Feud response.

For years, we’ve thought the family jewels to be the sole property of men, but they’re on to us, ladies. 

As a good Indian girl, I tend to wear my flashy jewellery on the outside, where it can  blind everyone in my vicinity  be properly appreciated.  But who is to say that a pregnant mother of 5 in a village in central Africa isn’t carrying around a bar of solid gold in her vajay-jay?  Hmm?  Well?

That’s right – the proof is in the p--  Well, it’s somewhere, at any rate.  Unless it’s not, but you never know until you check; it’s always in the last place you look, amiright? 

The final word was that, in light of the holiday season, the number of these attacks is expected to rise.

Well, little Timmy really wants a Hot Wheels this year...  Hi, ho; hi, ho – it’s off to work I go...

Breaking news also informed us that the national army set fire to 800 homes in a certain area.  Luckily, the homes had already been abandoned – I assume due to the lack of insurance for Crazy People in Uniform Crazily Setting Things on Fire – but now the refugees (who were thought to be rebels and thus undeserving of personal property) have nowhere to return, thus requiring more aid.

Go team!

At another meeting, we discussed the apparent decrease in human rights violations in the last month.  The speaker, earnestly presenting a set of data that could have been found under a rock in the land called Honalee for all I knew, seriously hypothesized that this was due to the deployment of the national army in zones heretofore controlled by armed groups.

A roomful of humanitarian agents, representing around 35 NGOS, sniggered. 

I’m sorry if all this seems cynical; I certainly don’t mean to make light of human suffering.  But dark humour is my way of dealing with the reports above and simultaneous knowledge of a winter wonderland of candy canes and peppermint hot chocolate. 

My friends and coworkers have a similar approach, with a healthy dose of blind hope, which springs eternal – in growing families, in students who continue to go to school, to graduate, in workers who spend their lives moving from contract to contract.  But I’m afraid that hope changes nothing without active heads, hearts, and hands.  Without the awareness that the responsibility for a failed state is shared with parents who accept financial compensation in return for their daughter’s rape, with humanitarian workers who steal from that poverty-stricken family to feed their own, with government employees who base hiring practices on family trees rather than degrees, with tribes who kill over territory that could be destroyed by the uniformed army of their own country, with donors who place tighter controls on reports than they do on moral standards. 

Until this changes, we will have nothing but a collection of impossible ideals in this vast country – we’re all looking at a blueprint for total independence, but building on a foundation of pointing fingers.

You have heard it said that with great power comes great responsibility, but truly I tell you – with great responsibility comes great power.