How brave are you willing to be? {by Laura Fraser}

“We can’t control the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” Quoted in the latest Dog Man, by the incredible Dav Pilkey. (A hero in our house). 

Here in England, the sun’s finally begun to shine.  

And I think to myself: “What a wonderful world...” unless of course, you’re one of the estimated 49.6 million people trapped in modern day slavery, or a child in Palestine, or a young person aged between 16 – 24 here in Britain, whose mental health is felt to be “bad,” or as “bad as it’s ever been.” Nor too, if you’re one of the children, - of whom there are over a quarter of a million in the U.K. - for whom social services made referrals, due to concerns they were being affected by domestic abuse.  

Nor perhaps too, if, according to the WHO, you’re part of the eighth of humanity considered as migrants. Certainly, it’s not a wonderful world if you’re one of God’s creatures, who his other creatures, us humans have trapped, or perhaps bred in captivity for our amusement. And I doubt either, for the 1.2 billion children living in poverty.  

And this is just scrapping the surface. 

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In 2005, a friend and I put on an event to raise money for young people who’d lost their families from the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The actor, Jude Law hosted, and though incredible people got involved, and our friends showed up to support us, afterwards, I asked myself if we’d actually achieved anything: and I couldn’t say we had.  

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I first visited Rwanda in 2004. And I returned in 2022 with both my children, Eve and Jack, and my ‘brother’ Mussa and his wife Lilian. Mus is a Rwandan and we first met in Cairo in 2007 when I was working as an intern for the late, irascible and profoundly brilliant Barbara Harrell-Bond, who set up the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford, smoked 5 cigarettes simultaneously and who both terrified and inspired me in equal measure.  

My time in Cairo was extraordinary. Not least because I was able to take part in a short course at Cairo University, where I learnt of the diligence, commitment and determination that it took for campaigners to have rape recognised as an act of genocide. It was also where I learnt that in refugee camps, UN officials were raping refugees. When I expressed shock to hear this, tired eyes from the other attendants turned to look at me, “Hey dear, there’s nothing natural about a refugee camp.” And in that moment, all ideals I had about the good guys being good, and the bad bad, dissolved. 

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When Mus, Lilian and my 2 children and I made the trip to Rwanda in 2022, I wanted to re-visit The Kigali Memorial Centre. As Mussa and I walked through, despite the crowds, there was almost total silence and we headed off, taking in each room in our own way. As I stood reading one board of information exposing the role of the media in the genocide, a woman nearby began to scream. (She was not the only one, 2 others did so whilst we were there). I can only guess that seeing the photographs at the exhibit, there she was again: a child watching her world being destroyed in the most horrific and horrible ways there can be. 

Whilst others around the woman circled her quickly, picking her up and carrying her out, holding her high above their heads, the rest of us stood aside. And I stood, my eyes on the ground, my back to a wall and never before have I felt such a deep level of inappropriateness in myself. There I was: a bystander. A student of history (my degree), who until I’d travelled to Rwanda in 2004 with my family to visit the gorillas, hadn’t even known the genocide had ever happened. 

And yet though the world declared, “never again,” here we are with Palestine and her people and land being systematically destroyed and it is happening again. And we can be sure that when this genocide comes to an end, that no matter how much people want to heal, unless each individual can really release what they keep within, (and for that they need experts to support them), all trauma received now, will simply fester and reappear in the next generation. 

And it’s this sort of strange inconvenience of being human that most of us want to ignore. The sun is shining after all, and yet, if we truly want a transformed world, if we truly want a healed world, it’s going to take (inner & outer) work to get us there. 

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And ‘there’ is an open field. 

& ‘there’ is the great mystery. 

because ‘there’ they don’t teach you at school. 

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And yet, our hearts can feel so closed… and our bodies so terribly weary.

What to do? When to do? How god, let’s just pay the bills and feed the children. This is when the best medicine is perhaps not so much to seek out which brings joy to our hearts, but that which will cause it the very tenderest pain of all: for in there, we can more easily access what no university degree can ever offer: a direct understanding into the what and the who you care most about. And that’s a good ingredient for living.

Because just maybe, that creak in your neck isn’t just another thing for you to worry about and fix, but from all those times you’ve cocked your head and looked up at the stars and wondered: really, really: is that from where I come from? The human heart longs for freedom: freedom to be and to heal.  And we can only heal, what we are prepared to look at, otherwise, that creak sets in and we forget, that for now, we’re earth bound. And here, are our brothers and sisters.

So, no real resolution to offer. Instead, I close by sharing with you a video that we played at The Why Not? Event, that my friend and I put on in 2005 and which was created by The Aegis Trust, an international organisation that was created to prevent genocide.

May it open your heart, as it does mine.

With much love, 

Laura xxxx 

P.S: This newsletter come out every 10 days. Next one: May 20th.