|
|
| |
|
| |
3/07/05
This article, written by JRS-Malta Media and Project Co-ordinator,
appeared in the Sunday Times of Malta, July 3rd 2005
Understanding courage
Michelle* used to live in Eritrea, surrounded by her family and
friends. She grew her own vegetables and cooked fresh food for
her family, all her brothers and sisters, her mother and father,
her uncles, her aunts… Eritrea was her home, a home she loved so
dearly, a home which represented everything to her. Until one
day, Youssef*, her husband, did not return home. Soldiers burst
into her house and forcibly snatched all the ‘men’ considered
old enough to fight, which meant her 15 year old cousin Daniel*
too, and forced them to go to the front. Michelle and the
remainder of her family were left to struggle alone, to see how
to survive while desperately awaiting some news of their
relatives. But the news never arrived.
Finally, her brother, David* returned home, ravaged by the
battles he had had to fight, battles against his own fellow
country men. For the war involved Ethiopia, their neighbouring
country, which in reality was one with Eritrea until not so long
ago. It was a senseless war to the vast majority of Eritreans
and Ethiopians, much like the thought of a war between Gozo and
Malta seems nonsensical to us.
David had deserted the war as he refused to kill fellow human
beings, more so since this war was not even about survival but
about corruption and power at the highest levels. But David
could not remain in his village because the military were
searching for him and he knew what they had done to others
before him who disappeared without a trace, some turning up in
some godforsaken prison years later, after having endured
horrific, repetitive torture; some vanished forever; some turned
up dead, mutilated.
David had no news of Youssef nor of Daniel and the family feared
the worst. So David and Michelle took the hardest decision of
their life. They abandoned the country they loved so much, with
its food, its smells, its sights, its culture, and fled Eritrea
for Sudan in search of a safe haven, in search of a place where
they could make the primary fundamental choice, that of living.
But Sudan is not a safe country either and therefore, after
hiding in the dark alley ways and getting by on water and loaves
of bread which the gentle Sudanese shared with them, they
managed to find someone who promised to take them through the
Sahara desert.
This next step in their voyage was an arduous one, one which saw
them cooped up inside a Land Rover with some other 25 persons,
with a bare minimum of water with them so as not to occupy any
extra space, travelling through the sand dunes of the Sahara
where no landmarks exist, nothing to help one’s orientation.
They were at the mercy of their driver, for if he chose to
abandon them they knew they would die there, where during the
day the temperature rises to a minimum of 50 degrees and at
night sinks to below 12 or thereabouts. Many had died while
attempting this trip, many were buried below the supple,
silk-like sands of the Sahara, many were those who were left
there, abandoned to their destiny. But all had one thing in
common, they had no choice but to attempt the journey, for
remaining where they were would have anyway meant sure death or
a life of utter misery, a life were in reality one is not alive
but simply surviving.
Michelle and David were among the lucky ones for they had what
they call a “good driver”, a genuine human being, a person who
really saw them through the Sahara and brought them safely to
the other end of it. And so they arrived in Libya and there they
remained for some time until it became clear to them that
forming a dignified life in this country was not an option for
them as work proved difficult and voices reached them of others
who had undergone similar human right violations to them when
they were back home in Eritrea. So, yet again, they were faced
with a hard decision, that of putting all the money they had
managed to leave Eritrea with and also put aside in Libya into
one trip.
A trip in a rickety boat, a small boat hardly able to brace any
major wave let alone cross the whole Mediterranean basin. But
Michelle and David had been told that this tiny, fragile boat
would only take them some distance away from the coast were a
larger, secure boat would be waiting to take them on board. And
so they set-off, hoping that this step would be a sure one in
securing them a safer future. But the ‘big boat’ never floated
out of the mist, and once again they were at the mercy of the
forces of nature.
The next shock came when they found out that no-one on board
their puny vessel was a captain, no-one was a sailor, no-one
knew how to master the seas. Frightened, believing that their
journey may have come to a tragic close, they ventured on,
trying their best to be their own leaders, afraid they were
going around in circles, afraid they would run out of fuel in
the middle of this small Mediterranean basin which suddenly
looked immense, endless, forbidding, cruel, a sea which has, as
we say in Maltese, a hard head but a soft belly, a sea which had
mercilessly swallowed up innumerable amounts of human beings
desperately seeking a safe haven.
Yet again, “we were lucky ones” say Michelle and David, for
their boat proved to be sea-worthy and they had enough fuel on
board, and so it came that they sighted land. The relief was
palpable, people burst into tears, some fearing it might be a
mirage. Exhausted, famished, dehydrated, with nothing other than
the clothes on their body they moved closer to land and through
sheer will power called on the last dregs of their strength to
bring themselves closer to shore and step down on a terrain they
hoped would be more merciful, more understanding, less dangerous
and more promising than all they had been to so far.
Michelle and David were intercepted immediately by the Armed
Forces of Malta and rounded up. They found out they had arrived
in Malta. “Malta, were is Malta?” they asked baffled, having
never heard of our country. Someone on their boat knew some bare
details and explained to them that Malta was a tiny island,
barely 300km2, somewhere in the Mediterranean sea. Michelle and
David wondered what this country would have in store for them
and they were soon to find out as they were sent to a detention
centre and told they had to stay there for some time.
An amount of time which they eventually came to find out could
be a whole year… 12 months… 365 days… 8,760 hours… 525,600
minutes… locked up in a space with some other 100 individuals
from different cultures, forced to co-exist in sub-human
conditions, with no activities to concentrate on, no ‘job’ to
put one’s skills into action, to use one’s brain, to exercise
and treat the human being as more than simply a breathing
creature, an animate being.
And so, after everything Michelle and David have been through so
far, they still have to call upon their inner strength to get
them through yet another hurdle, to strengthen their resilience,
to overcome the humiliation of being treated as lesser human
beings, to find the will-power to continue living, to make it
through this final step after such a long, trying life journey,
one that slowly but inexorably strips away at that which makes
us human, trying our spirits, weighing down our souls, eating
away at our minds until nothing but a human shell is left, the
remnants of which once constituted a man or a woman or a child.
And Michelle and David came through, they made it despite the
adversities, despite the obstacles, despite everything which
points to the contrary, they hold their heads up high and never
lose their dignity, they never lose their faith in the goodness
of the human race, they never lose their humility, they never
fail to be grateful for the fact that they have made it to a
safer haven, to a place which they hope will be less hostile to
them than the many others they have passed through before, a
place where a common language already exists, that of their
faith in God.
It is this whole, incredible story that we celebrate this year,
2005, when UNHCR chose the theme of “Courage” for this World
Refugee Day. Truly an incredible story, but one which so many of
them share, with details which may change slightly but which
fundamentally all share a common basis: stories of desperate
situations which these people do not give into but fight tooth
and nail to overcome, with dignity, with love, with
understanding and with an inordinate amount of courage.
In the words of Fr. Fratern Masawe SJ, President of the
Conference of Provincials in Africa, “There are many things that
I learnt from [refugees]. If I am a better person today, it is
thanks to the refugees. I learned more from them than I learned
from my catechism classes and from the lectures of theology. It
was not theoretical faith, hope and charity I learnt. It was
down to earth reality… [M]y own fears… were dispelled when I met
human resilience in the refugees I worked with.”
*Names are fictitious. This story is a collection of episodes
recounted to the author by various immigrants over the past few
months.
|
|
