I have thought about that question off and on since my high school days, but in a rather different context.  When a mother in Afghanistan cries out in desperation as she watches her small child die from hunger and disease, is there any sound if no one is listening?  When a family in Burma flees in terror from persecution, does only silence come from their tortured lips if there is no one who is sensitive to their cries?  When a Palestinian man shouts out in anger and agony as he holds his dying son who has just been shot, does only silence come from his throat if none of us care enough to listen?

Yes, we hear.  We have our radios and televisions on, so we can hear if we want.  But, like the Simon and Garfunkle song says, perhaps we only hear without listening. 

What does it take for us to truly listen and know what these members of our global society are saying?

Sometime back I was at a friends house to celebrate the birth of their new baby.  While the baby slept in another room, we all were deeply engrossed in our various conversations.  Suddenly the mother of the baby stood up.  What’s wrong, we all asked in concern.  Nothing, she responded.  I just heard the baby cry and so I want to go pick her up.

None of us had heard the baby cry even though we were in the same room with the mother.  We were too interested in our conversations to really be listening for the cry of the child.  But the mother was very sensitive.  She not only was listening to our conversations, but she was also listening for the sound of her child.

That is the kind of sensitivity we all need to develop.  We can remain deeply involved in our work and our community lives, but we must also be ready to listen to the cries of the less fortunate in our world.  When a mother from Afghanistan cries out in desperation, we not only hear, but we also listen to what she needs so that her child will not only survive, but will be able to grow up in a world which protects her dignity and humanity.  When a family in Burma flees persecution, we listen to the meaning of their cries, and we respond as though they were members of our own family.  When a Palestinian man shouts in anger and agony, we step in to bring the fighting to an end so that he can take his son to a secure and peaceful home.

When we truly listen to the cries for attention from those who suffer the brunt of this world’s violence, we can respond in positive and peaceful ways that will benefit us all.  In doing so, we also respond to Christ, for Christ once said that what we do for the least important people in this world, we also do for him.

Along the Thai/Burma border, young Karen people living in the refugee camps refuse to think of themselves as “victims”.  They have lost their homes, their land and often their future, but they continue to struggle for justice and peace.  They say, “Victims are powerless, but we are not powerless!  So, don’t give us your sympathy!  We need your empathy to stand with us as we continue our nonviolent struggle to change the course of history in our country.”

One of the important activities these young people are involved in is the creation of radio staltions in five refugee camps through which they can encourage people, share information and raise awareness.  A short documentary, produced by the young people themselves, explains how these radio stations function.  Please watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9HAjeMO2ms and then consider how you can stand with these young people in empathy rather than sympathy.

Differences is a collection of short stories, most of which are based on the lives of real people in Thailand and Burma.  The story called Differences, from which the title of the book is taken, details one event through the eyes of three different people – a prostitute, a ghost guide and a little flower girl.  The story takes place on Pat Pong Street, one of the most famous red light districts in Bangkok.  It is a story of pain, anger, suffering and struggle.

Don’t Make Me a Human is the story of a woman and her dogs struggling to survive in a slum community along one of Bangkok’s many canals.  A forced eviction separates the woman from her beloved dogs and she is left alone to gather up the strength needed to start life over again.

Other stories include The Good Son about a young man, his mother and two sisters who have had to flee from their home in Burma to seek safety in a refugee camp inside Thailand.  Unfortunately, life in the refugee camp is also not so secure.

However, after some years of experience working at peace and justice issues, I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the term “peacemaking”.  It gives the impression that our task is to build peace when, in fact, peace is a gift given to us by the Creator.  Violence occurs when walls of injustice are built that prevent the gift of peace from being experienced freely by all.  A more appropriate term, I believe, is “transforming injustice” or the chipping away at walls of injustice so that in time they crumble and peace can freely flow throughout our communities.  Some may argue that this is simply a matter of semantics, but I contend that the term we use directly and significantly affects the way we approach local, national and global issues of conflict.

Tourism is a good example.  Visits between people of different nationalities, ethnicities, languages, faiths and cultures are a growing reality in our globalized world.  Such visits can be very positive as they provide an opportunity for exchanges, sharing of information, learning about differences and growing awareness about the “other”.  But tourism with the goal of “peacemaking” may not go far enough.  It is not enough for Americans to visit Viet Nam, see how friendly the people are, have a few significant exposures and exchanges and then conclude that “we are all good friends now.”  In the same way, Israelis visiting Palestinians to enjoy a cup of Arabic coffee, share a few stories and laughs, or even help to harvest olives does not mean that the injustices existing within these relationships have been identified, challenged and confronted.

Tourism that focuses on “transforming injustice” must have as its priority the exposure of injustice whether covert or overt.  Americans visiting Asia or Africa must become more deeply aware of how US economic and military policies are destroying the health and economic well-being of the citizens there.  Christians visiting Muslim communities in Mindanao, Philippines or Lebanon need to understand why Christianity is often misunderstood, fear or even hated.  These are learning experiences that, if taken seriously, can lead to empathy with the “other” and that feeling of empathy is necessary to move people to action – the action of going back home and chipping away at the walls of economic, political, social and military injustice rooted in their own communities.  

On a recent visit to Zimbabwe, I was shocked to see the desperate struggle to survive of the people of this country.  There are many reasons for the economic poverty they are experiencing including poor national leadership, lack of good economic planning and virtually no participation of the people in decision-making to name a few.  But I was also dismayed to learn that often food imported from the United States is sold in the markets at a price cheaper than locally produced agriculture products.  US government subsidies to wealthy American corporate farms have brought down the price of local food commodities to a level that local farmers finally have to move off the land and seek work in the urban areas.   This has destroyed the ability of a large portion of the population to make a decent living at their traditional occupation of tilling the land.  They can no longer support their families and a sense of desperation and depression can soon set in.

Visits by people from small American farms to the poverty-stricken farmers of Zimbabwe would be a form of transforming injustice tourism if those visits provided an opportunity for both farming communities to learn more about the realities of present-day global economic processes and then seek mutually beneficial strategies to begin chipping away at these walls of injustice.  Even though these two communities may not be physically or verbally abusing each other, peace can not exist as long as the injustice of this economic system remains intact causing some to suffer.  These walls of injustice must be torn down so that peace can flow freely between the two communities and human dignity can flourish.

Transforming injustice tourism is not easy to develop.  Probably a vast majority of tourists have little interest in learning the realities of global injustice, preferring rather to have a few days at the beach, some good cheap shopping and the luxury of being served hand and foot.  But for those few tourists who wish to learn and then to act for the sake of global justice, it is certainly worth the effort to develop tours that will bring people together for mutual learning experiences and transformative actions. 

Peace is not something we build out of scratch.  It indeed is a gift we have been given to enjoy freely.  Our task of ridding our world of the walls of injustice that prevent peace to flourish remains and we can begin to address that task through appropriate models of tourism and travel.

Written by APSARAPORN CHANCHAI
Translated by ATCHARA SIMLEE

During the month of February over the weekend, Thai and Cambodian friends, including myself, were able to share and donate to the displaced and troubled villagers of the Thailand-Cambodia temple dispute. The areas we were able to visit and assist included Phum Srol village, Kantharalak District and Sae Prai village, Phu Sing District in Si Sa Ket province of Thailand. We encountered demolished village buildings which included homes, shops and other facilities that were all targeted during the fighting earlier this month.

My personal reflection of the visit was how I endeavored to be an amenable visitor who could bring about a little bit of hope to hearten in the face of adversity during this unpredictable as well as difficult cross-border feud.

I spoke with a female Phum Srol villager whose house was completely destroyed in the troop clashes that had erupted at Puh Makuea Mountain nearby the Thailand – Cambodia border. She narrated her story even as tears streamed down her cheeks barely able to control her emotions. She was able to relay the true feelings of the villagers which blanked the mood of our visit when she uttered these words “Reparations for our buildings have been totally paid already, but my completely ruined heart is irredeemable”. My heart suddenly went out to her because what she said perfectly reflected how the fighting caused pain and suffering for her. Solely endowing a new house and plenty more facilities can not heal her severely destroyed heart.

Nothing else would help cure the damaged hearts of these men, woman and children living in the disputed areas except talks between Thailand and Cambodian governments to reach a ceasefire agreement.  Leaders of the two countries should take common interest into consideration because all people living in the disputed areas want NO WAR. However, the two governments unbelievably disregarded what their people call for.

Nevertheless, a very heartfelt account arose out of the midst of the depressed atmosphere. During our limited time there, a Cambodian girl in our team was looking for her compatriot who had settled in Phum Srol. All throughout the village as we traveled she was able to engage villagers and ask them of her friend’s whereabouts. However, good fortune was on her side as a Thai soldier who took care of us throughout our visit made every effort to help her. She was reunited with her friend before our departure.

To witness my Cambodian companion’s extremely ecstatic embrace upon seeing her friend again, together with the Thai soldier’s act of generosity brought a great sense of shared humanity between Cambodian and the Thailand soldiers, even though they have different nationalities and are hedged in by a national boundary.

Notes:1. Phum Srol is a Khmer word (Phum = a village and Srol = a pine forest)

2. Sae Prai is a Khmer word (Sae = a rice paddy and Prai = a forest)

www.peace.mahidol.ac.th

http://nonviolencenetwork.com/node/435

www.esaanvoice.net

A few months ago I stood among the foundations of the houses and the mass graves of the people that once constituted the village of My Lai in Central Viet Nam.  It is now a peaceful garden devoted to the memory of the 504 innocent villagers massacred there during four hours on the morning of March 16, 1968.  An American unit of soldiers from Charlie Company walked into My Lai on that fateful day and began executing men, women, children and babies.  Reports from soldiers involved in this atrocity provide evidence that Charlie Company received no return enemy fire during their time in the area. 

 Each grave contains the names and ages of those it holds.  One grave holds eight people; the oldest is in her eighties and the youngest is only two years of age.  As I walked slowly through the memorial garden, reading the names on the tombstones and trying to imagine how the laughter of the children that once echoed among the trees must have turned so suddenly to terrified screams as the gunshots rang out that morning, a light rain began to fall, like tears from heaven.  The drops of falling water created growing circles of sadness in the water of the ditch where more than one hundred villagers had been herded and killed with assault rifles and light machineguns, their pleas for compassion unheard.

 A young Vietnamese woman, whose relatives had died on that fateful day, shared some of her story with me.  Even though she was not born when her village of My Lai became a graveyard, the pain of what happened to her family and her village is clearly etched into her eyes and her heart.  Her tears occasionally joined with the raindrops as we stopped in front of the foundation of a particular house, or read the names of those buried in one of the graves.  It still hurts her deeply.  Yet, she showed no animosity toward me or toward America as she accompanied me along our pilgrimage through this sad history.  When I told her that in 1971 I had lived only about ten miles from My Lai, she immediately asked what I had been doing.  I explained that I worked with the church and had been opposed to the war.  She looked at me and said, “You are lucky.  Your mind is at peace.”  It was an expression of forgiveness on her part, but it did not feel complete to me.  The other side has yet to seek forgiveness or make serious efforts to right what has been done to this village and the people who once lived here  So the process of repentance and forgiveness can not yet be completed, for forgiveness without repentance is like a precious gift left unaccepted and unopened.

 Leaving the quietness of the My Lai memorial, I wondered what it would mean to the world if all of us would start making pilgrimages to places like My Lai in order to share tears and repentance with those who have suffered so much.  Perhaps a time of healing and reconciliation would begin to blossom and the world would become a better place.  It’s time for us to begin making pilgrimages to all those places and to all those people where we have directly or indirectly caused suffering so that the healing our societies and our world so badly needs can begin.

The following is an important article written by Project Renew, 103 Nguyen Binh Khiem Street Dong Ha City,  Quang Tri Province, Viet Nam

Cam Lo, Quang Tri (Dec. 13, 2010): Primary students at the Ho Chon Nhon Primary school in Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province, a total of 250 of children ages 6 to 10, started their new week of learning today with an information session on the dangers of bombs and mines left over from the war that ended more than 35 years ago.

Within the space of one hour, the students were taught basic identification of unexploded ordnance (UXO) which is regularly found throughout Quang Tri Province. They learned about the tragic aftermath of UXO accidents for the victims and their families. They were warned about dangerous behaviors that lead to UXO accidents, and the message of safety – safety first – was emphasized over and over. They were encouraged to report UXO sightings to Project RENEW’s EOD teams or to local Youth Union volunteers via the free-toll hotline telephone number provided by Project RENEW.

“This training session is really useful for me and my friends, to help us avoid being killed or wounded by deadly UXO,” said Tran Thi Kieu Trinh, a fifth grade student. “And it is interesting to learn with these wooden UXO samples.” Trinh was pointing to the wooden scale models of bombs and mines lying on the table beside the instructor.

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Anh Thu, Deputy Chief of Cam Lo townlet’s Youth Union, who facilitated the training today, realistic images and wooden miniatures of UXO are the most practical and effective teaching aids. “We see young students get excited about the realism of the wooden samples of UXO, which help them visualize accurately what UXO really look like,” said Thu. “Integrating UXO risk education into daily school curriculum is easy and it’s a very effective teaching method,” she added.

During the past three months, 25,000 young students aged six to ten years, in the two districts of Trieu Phong and Cam Lo, have benefited from risk education campaigns conducted by Project RENEW’s Community Reporting Network (CRN), a collaboration model that combines community participation in UXO safety awareness at the grassroots level with a strong information network that channels timely reports of UXO to EOD teams, trained RENEW professionals who come and safely remove and destroy the ordnance.

Totaling 380 collaborators who include Youth Union officials and village chiefs, the CRN has raised the level of public safety awareness while actively gathering and reporting ERW information quickly and accurately to two EOD Quick Response Teams. The EOD teams are working with the technical assistance of Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), one of RENEW’s project partners. During a recent three-month period, 68 cluster bombs, mortars, grenades and projectiles were safely destroyed thanks to UXO sightings and other information passed on from the CRN.

Despite extensive clearance efforts by military and international NGOs, thousands of UXO still remain on and under the ground, posing an imminent threat to the daily activities of local people, especially children. A province-wide survey conducted by Project RENEW indicates that children account for 31% of all UXO casualties in Quang Tri Province since 1975.

“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:  7-8)

Many years ago I was visiting friends in Burma.  It was April, the hottest and driest time of the year. I was sitting in a small office with 8 friends trying to carry on a discussion about the work of the youth in the church of Burma.  Without air-conditioning, the room was brutally hot and the overhead fan, turning lazily and reluctantly, did little to relieve the heat.  I was having a very difficult time concentrating on what friends were saying, and even began to wonder if there was any value in holding the discussion.

From my position in the room I could look out the narrow window that overlooked the neighborhood.  Nothing seemed to be moving.  All of the trees were without leaves, and a powdery brown dust covered buildings, plants, fences and roads.  It was as if there was no life at all.

In discomfort I shifted my chair which gave me a slightly different view through the window.  I caught my breath in surprise.  To the left I saw a tree that had previously been hidden from my view.  Barren of leaves, it was covered with large clusters of bright red flowers.  The intensity of the red in contrast to the dry brown that had filled my sight just moments earlier, awoke me from my lethargy with a start.  In that moment I saw life.  It must have been similar to the feeling Mary and Martha had when they realized that Christ had risen.  He was no longer in the grave.  Hope had sprung forth in the most hopeless moment.

Perhaps that is the lesson God wanted to give me that hot, dry day in Burma.  When things seem the most difficult and hopeless, God expects us to blossom the brightest.  When all around us things seem to be falling apart causing so much stress and fear, God wants us to be the clearest and brightest example of resurrection, joy and hope.  That is the way we transform the world.

One of my favorite songs is called “He Came Singing Love.”  The first verse says:

“He came singing love and he lived singing love.  He died, singing love.  He arose in silence.  For the love to go on we must make it our song: you and I be the singers.”

The final verse concludes:

“He came singing hope and he lived singing hope.  He died, singing hope.  He arose in silence.  For the hope to go on we must make it our song: you and I be the singers.”

Through the resurrection and the ascension into heaven, Christ passed his song of love and hope on to us.  We must sing it loudly and clearly, especially in the most difficult times.  We must bloom the brightest when heat, oppression and fear abound.  That is the message of Christ.  That is the song of Christ.  Then we become like a tree planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. We are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Our leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.  We are the hope.  We are Christ’s singers.

Reprinted with permission of PeaceSigns, the online publication of the Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA, www.mennolink.org/peace

“I am a human and I was born a free man, but boundaries and laws have withheld justice from me.  When I reflect on my life, I see that there are many people in the world like me.  They are also hungry for freedom, and struggle for true liberty and justice that respect human dignity.  I understand that freedom is not available to everyone, and that it cannot be easily attained while selfish, egotistical people perpetuate stereotypes and are inhumane in their treatment of others.  I know that I have to work at stopping injustice, exploitation and oppression.  This means not seeking revenge against those who discriminate and oppress, but sticking with the system of love, justice, and peace.  So my story begins….”

This is taken from a new book called “Our Stories, Our Challenges:  The Search for JustPeace in Asia Today.”  A digital copy of the book can be found at http://daga.dhs.org/daga/press/pdf/our_stories_our_challenges.pdf