Homeless

"I didn't know at the time how I could possibly fit into their world, and if they wanted me to fit into their world."

Paul Simon wrote this song with Joseph Shabalala, lead singer of Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  The group's name comes from the town of Ladysmith, South Africa. 

It was the 1980's, and Paul Simon was among those supporting the anti-apartheid movement. Life in South Africa was a horror story if you weren't white. Afrikaners held that it was impossible, impracticable and ungodly for the different races and cultures to live as one.
Simon had seen Ladysmith Black Mambazo on a BBC documentary called Rhythm of Resistance: The Music of South Africa, and traveled to South Africa in 1985 to meet them.  Shabalala gave him albums the group had recorded.  Simon listened to them every night. 

In the documentary Under African Skies, Simon explained: "I was bewitched by Ladysmith Black Mambazo because they were so beautiful. The music was enchanting - it was all a cappella, and it was so beautiful that I was intimidated. They were so good at what they did and it was so contained that I didn't know at the time how I could possibly fit into their world, and if they wanted me to fit into their world."

• Regarding the meaning of the song, Joseph Shabalala said, "We're far away from home and we're sleeping. Our fists are our pillows."

Afrikaners (the white folks) held that it was impossible, impracticable and ungodly for the different races and cultures to live as one.

High school students protest in 1976 Soweto.

This is Hector Pieterson, the first casualty, being carried by Mbuyisa

 Makhubo after South African police fired into the crowd of children.

His sister, Antoinette Sithole, runs beside them. Hector

was declared dead on arrival at the clinic where they'd 

taken him, hoping for help.

The death toll; 176 to 700 depending on the

data source.  More than an additional 1000

people were wounded by the police action.

In 1976, thousands of black children in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg, demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for black African students.  The police opened fire with tear gas and bullets. 

The protests and government crackdowns shattered all illusions that apartheid had brought peace or prosperity to the nation.

The United Nations General Assembly had denounced apartheid in 1973, and in 1976 the UN Security Council voted to impose a mandatory embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa. In 1985, the United Kingdom and United States imposed economic sanctions on the country.  In early 1994, it was finally over.

The English portion of the lyrics...

Strong wind destroy our home
Many dead, tonight it could be you
(repeated)

And we are homeless, homeless
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake
(repeated)

And the Zulu lyrics translate approximately ...

Steep cliff

We sleep on the cliffs

My heart and the cold 

My heart, my heart 

My heart, and the cold 

My heart, my heart 

My heart sleeping far from home

My heart, my heart 

A suggested meaning, "My heart/The cold has already killed me." 

The years pass, the world changes, often for the better.  There's a price we pay for the change.  Is it worth it?  Yes and no, and it's huge when there are children involved.  It's hard to balance that equation.

True Religion vs. True Politics

Where are the boundaries?

Faith and belief are personal, I suppose.
We acknowledge truth and build our personal convictions as an issue of good conscience; they can't be required of us by others.  True?

Then there are rules.  Imposed, mostly.  Rules for membership, for being 'in' the religion.
And there are rules about everybody outside the group.  But these don't have much to do with faith and belief.

Then there is the money for government of the group and its rule.  There is a lot of money required for salaries and buildings, governing bodies and meetings and mountains of literature; all business and corporation-type things that cost money.  It's big business, or it can be.

Then there are the speeches and policies to keep people in line.  Politics, really.
And then there are more speeches and policies to persuade others into compliance or out of the way.  Is that like propaganda?

Then there are the campaigns and conquests, harsh activities where religion says people have to get on board or die.  At the extremes, it's deadly.

It first occurred to me to ask these questions as I sat on a hillside in Spain watching our softball game.  A bunch of young folks from several churches had informally started playing on that sunny afternoon.  Everybody was hot and sweaty and laughing a lot as we only occasionally made a good hit or a good catch or play.  The exception; the ladies from one church sat on the hillside in their long homemade skirts and head scarves.  Their rules didn't allow them to wear sports clothes or play baseball.

That's okay, I suppose, but how far do rules and rule makers get to go with that thinking?  Is there a known limit?  And is compliance with such rules the choice of the believer?  Or are such rules imposed on the group by those who rule?

True religion's heart, we're told, watches over those in need and works hard to avoid being corrupted by the culture in which we must live. 
(The culture's ways?  The culture's governance and rule and intolerance and its willingness to deprive another of life and of a chance to find the good part?)

"Real, true religion from God the Father's perspective is about caring for the orphans and widows who suffer needlessly and resisting the evil influence of the world."

I recall being told that the practical work of the catholic church, things like hospitals and schools and charities to feed the poor, those are all secular and don't count for anything because they're not spiritual.  

It requires a bit of a sense of humor to make a place for such thinking, perhaps.  It's not funny, though; not funny at all.

Who can be my friend?

Anyone with beach access would be of interest, of course.

In Kenya, a local fellow and I became friends through weeks of working together.  We talked about work and life and family.  Along the way, he introduced me to his grandson, age 6 or so, and we took him along on some of our travels together. 

My buddy, Ali.  He gets to
go with grandpa Abdul
when he works,
sometimes.

He took me home to meet his large family.  Then, on a day off, we all visited a nearby game preserve.  He brought the whole family, and we had an exhaustively delightful day together.  He's Muslim and I'm Christian; no problem at all being friends, though.  

He explained how, in his community, Muslim and Christian folks get along, share goals and labor, doing their best to make a better world for their children.  They're not particularly divided except for where they go to church.

Egyptian friend and daughter. 

On another long trip, an Egyptian college girl was alone and struggling in the confusion of international travel.  I walked her through this and that, and we spent several hours together on a transoceanic flight.  She's a Rhodes scholar, and like my daughter, a school teacher; we found a lot to talk about, and we prayed together about some of it.  She's grown up now, married and with a precious little girl of her own.  We still correspond.  They're Muslim, too.

Young men on the beach in Djibouti, clowning for
the camera just one more time.

Over decades, career travel has pushed us up close and personal to our inadequately informed thinking.  Grouping folks into this category or that, 'them' instead of 'us'. I'd grown up in a town where there were two kinds of water fountains; white and colored.  White folks sat downstairs in the movie theater, colored people sat in a crowded balcony above where the seats weren't as nice. Fortunately, my mom and dad walked me through that nonsense early in life.  There's more than just black and white, of course.

Along the way, we're forced to ask if our faith is big enough to see others as part of the plan.  Is the "no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female," idea really working in the way we view ourselves and others.  More importantly, can we talk about such things among our friends?

Just a few steps away from the wealthy

tourist area, a Kenyan fellow tends his 

flock of goats.

On the city's edge, my friends live simply, like
 most of  the world.  Outdoor kitchen and a
little vegetable kiosk for selling produce.

Geography holds billions of people in its grip.  We are all born into natural and cultural environments that shape what we become, individually and collectively.

- Harm de Blij, The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, from Steve McCurry's photo gallery.

A NASA engineer 'tends his sheep'.

A kitchen, indoors.

From our “mother tongue” to our father’s faith ...  where we start our journey has much to do with our future.

Where you are born - what you are born into, the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own, stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalization have to say.  - Jeanette Winterson

So, how do we choose to understand the world we see, and the people issues it brings?

the mud-maker

Precious friends for many years.

Mom fans the coals, making coffee the traditional way from

 hand-ground beans that she roasted on the same fire.  Sis

 spread grass on the floor for their guest.  Everything they 

 own is in this 10 x 15 ft. hut.  The two candles light the    

home; there's no electricity here.                                   

Mom was blind and crippled for several years.  Thanks to
 a healthcare program and a little assistance, she can see

and walk now. She has a hip replacement scheduled that

that should complete her recovery.  She's a widow, and 
her kids, who've cared for her all through the ordeal,
 are thrilled, of course.                                         

Ethiopia, 2011.

He was walking and talking with his friends when they saw this blind fellow beside the road, begging for money.  The guys wondered why this beggar had ended up that way.  Did he deserve it because he had done something wrong? Or maybe his parents had?

He explained for them, no, this blind fellow and his parents hadn't done anything wrong, and that's the wrong question, looking for someone to blame.  This blindness is going to show something wonderfully good, and it will happen today while there's light, and before night comes and no one can see. He made some mud from spit and the dirt on the ground and put it on the blind fellow's eyes, then told him to to go wash at this public water place.

The blind fellow did as he was told, and went home seeing!  It caused a stir, of course.  His relatives and neighbors couldn't believe it and asked all kinds of questions.  They even wondered if he was the same guy. He explained the little he knew of what had happened, how this man had put mud on his eyes, and when he washed, he could see!  They wanted to know where the mud-maker was, but he didn't know.

The gathered crowd took the fellow to the local leaders who made a big deal of this mud-maker guy doing things like that during their holiday.  Lots of loud and emphatic words followed, and even the fellow's parents got dragged in to the melee, but he stuck to what he knew; I was born blind but now I'm not.  I don't know any more than that.  The politicos were pretty angry; it didn't fit their agenda, I suppose, so they threw the fellow out along with his story, dismissing the whole event.

Later, when the mud-maker heard about it, he found the fellow and explained things a bit.  It was a 'now you see, now you know' kind of conversation, and the fellow rather suddenly got it; he got it all and was so, so thankful to now see and to understand, too.

At the farthest far end of the road, children came cautiously out to meet us.
The fellow brought his school things, perhaps so we'd know he was a
person of substance and consequence. Nice kids, introduced us to

their parents and neighbors.
                     Djibouti, 2011.

Later, folks from the ruling party confronted the mud-maker about it all. Apparently he had made some comment about the blind seeing and those who could see going blind, and they asked about themselves; are we blind?  It was an argument-starter sort of question.

You have to wonder if he was smiling or wincing when he answered the question.  If you were really blind, he explained, you wouldn't be accountable for what you can't see.  Since you claim you can see, well, it's all on you.

The question continually pursues us all, I suppose.  Can we see what's in front of us?

... turning away is easier, but not the best way. It's kind of like tossing out the once-blind fellow along with his story.

Right and Left

A young refugee girl and her father near Faisabad, Afghanistan
(Image Afghanistan | Steve McCurry)

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."

~ Bertrand Russell

Warfare has been offered as a noble conquest, a campaign against uncivilized or wicked people, waged by a great ruler and willing soldiers; the long march, the great battles, the magnificent heroes ....

Reality is harsh.  War reaches out to subjugate peoples, to capture wealth from the provinces, to rule the land ... or the world.

War is perhaps the ultimate expression of selfishness.  Every lesser crime, every sin, every moral violation, all are visible in the wake of advancing armies.  Beyond soldiers killing each other, war brings pillage, bloodshed among the innocent, theft, murder, years of deprivation, and  inconsolable anguish for the victims who manage to survive.

Leaders are the responsible agents.  Most among the soldiers and sailors hope to serve well, with honor and integrity.  In centuries of retrospect, we see many such good folks in the field doing their best, unknowingly serving an ignoble cause.  Propaganda and lies, deception and misrepresentation ...  Given the chance to understand what their leaders knew, most would have turned against the ruling elite.  Citizens would likely rise up in arms if they knew.

War is not a solution, it's the explosion that concludes an escalating competition.  At stake are lives, land, rule, and wealth. Characterized by violence, social disruption, and economic destruction, war should be understood as an intentional and widespread armed conflict, convened by political players, most commonly with an underlying economic agenda.

In the days of power players and their cronies who are willing to sacrifice a few thousand or million lives, how might the rest of us find a path that allows a good conscience?  Curious?

Hans and his foster daughter Liesel whom he came to love
dearly.  Caught up in a corrupted culture, Hans did his best
to stay on a path of good conscience.

Liesel and her dear friend, Rudy.  He
was swept up by the Hitler-Youth
movement and persuaded it was for
the best.  He couldn't have known
more than he was given.

Death himself narrates the best seller, 'The Book Thief'.  An extraordinary movie (and book) that illuminates the issue well.

Set in war-torn Europe, the focus is on regular people caught in the middle, struggling to hold on to what's right and good.  In Hitler's Germany, Hans and Rosa have taken in Liesel (the book thief) as their foster daughter whom they come to love dearly.  Hans spends his life doing his very best to be loving, kind, and wise.

Death himself recounts his task of collecting souls of persons in the story as they perish.  Of Liesel's dear foster-father, Hans, and others, Death says,

So we're reminded, even in the worst of times, in the veritable valley of the shadow of death, we can give ourselves to that which is right and good and even noble, thank you Father.  And we hope to bring a few or perhaps many along with us.  

Most Memorable

She didn't know she had changed the world.

The Afghan Girl; she was perhaps twelve years old and living in a refugee camp when National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry took her picture.  He didn't know her name.

Her picture was on the cover of National Geographic in 1985.  It became one of the most recognized photographs in the world; illuminating the conflict in Afghanistan and the refugee crisis around the world, but we didn't know who she was.  For years, no one knew.

Several attempts were made to find her and to perhaps hear her story.  Finally in 2002, a Nat Geo team found her and her family.  She was perhaps thirty years old, but remembered well the occasion of being photographed.  Even though he'd asked gently and she'd given him permission to photograph her, she was angry.  He was a stranger!

She hadn't seen the world-famous cover photo; she saw it for the first time after seventeen years when they showed it to her in '02.

Her parents had been killed in the Afghan conflict when she was about six. With her brother and three sisters, she followed her grandmother, walking through the snowy mountains to Pakistan, begging for blankets and hiding in caves along the way.  They entered the refugee camp in 1984.  She married at thirteen (no, you were sixteen, her husband insists) and later returned with her husband to her home village in Afghanistan.  They have three daughters; a fourth died in infancy.

When asked about her hopes for the future, she said she hoped they could afford medical care for her husband and to send her daughters through school.  She didn't ask for anything for herself.

"The reunion between the woman with green eyes and the photographer was quiet. On the subject of married women, cultural tradition is strict. She must not look—and certainly must not smile—at a man who is not her husband. She did not smile at McCurry.  Her expression, he said, was flat. She cannot understand how her picture has touched so many. She does not know the power of those eyes."

Reluctant at first to be photographed yet again, she relented when she heard how effective the first photo had been in focusing the world's attention on the plight of those in war-torn Afghanistan.

National Geographic told her story in 2002.  They set up an international fund to provide education for Afghan girls at first, then expanded to include boys.  They funded the family's medical needs and more, and they provided a pilgrimage to Mecca for them, too.  In a later interview, she actually smiled as she told of the progress her family had made and offered thanks for the help they had received.

"Names have power, so let us speak of hers. Her name is Sharbat Gula, and she is Pashtun, that most warlike of Afghan tribes. It is said of the Pashtun that they are only at peace when they are at war, and her eyes—then and now—burn with ferocity. She is 28, perhaps 29, or even 30. No one, not even she, knows for sure. Stories shift like sand in a place where no records exist. Time and hardship have erased her youth. Her skin looks like leather. The geometry of her jaw has softened. The eyes still glare; that has not softened."  

“She’s had a hard life,” said McCurry. “So many here share her story.” Consider the numbers. Twenty-five years of war, 1.5 million killed, 3.5 million refugees: This is the story of Afghanistan in the past quarter century. It's not the life she would have chosen.    ~from the Nat Geo article

Hers is a story like so many others.  Today, Pakistan hosts more than one and a half million refugees, most from Afghanistan.

Newly arrived Somali refugees wait in line to be registered by the UN office
Dagahaley camp in Dadaab, northern Kenya (Reuters).

According to the UN, the four active Dadaab camps were originally designed for a population of 150,000,
 yet are home to half a million refugees (80 per cent of whom are women and children), making living
 conditions difficult at best.  Twenty years in operation, the camps have been the only home for many.
It's not the life one would choose for their children.

Worldwide, more than 51 million people are currently refugees, displaced from their homes by conflict, the highest refugee number since WWII.  More than half are children, many unaccompanied.

Each one is a person like Sharbat Gula and perhaps has a similar story.  Each could use our help and prayers.  Perhaps we might take a moment to be thankful for our easier, safer lives, and give a little help where it might make a difference.



Update: 26 OCT 2016 -- Gula was arrested Wednesday in Pakistan for possession of fraudulent identification. She had Pakistani and Afghan ID cards in her possession, and both ID cards have been seized. We're told that more than 60,000 fraudulent IDs have been uncovered across Pakistan, and that eight officials so far have been charged with issuing fraudulent ID cards to foreigners.  Gula was arrested and released on similar charges last year.

Like millions more, she's a refugee. At last report, she is in custody awaiting her court hearing.  No information is available yet on her husband and daughters.  McCurry, the National Geographic photographer, said he is committed to helping her legally and financially. Her arrest goes to the heart of an ordeal confronting many Afghan refugees who fled across the border into Pakistan because of decades of war.

Pakistan has been pressuring refugees to leave, and has set a deadline for March. But Afghanistan remains a dangerous place — Taliban insurgents on Wednesday killed 26 Afghans abducted from the central province of Ghor. Nearly half a million Afghans have crossed the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan so far this year as a deadline approaches for them to leave.

Update: 31 OCT 2016:  Sharbat Gula has been released on bail.  She has two surviving daughters also in Pakistan.  Her husband died about four years ago.

Steve McCurry commented to Al Jazeera, "In seeing this current global refugee crisis, it's almost like people in Europe and the US are scared of refugees. Or they simply don't want the burden of hosting them. But we forget none are actually more scared than the refugees themselves. They are forced from their country, their homes. Desperate people do desperate things.

Sharbat is a widow trying to raise her children. She lost her parents, her husband, one of her daughters, and her brother. There is a lack of compassion for refugees.

Even though she's been offered to relocate to a safer country, there's no place like home. She wants to be near her relatives, this is all she knows.

If she had gone to another country, she would have had a very different life. But she chose not to. She remains humble to her life and to her struggle. We keep in touch periodically through my contacts on the ground.

The world sees the humanity in her. She wants the same things we do, but she lives in another part of the world."

BBC Viewpoint: Why Afghan refugees are facing a humanitarian catastrophe-