I set out to Jaffna last week hoping to report on the situation there. I got back yesterday but am still unable to put down anything on paper as I don’t know where to start. Do I start with the little boy I met who saved his baby brother’s life by scooping his intestines back into his torn belly and holding him till he was given medical attention? Or do I start with the little girl who saw a man on his knees begging for his life before having his brains blown out on the road in the middle of the morning? Or again should I start with the cousin of the Priest who was abducted, tortured and killed for daring to stand up to authority pleading for medical help for his parishioners? Or better still the wife and five children of the brave young man who shared the same plight as the priest? Or maybe I should begin with the girl whose brother went missing earlier this year and who tried in vain to get a letter across to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights? Can I begin with the plight of people held in the prisons? The hundreds cramped into a tiny space with no proper sanitation facilities sharing their living space with their 49 cell mates who have contracted chicken-pox? Or the little children who are in lock up with their mothers, unable to play in the sunshine? Or the young girl whose parents were abducted and who was assaulted by the abductors the night before she appeared for the Ordinary Level examination with a bruised and battered body?
Maybe I should start with my meeting of the young soldier of the Sri Lankan army who had bought two mangoes and was eagerly waiting for his shift to change so he could go back to camp and write a letter to his family to inform them he would not be able to visit them this new year? Or the plight of the other who was beaten and imprisoned for disobedience when he refused to accept that his leave was not approved? Or the sorrow of the women who send their men to war and who are unable to even give them a decent burial because their bodies have been burnt on the battlefield to downplay the casualties?
Or better still should I start with my own dismay when the Representative of the Government of Japan on Peace Building says that he cannot interfere in the internal affairs of my country? How am I able to tell women and children that they should report instances of abuse despite their traditional belief that outsiders cannot interfere in the affairs of the family when the very person who gives aid to my country tells me he cannot leverage on his standing as a donor to see that those who receive this aid do not abuse their authority?
Where do I start? How do I manage to fit in all these cases? Will I miss anyone out? Should I have taken proper notes? But how do I whip out my notepad and pen when they sit by me and cry while they relive their horror?
I can’t write. I can only hold their hands and cry with them….
Until the Guns are silent
(Inspired by the children I met in Jaffna. Follows after the poem Until it Snows)
I love the quiet. I love the pure, white finish of funeral shrouds. My world is troubled and noisy. My world is dusty, dirty and very dull since the guns began to fire. It leaves me longing for the silence of death.
Until the guns are silent.
I long for the peace that death brings. The thought of it helps me think about peaceful things. Like the way we used to laugh and play. My world is not peaceful.
Until the guns are silent.
I loath the memories the guns bring to mind. I cannot see the joy of Christmas in the things falling from the sky. I cannot hear the songs for my crying drowns it out. I cannot see the beauty in the piling up of dead. My world needs joy and laughter. It lacks so much.
Until the guns are silent.
I see the contrast blood brings. We are bathed in it, bombarded from all sides with flashing, brilliant, sparkling lights. Black, white, brown, gray and blood red limit us. My world is overwhelming.
Until the guns are silent.
I love the “slow” that death brings. My life is harried, rushed and moving too fast through check points and queues outside the grocery store, behind the barbed wire and the bars.
Until the guns are silent.
I take nothing for granted. I have no hope of losing myself in having too many choices. I only want another day of life in peace. I only want not to be afraid. I only want to be able to smile. I want to know my father and mother. But I can’t
Until the guns are silent.
Please help silence the guns so that these children can look forward to a normal life.