However cynical you are about this dark world, it’s surely possible to be cheered by the empathy that so many people are showing towards those who need it most. It can be seen in the work of volunteers at every border crossing and in every refugee camp, in the donations streaming in to the Guardian’s refugee appeal, as well as in acts of extraordinary kindness such as that of the 11-year-old girl who donated all her birthday presents, still wrapped, to a refugee organisation.These efforts are a powerful rebuke to those who tell us that people who cross borders are to be feared, not welcomed. They remind us that we can let ourselves be ruled by love not hate. It’s the end of year message that I want to hear. So it may seem curmudgeonly to also say that individual empathy has limits. But over the past seven years, working with refugees, I have certainly learned something about the limits of my own.
More than 70 women every week come to the drop-in lunches and classes atWomen for Refugee Women. I have stopped asking them about their own stories; I find it too hard to hear those tales of torture, rape and imprisonment. I have stopped asking them if they have children; I don’t want to be handed the crumpled photograph of the child they left behind. I have stopped visiting detention centres in the UK; I have seen too many vulnerable women locked up. There is a limit to how much sadness I can hear on a daily basis when I know I cannot begin to ease it.
No comments:
Post a Comment