I was at Church
not long after the Feb earthquake
when one of the speakers,
an American visitor
talked about tragedies that befall communities.
There is an element of isolation when a natural type disaster befalls you.
The shared experience of your community can only be understood by those who were there.
Your empathy grows for those who have similar experiences in other places,
you will have an increased appreciation but can't fully understand.
Regardless though you are geographically isolated by an event that is so centred on one place.
This American tried to understand by talking about
the tragedy that was experienced by the world.
What?!?! We had a world wide tragedy? What tragedy was that?
Was it the 20 million displaced people in Pakistan from earthquakes and flooding and now famine?
Was it the swathes of Africans who have had to flee their homes primarily because of civil war but also because of famine due to deforestation and drought?
Was it the Boxing Day Tsunami that washed thousands of people and lives away in a number of Pacific Rim nations including tourists in their Christmas holidays?
In the next sentence he went on to talk about the following October
and we (being me and Liz who sat next to me)
realised he meant September 11th.
Yeah you know that international tragedy that
effected everyone in the whole wide world.
Ah not exactly sunshine.
That was an American event
and it was a man planned event at that.
That happened one that to a handful of buildings with, for the most part, quite a bit of notice to evacuate.
A disaster yes but not a world wide one.
A theatrical one for sure.
And handily caught on tape.
One that has been exploited to the max.
And hardly a natural disaster that sprung from nowhere and
had widespread impacts on hundreds of thousands of people where they live.
Our natural disaster is in perspective.
We don't really expect anyone outside of Canterbury
to get too excited about the ongoing effects of the earthquake.
I like you to know we are still having earthquakes,
a 4.3 last night that was a bit long.
We are averaging about 15 earthquakes a day
but thankfully most of them are under 4.
We don't get out of bed for anything under 4 or 5 for that matter.
But I don't expect you to being thinking about it all the time.
Heck I don't think about it all the time
that's why I get surprised when we have another more than 4 earthquake,
it keeps me on my toes.
There are tragedies all over the world at the moment
but actually all the time.
Think of our veterans.
Their experiences are personal and shared with those who were there.
Unless we were there we can't understand what they went through.
We can honour and respect them.
I remember when I was in High School
and our english class was given the assignment to interview veterans.
We tramped over to the Sunnyview RSA rest home
to interview old soldiers.
I've always hated being intrusive and would make a poor journalist
cause I just can't be nosy about things that I think are personal.
I stopped to chat with an old soldier who was in his bed,
he was super old then and this was 20 years ago.
He had been a tank machine gunner in North Africa.
What does an old soldier tell a 17 year old girl who knows nothing?
I remember asking about going to battle and if he had killed anyone
(the types of questions only the young can ask).
I realised one of the advantages of being a machine gunner
was that you can't really tell if you actually kill anyone.
You are just spraying bullets in the direction of the enemy
and assume you are making a difference.
He agreed and I hoped that I was right.
My point is that we all have tragedic experiences
and as I grow older I know a couple of things for sure.
One is I don't understand your experience,
I can have empathy for you,
I can appreciate what had happened
Understanding is from those who have been there.
Another is that just because a tragedy has been on TV
it doesn't mean it happened to everyone.
As a rule your tragedic experience no matter how big was a blip
(sometimes a long blip)
on other peoples radar.
It's all stories that happened to real people,
that's all.
I'm going to have a lie down now.
* By really impacted I mean broken houses, oozing sewerage, no clean water, no jobs, schools closed and a repeat performance every week with an large aftershock which starts the questions all over again.
No comments:
Post a Comment