Humanity's Tears

Tonight I attended the first in a lecture series offered at the Calgary Public Library entitled "The Refugee Experience." The series, as is offered by its title, attempts to shed some light on the many challenges that refugees face upon arriving in Canada, as well as the few services that are available to assist those with transitioning to their new home.

Tonight's introudctory session cataloged the experience of "coming to Canada" through the eyes of one Calgarian who is one of the lost boys of Sudan. While I was expecting this evening's seminar to be informative and interesting, I did not anticipate the level of emotion that it would be loaded with, but with the harrowing details of this lost boy's journey to Canada, it was inevitably an emotional experience.

This lost boy - Jame's journey to Canada has been anything but easy, but too say it was "hard" hardly provides enough emotion for anyone to relate what he has been to. From escaping the brutal masacre of his home village at the age of 7, to joining thousands of other lost boys on a trek to Ethiopia, where once again they were forced to flee because of brutality, to the safety of a Kenyan refugee camp and finally to Canada, one would think that James finally found refugee in the calm and peaceful land that us Canadians call home. However, James' arrival in Canada became anything but relieving as he faced barrier after barrier in trying to access what he knew he needed most to succeed in Canadian society: an education.

The details of Jame's struggle to be accepted into Canadian society and to receive his right to an education are frusterating to hear in their own right, yet their importance in high-lighting the mistreatment of refugees accepted into Canada are highlighted further when we learn more about the real dilemma of Jame's existence.

After learning that the mother he had long thought was dead is still alive, James returned to Sudan to put her greatest fears to rest once and for all: her own long lost son was alive. Witnessing the plight of his family is hard for us outsiders to witness, yet how hard it must have been for James, who was finally making some sort of a life for himself in Canada, to see.

When asked whether or not he will use his current university education here or in Canada, James replied that he was a committed citizen of Canada, that he had to give back to his community. While his family remains in Africa and his heart may be torn, he believes his duty now lies in his new country.

The commitment this young refugee shows to his adopted country highlights what I see to be a grave ill of Canada's immigration system, which often offers refuge without the support that is needed to make it permanent.

Without assistance for an education, how are these people supposed to survive? How are they to reach their potential? And from what I have witnessed, their potential runs deep, as they are determined to mold themselves into something great - into a human being who has the capacity to turn a situation of grief, poverty and horror into something positive for the new world they have become a part of.

In reflecting upon the way Canada welcomes refugees - and all immigrants for that matter - I was drawn back to a moment of intense emotion I experienced during the movie highlighting Jame's reunion with his mother. As he approached her, she began to flail her arms out, sobbing uncontrollably - as did he when his mother drew him close to her chest. They both cried tears in the same way any human being who is overcome with grief, emotion or utmost relief does. Their cries symbolized the great significance of their reunion, but to me it also symbolized something greater. Their tears also symbolized humanity - the common thread that links all of us, from Africa to Canada, the United States to Japan, from Afghanistan to Australia and to the Northern most reaches of the world. As human beings, we all have the capacity for great compassion, for our loved ones, but also for those that we do not know anything about except their stories.

As I looked around the room during this dramatic reunion, it was apparent that many had tears in their eyes as I did. Those tears of compassion reminded me that we all have the ability as well as the responsibility to care for one another - even if they are not their own.

At the end of his presentation, James reminded us that Canada is a nation with a great capacity to care for those who are unable to care for themselves.

Let us not forget that. And let us not be afraid to shed tears for those we have welcomed into our home to take refugee.

Perhaps those tears will be a reminder of the great capacity we have to care for others. Especially when we adopt those others as our own.