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Originally Posted on  Chapters/Indigo

This was not an easy book to read, but it was an important story to hear. As others have stated, there is some controversy over the veracity of Beah’s account from newspaper, “The Australian”. From doing a bit of research, it seems that there is no “smoking gun” saying that his accounts were a lie (everything is hearsay). You can see the Wiki here, and the author’s response to the accounts here. The story is so awful, I think a lot of us WANT to believe that it could never of happened on this earth.

So, assuming that everything was true, I found the book heart-wrenching. Being a teenager is so difficult – and to layer drugs and violence on top of it, seems unbearable. Since we are about the same age, his music references (such as Heavy D and the Boyz) made me remember what I was doing at the time, and how much simpler my life was. Family (relatively) in tact. A stable political situation. Nothing to worry about other than school and friends. This book reminds us all that these are gifts.

The book was set well – I felt like I was living in a world of chiefs, villages and wild animals. He was honest about his relationship with drugs and violence, and did not get overly moralistic about it.

One thing I wish the book had more of was some insight into the “why”. I would have liked to understand how he went from a boy soldier to a reformed one. It seemed like the switch at the UNICEF centre was completely binary, and from what I understand of the human heart, things don’t play out like that. It is also a bit of a Cinderella story at the end, and I wish he discussed if there were any aftershock effects of living the life he did for so many years – such as if the drugs had long-term effects. Or, if he was numb to violence or super-sensitive based on how he lived. Or if he missed his homeland or despised it.

Overall, I would recommend this book. I think in the Western world we like to place war in the past or somewhere far away. A book like this reminds us of all of the awful things that war brings… to people that don’t deserve to be forgotten.

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A Tibetan refugee once told me about the Chinese "school" he was
required to attend as a youngster growing up in Tibet. The mornings
were devoted to indoctrination and study of Chairman Mao’s "little red
book". The afternoons were devoted to reporting on various homework
assignments. The "homework" was generally devised to eradicate the
deeply ingrained spirit of Buddhism among the Tibetan people. For
example, knowing about the Buddhist prohibition against killing and the
belief that every living creature is equally a precious "sentient
being," one schoolteacher assigned his students the task of killing
something and bringing it to school the following day. The students
were graded. Each dead animal was given a certain point value – a fly
was worth one point, a worm – two, a mouse – five, a cat – ten, and so
on.

more obvious? I hope that some diplomatic action will be taken soon – because I am not sure if the recommendations from various heads of state for the Chinese to focus on diplomacy with Tibetans will be enough.

*P 184 of this edition.

As a bit of an unusual twist on the blog, I am adding a little short essay I wrote about the trip. It isn’t 100% true – ie. people knew I was away, he didn’t cheat on me, he just broke up with me and there was no hat. Enjoy.

“Yes, and that is why people from all over the world come to see her,” I overheard, a black-haired guide speaking in French. “People want to know that true beauty in a woman is not about having everything put together perfectly. Beauty is spontaneous… a kind of imperfect perfection.”

I looked at the statue of Venus de Milo – she is imperfect by today’s standards, that is for sure. She looks like the way my body looks like after the winter, when I have been eating a lot of chocolate and drive-thru, working too much, sitting at my desk too much and going to the gym not enough… and my stomach sticks out over the top of my jeans. “Muffin top” is what my friend Tori calls that little piece of fat which Venus would have if she wore jeans. The statue’s hair is not too stylish either in its stringy pony-tail. Yet people from around the world come and see her – because she is beautiful.

I walk alone through the hallways of Paris’s the Louvre, wearing a sweatshirt, a too-big coat and baggy jeans. No, I didn’t want to stand out here. I could not let anyone know that I was thousands of miles away from anyone that loved me… and that no one knew that I was there.  That I ran away from my life. A friend of mine from highschool once ran away from home, and she said that the first rule of running away is that you cannot share that fact with anyone – people are more likely to take advantage of you when you have no one nearby that cares for you.

“Well, maybe in the place where she is from, that hairstyle is cool?” said a woman in Japanese. I turned around to see her – she was wearing tight jeans, pointy boots and a shiny purse that likely cost thousands of dollars.  She and her friend burst out in laughter. I realized that they were looking at me and talking about my messy chignon. I touched my hair self-consciously.

“Excuse me…” said a young Japanese man with thick black glasses and a scrappy little beard in faltering, hesitant English. “Could you take a photo?” After saying “sure, no problem,” I noticed that he was posing with those two cats who were making fun of me!!!

“Yes,” I responded in Japanese – with all the confidence I could muster. “I want to see all of your beautiful smiles – say cheese!” The girls looked surprised and very ashamed. How could they have guessed that I was an exchange student for two years in Tokyo? “Now…” I said gesturing at my head, “maybe you guys can give me some hairstyling advice – I know – it is so terrible!” They all laughed loudly – and complimented me on my Japanese language skills.

The four of us ended up going for dinner than to drinks together. On the way, the girls suggested that maybe the best solution for my hair troubles was to buy a hat – so I got a big white floppy one.  “You look so pretty in your hat. You are a beautiful woman!” said one of them. “Why are you here in Paris by yourself – you should have a boyfriend!” 

I told them that I had a boyfriend until few weeks ago. I caught him cheating on me with his ex-wife. The trip was my way of escaping my life. I felt like my life was becoming a monument to my sadness and to what had been lost. I wanted to see other monuments instead – to beauty, to freedom, to happiness. I didn’t say that last part in Japanese though, since I don’t know how to say monument, and I think these guys were too young and sweet to get it. 

“Alone in the city of love – it is so sad,” said one of the girls.

“But, no – somehow right now, I feel not sad for the first time in months.” I switched to English “I feel better now – just hanging out with you guys – practicing French and Japanese and being interested in my own life. It is not quite the life I dreamed of – but it is imperfect and beautiful – like the statue where we met…” They smiled.

I try my best to avoid it – I never seek her out on the internet – and obviously don’t buy any of those celebrity magazines. But, regardless, I know that she was recently in Toronto, that she was in jail then got out, that she had a CD that flopped etc. etc. She is everywhere! I am not alone in resenting her celebrity. It is not as if she has a talent like some of the other celebrity obsessions like Michael Jackson or Angelina Jolie have. Or like the sports celebrities, where they have qualities in them of skill and determination that you can truly admire. She is famous for being famous – that’s it. That is what I find so annoying about things that are covered in popular media now – it is a lot of noise about nothing. With all of this celebrity worship, it is as if the whole world has turned into a boy-band loving teenage girl. It is bizarre.

I read Al Gore saying the other day that the average American watches four hours and 28 minutes a day of television, that is 90 minutes more than the global average. The average Canadian watches about three hours a day according to statistics Canada. And – I know there are still some quality shows out there… but something tells me that there is also lots and lots of Paris Hilton.

One thing he was particularly focused on was the UN’s failure to act in the face of AIDS. Instead, they studied and talked:

I make this point because all of us, myself included, who moved too slowly in the face of the viral contagion, who fiddled while Africa burned, who have spent days upon days in incestuous discussions, meetings, conferences, seminars, roundtables, with their reports, proceedings, documents, monographs, statistical compilations ad nauseam, all repeating what has been said before, all pretending to transform the obvious into revelation, all of us spending huge amounts of money on travel and accommodation, money that could have been used to save lives… all of us have a lot to atone for. And there’s nothing quite so unseemly as the refusal to admit we were wrong, we delayed, we conducted business as usual when we were in the midst of the most appalling emergency in the history of humankind.

I find this common in well-meaning people and organizations. There becomes a bias towards inaction, where people with some skin in the game or who can get some personal gain from something DO act. In some organizations, acting on something is almost shunned – as if it is dirty, common work where the thinking and talking is higher. I think these people are also somewhat afraid of acting because every time you act, you can be critisized. I’ve really appreciated working with entrepreneurs and start-ups lately because they know they HAVE to act or die. It deeply saddens me that even in the face of AIDS, an organization like the UN couldn’t even muster up the courage to be more responsive.

• Ray Ban mirrored sunglasses were made in Italy.
• Blue leather Roots purse was made in Canada.
• Bright blue long shirt was made in Bulgaria.
• Super-tight low-rise light-wash capris were made in Bangladesh.
• Purple lacy underwear was also made in Bangladesh.
• Cute pink bra was made in China.
• As for me, I guess technically I was made in Montreal

I created this (crude) map of where everything came from. It’s always good to remember how we are able to get so many wonderful things (at relatively low prices) and how much we rely on transportation (and oil) for them.

I like this public service announcement from WWF showing people going about their daily routines while the environment is in crisis… yet they don’t skip a beat. The tagline is "Ignoring Global Warming Won’t Make it Go Away".

Many of us engage in this feel-good positivism, and when someone brings up the environment, it is met with avoidance and denial. And, I know there are still some doubters about Global Warming based on people making claims without the full weight of science behind them. But, based as said before, the science is now there:

In 2001, it said that it was "likely" that human activities lay behind the trends observed at various parts of the planet; "likely" in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90% probability.

Now, the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet’s surface.

How can we still be going about our daily routines in light of this fact? In psychology, denial is known as a defense mechanism. When something is too painful face directly, we tend to pretend it isn’t there. There are many different types of denial, including denial of fact, denial of responsibility and even denial of denial (you can see more here on Wikipaedia). I think the most relevant form of denial is "denial of impact" when it comes to global warming.

Denial of impact: Denial of impact involves a person avoiding thinking about or understanding the harms their behavior have caused to themselves or others. By doing this, that person is able to avoid feeling a sense of guilt and it can prevent that person from developing remorse or empathy for others. Denial of impact reduces or eliminates a sense of pain or harm from poor decisions.

And… I think it’s too bad. I am definitely "for" feeling good, since I believe that life is supposed to be pleasurable. But, there is are lots of differences between being positive and being in denial, even though they can appear similar at first glance (my tool doesn’t let me make tables, so I will just color these to add contrast):

• Being positive is grounded in reality, denial is not
• Being positive is a healthy coping mechanism, denial is not healthy
• Being positive is genuine and from the heart, denial is image-driven
• Being positive is facing reality, denial is avoiding reality
• Being positive gives you an opportunity to make change, denial does not

So, I think a positive, non-denial-oriented attitude would be "hey, we have a problem, let’s act differently and try to turn it around". Instead, people are going about their normal routines. They are saying "Shhhh… don’t point stuff out… we’re trying to pretend it’s fine when it’s not fine". Then they don’t sense the pain from the poor decisions. Then they don’t change.