I know how I amwhen someone lectures on about wrongful arrests, limited freedoms, human rights abusesI know that its wrong, and that it shouldnt be that way, and perhaps some cursory feelings of empathy, but I cant make myself get angry. The more impassioned the person gets, the more I remain distant, unable to connect the life I live with these abstract words; sympathy tends to fail when the assumptions one needs to make in order to place oneself in the shoes of another are too demanding, too large of a gap from ones experiential reality. People tend to attack this dislocation with an anecdote (think politicians BS remarks about the conversations they just had with Jane Average in Anytown, USA about her husbands medical bills), but still it tends to be formulaic, and all too frequently continues. I think this is because invariably, the person speaking is him/herself removed, and the anecdote is not his/hers, and it is this second-handedness, this added distance from the events and suffering, that account for the inability to illicit sympathy.
I never thought about how frustrating it must be for these people: committed to a cause and charged with making that cause real for people like me, repeatedly facing disengagement. That being said, in sharing a situation in the world that I have encountered, and which needs to be known, I have thought a lot about getting past the above-mentioned hurdles. All I can do is attempt to relay the feelings and responses I felt to hearing such an anecdote first hand, in hopes of making the experience more real in its second telling
Being struck by the profoundness of the accident of birth is certainly not a novel feeling for me, but this is different.
She travels a lot for work, but when she is home she hangs out with her friends and loves eating Mexican food. She lives far from home and her family, coming to Chiang Mai to work for and NGO and to help people who dont have many rights. She grew up in a pretty big town with her mom and siblings. She misses her mom a lot, and they talk on the phone whenever they can. She is hoping to get her mom to visit so that they may be together, because she is unable to go back home to see her.
So do I. The minutia of our everyday lives today is so similar: this makes the differences ever so much more striking. Without the hurdles of cultural relativism to overcome, I no longer tend toward detachment.
Both of our parents were activists, standing up against things that they believed to be wrong. After things in the US changed, and causes went the wayside, my parents cut their hair, and moved on with their lives. But for her, and her parents causes are ever multiplying.
Her first memory of her dad was when she was 12, being brought over to her grandparents house, where a strange man hugged her and started to cry. He had gone out 10 years before, said hed been back by midnight. He was arrested, jailed for years without substantiation, and upon release, joined the democracy movement, lecturing throughout the border and into Thailand. Despite the efforts of her dad, and thousands like him, the time has not yet come to put down the protests and move on with life. A few years ago, he was picked up again, and after a few days of wondering what had become of him, the State-run news announced his capture. Her family had mixed emotions: they knew where he was, and that he wasnt killed or forcibly enslaved (both viable possibilities), but he was again sentenced to a long term in one of the countries most infamous prisons.
Thats when she came here, to make money to send to her mom, and in the meantime help others facing similar situations, lending a sympathetic ear to those whose lives so resembled her own. Her mom moved too, to be near her husband and to be able to make to twice-monthly visits allowed prisoners, visits that frequently marked the difference between life and death.
Had things been reversed I wonder: would my parents still be protesting?
Last week there was talk of her mom coming to visit. With connections in the NGO world, a secure car could bring her here, and they could, if only briefly, once again stay together. I was excited for the opportunity to get closer to the source of the delicious cooking I so eagerly wanted to learn, not to mention second hand excitement: I knew how much it would mean to her to be able to see her mom.
She called her mom, hoping for good news and instead her mom responded as if not recognizing her voice, speaking loudly, No, no, I dont know who this is. Why are you calling me? Dont call back. And after a few moments hung up.
She knew she couldnt call back, but that is all she knew. Obviously her mom thought that her line was being tapped. There was no way for her to know what was going on. She couldnt call back. All she knew was that her mom was in trouble, and she was away, unable to go home, unable to help, unable to find out any more.
A return to that dreaded unknown.
My mom and I certainly have our communication problems, as the combination of quarter-century-old overloaded trans-ocean cables, and dodgy wireless networks sometimes prevents us from being able to talk. But with perseverance, eventually we can hear one anothers voice and can speak freely about our lives. This is a gift whose value I have never really considered. To imagine being cut off from her, knowing something was wrong, and being unable to contact her for fear of making things worse, fills me with emotions I can hardly sort out.
Our lives are the same, yet worlds apart. One cannot control the accident of birth, one can only appreciate ones blessings, and in turn, others pain.
Hardly distant.
I hope you’ll be able to keep up with this story.
Take care.
This is a really touching entry — I hope your friend is able to contact her mom. I read about how they were making a new constitution in Burma, but it seems like the military rulers have actually controlled most of the process.