clashes

when i was young and idealistic, i had a stance on everything. i knew what side of the israeli-palestinian conflict i was on. i knew what should be done with pinochet and milosevic. the world was black and white to me.


then we lived in belfast, northern ireland for a year and my world got turned on its head. in many ways i have never recovered from that year, and certainly my ideas of civil conflict have never been the same. i saw exactly how complex war is. i saw how deep hatred can run. i saw that there was no black and white answer to solving conflict and this really disturbed me.


kenya experienced what they call 'the clashes' a year ago after a corrupt election. the stories i heard and the images painted for me were heartbreaking as i saw how far-reaching the violence was.

i met two sisters under the age of 10 who had witnessed their father murdered in such a brutal way that i couldn't even think of repeating it here. they were left orphans (and are now living with a kenyan family and being sponsored by friends of mine.)

i spoke at length with a mother who has taken in orphans and who lives in the countryside. she had to flee into the forest with her 30 odd children while people stole their livestock and raided their huts. they lived for 2 weeks in a church and were without food. when i asked what that was like she talked of how hungry the children were and how weak they were by the time they finally got food.

different people ReACT has given microloans to had to use up their repayment just to live during the weeks of the clashes.

it goes on and on.........i wrote earlier about being shocked by how many orphans there were in kenya, but i was probably more shocked by the number of children orphaned during the clashes.

i just can't imagine how people can turn on their neighbours just because they're from a different tribe. similarly, in northern ireland i can't believe that people murder each other because they're from a different denomination. same for so many countries in the world.

i'd like to believe that i'm above all that...that if i had a gun to my head or if my children were in danger i would never even strike another human being.

the truth is, it's never as black and white as all that, is it...