Stars in Our Crown

It's been a few months since I have posted anything. Part of that is my hectic schedule. Since September I have been working two jobs- teaching high school literature and editing for a local news website- and that has taken up most of my time. 

But the other reason is one I want to address in this post. For some time now I've been doing a lot of self-care, dealing with the aftereffects of being a foreign correspondent and living in a foreign culture. It's not often talked about, but journalists, aid workers and counsellors sometimes deal with what in some cases is called compassion fatigue...and in more serious cases "secondary post-traumatic stress disorder", or SPTSD. After hearing story after story of violence, abuse, and chaos, we can start to feel the effects of those stories in our own minds and bodies. Secondary post-traumatic stress disorder mimics many of the serious symptoms that regular PTSD brings- nightmares, depression, overreaction to situations that should not be deemed dangerous, trouble sleeping, and problems with relationships. If this is coupled with other stressful circumstances or personal trauma, the symptoms can be exacerbated. 

Part of my self care means that at certain points, I try not to read news about violence or human rights abuses other than those issues that I am currently writing on or editing. Of course, it often reaches me anyway, and if it is an issue of particular interest, I can't help tweeting or writing about it. Another outlet involves releasing stress through creative means. I write poetry, paint, and journal. Most of those things don't show up here, but today I wanted to share the most recent poem I wrote. 

A few weeks ago I got the news that a former colleague of mine at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Tunis was reported to have been killed by the Islamic State in Libya. He was captured months back, and a news report on one of the terrorist websites had photos of him and another journalist, claiming they had been executed. 

Though I am far away in Egypt, the shockwaves of this hit me hard. Though I didn't know Sofiane Chourabi well, I saw him every week for the months I worked at IWPR, and the possibility that he was dead was difficult to handle. My best friend, who also worked at IWPR and is now with Human Rights Watch, has been able to give me the scattered updates she's received. The journalism community in Tunis was in a state of shock and sorrow, which quickly turned to anger when the Tunisian government failed to react quickly enough to ascertain the two journalists' wellbeing. 

When I heard the news, I immediately reached out to friends and family for their prayers and support. This is not the first time something like this has happened. My mother told me that news like this, "Makes your resume scary, in retrospect." To me, it means I was, and am, doing something that matters. But the conversation got me to thinking of how, as journalists, we often have the unhealthy practice of measuring our value in litres of blood, numbers of bullets and protests, and even, scarily enough, how many colleagues we've lost. Leonard Cohen once said that, "Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash." These are the ashes of this experience so far. 

Stars in our crown

Another one dead
But he’s just one of many
And I didn’t even write about him today
There are so many more to cry about

No guts, no glory
So often the guts aren’t ours
But it’s our job to shout about them
And scramble for the green glory
That comes trickling like a polluted river

War sells
And don’t we have an obligation?
Some are more obligated than us
We call it bravery…or insanity
And their deaths rub off on us
Lending us a sheen of relevance
Experience
The brighter it glows, the more the river flows
That’s what they say

So we place them like stars in our crown
But first we have to pluck them
Out of our bleeding hearts
And stop up the holes with newsprint

The smaller injustices are bullet holes
Tiny pin dots of teargas from police
The boom of the explosions and shots
Abuse from the bystanders, a daily assault
(Because words are weapons, whispered or shouted or written)
The chants of protests in my head while I sleep

I take these out too,
This time from my mind
And pin them like sequins on a diadem
Leaving air rushing through my skull
And through the airwaves

What if there’s too much air?
What if there’s not enough newsprint?
What if I run out of heart, of skull?
What if, next time, it’s me?

My friend informed me that sources are now saying Sofiane is safe, "but we don't know yet." If you're the praying type, please continue to keep Sofiane and his family and friends in your prayers. You can also spread awareness of his captivity, in hopes that the Tunisian government will act to verify his whereabouts, on Twitter using the hashtag #FreeSofiane.

Sofiane speaking to a soldier in Tunisia (from his Facebook page)

If you are a journalist, aid worker or counsellor who is dealing with SPTSD (or PTSD for that matter), I encourage you to reach out for support. Find people you can talk to, and ways that you can express your pain, sorrow, guilt and anger. Without your mental and physical health, you can't help anyone. Take care of yourselves. 

When you don't know why you're here...

Sometimes you end up in places and you’re not sure how or why. Coming to Egypt was like that for me. 

Egypt has always intrigued me, but for some reason I never thought about moving here. That is, until, almost by accident, I travelled here for a little over a week in May. I had been living in Tunis and working as a journalist for over a year, and was supposed to be traveling to Egypt with my Tunisian friend. Plans fell through, as they often do, and suddenly I was going there alone, completely dependent on the hospitality and kindness of new Egyptian friends.

It turned out that Egypt was the perfect place to be when I needed to rely on others. With the help of my friends, I fell completely in love with the people, culture, history, and tempo of Egypt. While Tunisia is one of North Africa and the Middle East’s hidden oases, Egypt is the pulsing core. They are connected to everything: in history, trade and foreign relations. And Egyptians know it. I’ve never met a people so proud of their heritage and ready to share it. 

I went back to Tunisia to do a freelance project and continue searching for a full time job. When the “Rebel” movement happened in June, overthrowing Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from office, I was itching to be in Cairo, waiting by my phone to hear if everyone was safe. I couldn’t wait to get back, and in July I travelled there again, this time for a month. 

The month was a whirlwind. In Cairo there were curfew parties, late-night checkpoints, and long nights spent watching movies and playing games with friends, who kept me far away from danger. In Alexandria, I saw a different side of Egyptian life. At a local NGO, Christians and Muslims worked together at a mother and child daycare and training centre, offering up love into the lives of less fortunate. Then my friends and I escaped to another world in Sahel, the North Coast, which reminded me more of a Florida resort and beach party than Egypt. 

When I got back to Tunis, most of the people I loved there were gone- on holiday, or working somewhere else. The city felt empty and lifeless. I had been without full-time work for months, and I was getting desperate...and bored. It was time for me to move on. Within ten days, I had two job interviews scheduled, packed up my life, and got back on a plane headed to Cairo for the third time in four months, this time for good. Even now, almost four months later, my head is still spinning from how fast my life turned completely upside-down. 

I’m a journalist. At least, I thought I was until I found myself applying, interviewing for, and then accepting a job as an English teacher at an American Egyptian school. You see, it turns out that where I live became more important than how I make a living. Loving people and making a difference in the world became more important than my chosen method of doing so. 

I’ll be honest- I am often frustrated that I am not moving in the direction I wanted to in my career. By now I hoped to be heading up a field branch of an NGO communications team. I’ve worked long and hard to achieve this dream, and I am not sure why it always seems to be just beyond my reach. 

There is also the fact that living in North Africa has taken its toll. Life here happens on a different level than it does in Canada. In Canada I was never afraid that my friends would be killed or injured when they went to a protest. In Canada I didn’t work in a place where the cleaners could die if they got sick because they don’t make enough money for the doctor. In Canada life, joy, and sorrow happen much more quietly than here- and so relationships happen on a higher frequency in Egypt too. The arguments are tenser, the love is stronger, the feelings are deeper...and it can be exhausting. I’ve learned more about myself, about God, and about real love and sacrifice in the past four months than I have in four years. 

Enjoying the view over the Nile
Photo by Ahmed Badawi

I still don’t know why God led me to be a teacher in Egypt...or not led so much and pushed me over the ledge headfirst. But when a mother tells me that her little boy framed the birthday card I gave him, and told her, “Look Mom, a teacher finally likes me!”, the why becomes a lot less important. And when a father who has been frustrated with his son’s love of football...and not of school, watches his child perform in the winter play, then looks me in the eye and says, “Today, I was proud of him,” I forget to question whether I should be here or not. On days or nights I am the only who is there to listen to a friend, to show them love, and to tell them I am praying for them, I don’t care about my career goals. Because I know there is purpose in what I am doing.

Maybe I am not saving the world like I dreamed of. Not yet anyway. But I am saving a few kids who the world has already bashed around a bit- the ones whose fathers are leaving, who are new to school and can’t make friends, who have lost parents or friends or siblings. I am trying hard to make a difference in a country whose people will not be defeated. They are teaching me a little something about persistence, about loving even when you think you are too broken and have nothing left to give. And you don’t need God to tell you the whys, the hows, and the whens to know that that is a good thing. 

Hope's Grave

I woke feeling like there was a rock in my stomach, and adrenalin rushing through my veins. Today was the day. I had watched the street battles between police and protesters from my window over the past couple days, and knew things might get bad. So I packed carefully, for the dangers and possibilities I did know, and trying to anticipate those I didn’t: 

• Cloths soaked in vinegar and lemon to hold to my face in case of tear gas
• Water and almonds to keep me going
• My audio recorder, camera, a notebook and extra batteries and pens
• Money stuffed in different pockets in case my change purse was stolen
• My passport- I don’t usually carry it, but today I wanted to be certain that if I was stopped, it was clear I was Canadian
• An extra scarf and a baseball cap to protect from the sun

I visited my friend in an office building on Bourguiba, and we ran across the street to get crepes at the only place that was open on the whole avenue. The shops looked like eyes with their lids squeezed tight. I had seen the broken windows of days before- so it was no wonder the metals grates stayed shut. 

Another friend was waiting for me at the bookstore with her Mom. We started walking towards the cemetery, past barbed wire and police, down quiet sidestreets. We were walking behind two young men, one of them clutching a large Tunisian flag in his hand. The sun had broken through the clouds, driving away the chill air, and under our warm layers we were beginning to perspire.

As we turned the corner I saw a straggling line of people in front of me, coming from every direction and headed towards the cemetery. We crested a rise in the road, and there on the bridge, in the graveyard, on the other side of the wall, on the hill, were thousands of Tunisians. Their black coats and black hair made the red Tunisian flags stand out like bright drops of blood. I stood on a concrete slab and looked over the crowd- there were people of every age, of every economic class, and we were all waiting. One man had died with revolutionary dreams on his lips, and the pulsing life of these tens of thousands was here to prove that it was not in vain. 

We waited for a long time. First we tried to find a place to watch outside the cemetery. But, realizing that this was futile, we hopped down a wall into the rows of stones and began picking our way towards the buildings in the center. The mud squished up over our shoes, and the sky suddenly became cloudy and grey. The wind blew into the cracks in our coats as we reached the edge of a huge crowd that had gathered, and were chanting revolutionary slogans off and on. Young men, the kind you see on all the street corners of downtown Tunis, clad in tracksuits, jeans and leather jackets, were climbing the walls of the buildings, grabbing each others arms and heaving themselves up bars on the windows to stand on the roof and yell from above us. Beside me was a circular stone structure, and the students at the top stood, illuminated by the sun, waving a flag back and forth. The light made the hope on their faces shine bright as they called back and forth to the men on the roofs. 

It began to rain, and my friend and I sat underneath a bougainvillea bush. The flowers were curled up tight, as if they knew what was coming and were trying to protect themselves. 

The crowd chanted off and on for what must have been an hour. When rumours of tear gas shifted our way, my companions and I made a swift getaway to higher, more open ground at the edge of the crowd. We stood on a low wall with some mothers and daughters, and continued waiting. 

We weren’t waiting long before panic struck. We watched trickles of people making their way down the path towards the exit. The trickle became a flood, and along with it, the first whiffs of acrid tear gas. We didn’t join the crush of people on the path, but started in the opposite direction as the gas, stepping over graves and around tombstones. Beside me I heard a young girl whine in panic, “Maman...MAMAN!!!” I stepped aside to let the family keep together. I wondered how the two little girls who had been to my left were making out, but there was no time to check. 

The smell got worse, and began to burn my nose and throat. 

“Whatever you do, don’t rub your eyes- even if it hurts,” my friend warned beside me. I nodded.

Her mother was having a hard time, coughing and tripping over stones. I dug in my bag for one of the cloths and handed it to her, then took her hand. 

The graves were no longer the last resting place of the dead, but only obstacles keeping us from fresh air. Reaching it, we breathed deeply. This side of the cemetery was almost deserted. There were no police, and no bands of thugs- yet. We found another exit and stood there, waiting again. I got a call from a radio station I freelance for, for an interview later in the day. We watched people go, and then watched some of those same people come back. A group of foreigners, who my friend and I dubbed, “hipster journalists” for their bright colours, headbands and expensive cameras, passed by us twice.

Finally, judging that it was safe, we walked cautiously back towards the centre of the cemetery where Belaid’s coffin would be taken. Black smoke rose on the other side of the area, dark against the grey rain clouds. Young men had taken advantage of the chaos the past couple days to burn cars and rob mourners, some said at knifepoint. 

We climbed higher up the hill to get a view. The crowd was smaller, but still substantial. A cheer went up, and we assumed that Belaid’s procession had reached the cemetery. Down below, an opposition party leader passed and we hurried to catch a word with him. Then another group of friends met us, and we decided to leave the site together. 

As we got to the gate, a group of teenage boys with bandanas covering their faces walked in. Out of instinct, I put my recorder down by my side where they couldn't see it, and averted my eyes. Maybe I shouldn't have worn the red raincoat- between that and my pale skin and hair I was a moving target. One of the boys hit a girl in the face. She started to cry and a couple people rushed to her aid. Another tried to grab my friend’s phone out of her hand as they passed. She shrugged off our concern, her face hard when she said, “It’s normal.”

The thieves had shaken me a bit, and we were careful as we walked back. I’ve been robbed before, and didn’t want to repeat the experience, so I kept a tight grip on my keychain with the whistle attached to it. 

When we reached Bourguiba, it was a changed place. Barbed wire completely enclosed one side, and the pedestrian walkway in the middle. Police and journalists were lined up at the clock tower at the top of the street, waiting for people to come back from the funeral. I waited there for another friend who was leaving her office, and we made our way down a side-street, thinking it would be safer. But at the end, we saw the tell-tale smoke of tear gas and men hurling rocks. I pushed my friend towards Passage, where she would find a cab, and said, “Go home.” Then I started running back to Bourguiba. I slowed when I reached it but walked as fast as I could, trying to outdistance the fear that was gripping my stomach again, and praying staccato sentences in my head. I passed two American women, obviously journalists, who appeared completely unconcerned. I shot them a look that said, “You’re crazy,” and kept walking. Getting mugged by the roving bands of thugs I knew were coming didn’t seem worth it to me, even to get the story. 

I could see the rock-throwers at the end of my street, and I rushed to get my key in the lock and open the thick metal door. It was such a relief to get inside that I felt like crying- but someone had closed the wooden door within, and I didn’t have a key. I was safe between the doors, but still gripped with a kind of panic, and I called the nun who takes care of the house to get someone to come down and open it. Just as they did, the radio studio called. With my voice still shaking, I gave them a quick update that may or may not have been incomprehensible. When it was over, I sat there for a minute on the couch in the vestibule, just trying to breathe.

Once in my room, I shot off a message to my parents that I was safe. I couldn’t handle more than that. The other people who live in my building, a group of Italian students, were gathered on the floor below me, drinking tea and checking online updates of what was happening outside. They watched a live feed of chanting from the funeral. I sat with them for a few minutes, but felt myself fading, so said goodbye. I went to my apartment and got in bed, the echo of chanting and the pop of tear gas still ringing in my ears. I slept until it was dark. 

One of my friends here says that Chokri Belaid’s death was like a loss of innocence for Tunisia. And when I think back to the day he died, standing on Bourguiba Avenue while my friend cried on my shoulder and sobbed, “What is happening to my country?”, I’m inclined to believe he is right. There was a normalcy to the stagnation and delay of the government. There was a balance, however unsteady, between all the different political and social factions. And there was hope in that fact that people were free to express their opinions in a way that was impossible before the revolution. There was hope that Tunisia could gradually get back on its feet. 

But with Belaid’s murder, days after he accused the government of not squashing political violence, a fear rose up in people that all they had sacrificed for would be pushed aside. In their anger, fear and sorrow, and without knowing who actually killed Belaid, or why, people are blaming each other. Belaid’s widow blames the government. Certain secular liberals blame Salafists and the League for the Protection of the Revolution. Then, in the aftermath, conservatives blamed France, and some blamed Belaid’s own party for the disruption to the peace. The Western media was quick to point a finger at the “Islamists”, with experts accusing them of being unfit to rule, and sympathetic towards Salafist extremists. This article even tried to tie Belaid’s death with a “violent tide of Salafism” that threatens the entire Arab Spring, an utterly ludicrous connection that those of us who live here know has no basis in facts. There are very few voices of reason, and very few who will talk to each other to try and work out a solution. Belaid's death has widened the social, political, economic and religious cracks that separate Tunisians from one another, and the media are doing their part to highlight these divisions.

You could say that on February 8, 2013, a lot of the hope that Tunisia had held on to after the revolution was buried deep in the ground with Chokri Belaid. 

But at the same time, many took his example of courage to heart. I spoke with an engineer at the funeral who told me that he never supported Belaid’s politics, indeed, that he didn’t support any party at all, but that he was inspired by Belaid’s speaking his mind and criticizing the government.

And then there was the young Tunisian woman at the funeral who had just returned from London to a country she no longer recognized. Her eyes and her words were beautifully melancholy, and she spoke into my recorder like it was a poetry recitation. At the end, she summed up how she felt like this:

“But I have hope. Where there is life, there is hope.”

A sign picturing Chokri Belaid

Walking to the cemetery

Waiting for the funeral to begin

On the roof

Chanting to keep the revolution alive

Smoke over the graves

The Malian Coup

Yesterday I had the great privilege of speaking with a Tuareg man from Mali. He runs community programs for his people in Timbuktu. I was writing a piece about the coup in Mali, and I wanted some background about the Tuareg rebellion- the catalyst that led Mali's army to seize power from the government.

I don't know how long the interview lasted, but my pen could not write fast enough. The scope of the Tuareg's history, their migrations and discontent, their history in conflicts from Libya to Niger, was staggering. I felt a deep sympathy for this people without a home, but at the same time I ached for the soldiers being pitted against their superior weapons and tactics.

When I hung up the phone, I was exhausted. My colleague across the desk looked at me, quite worried, but I just shook my head. What can someone do in the face of a conflict that has lasted for over a hundred years?

My answer was, as it has always been, to write about it. I was overwhelmed, but my fellow editors and journalists at Tunisia Live encouraged me to dig deeper, and to write the article I have linked below. I hope you will read it, because Mali needs the world to understand what has been going on for too long inside their borders.

Click the link: The Malian Coup - Decades of Rebellion and One Night of Gunfire


A Tuareg in Algeria sits in his army fatigues. Photo by Garrondo, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Tunisia Live

Hello all!
I am now settled in my new job in Tunis, Tunisia. Posts might be sporadic as I learn the ropes of my new home and position as an editor for Tunisia Live.
Check out www.tunisia-live.net for articles I write or have collaborated on. And follow me on Twitter for more consistent updates on what I am doing or working on.
Merci!

AJE Interview

My interview with Al Jazeera English about the current situation in Senegal should air on the 9pm news from London, UK tonight.

Betty Magazine

"It's Just Hair" has been published in Betty Magazine's first print issue! Betty is a UK beauty, lifestyle and fashion mag that empowers young women to be happy with who they are and celebrate what they love.

You can get your copy here.
Check out their blog and twitter!

Nagata Syndrome

My generation lives in a world set on hyper-drive. We’ve grown up being sensitized to this...but is it distracting us from being able to focus long enough to accomplish anything?

Instead of being fed information, news is shoved down our throats and screamed at us. It is second nature to be on the cutting edge of technology, culture, and current affairs. A popular t-shirt slogan says “I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet”...and for many of my peers, this is almost true. Our society is, globally, increasingly interconnected through social media, so when injustice happens, we read, see or hear about it...and then our attention is immediately pulled somewhere else. It is overwhelming, but addicting.

Author Courtney Martin writes in Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, “Always moving...We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible. We drink coffee. A lot of it...We are the daughters of feminists who said, ‘You can be anything,’ and we heard, ‘You must be everything.’”. She was writing about young women, but I would argue that much the same thing could be said of the young men I know.

Being everything means that we take on five projects at once, that we are interested in everything, that we find it difficult to say no to anything. And we continue to “find ourselves” over and over again, in new and different jobs, always looking for that one magical profession that will fulfill us. Often we think we have found it, only to be let down when it does not meet our expectations. So we move on, not sticking around long enough to stir the waters like we could, not long enough to realize our full potential.

Successful YouTuber Gunnarolla (Andrew Gunadie), also an alumnus of my alma mater, The University of Western Ontario, recently posted a video asking his viewers if it was worth him creating occasional videos. Between his two full-time social media jobs, Gunadie was losing time and passion for the medium that gained him fame to begin with. He said, “Yeah I have two jobs...My question to you is, is it worth trying to be a part time YouTuber? Why continue to make videos if you can’t be successful? To be honest YouTube is not really a creative outlet for me anymore.” Because he was no longer interested and available enough to create “good content,” Gunadie was questioning his involvement in what could be considered a third job.

I want to change the world. I’ve undertaken project after project, including volunteering, work experience, and two degrees towards that goal. I would hazard a guess that many people my age, regardless of their professional dreams, want to do the same in whatever field they are in, whether it’s entertainment, business, government or something in between. The problem is in deciding what that change will be, how we will craft it into something we can live off of, and then (and this may be the hardest) in sticking to it. Many of us find ourselves and our talents pulled in many different directions. And, being the ambitious, driven individuals we are, we often lose sleep rather than letting any one of our projects fail. If we do slip up, whether it is as small as a typo or something much more serious, we whine about how stretched thin we are...and do nothing to change it. This gives us incredible freedom in the possibilities, but carries costs, not the least of which is a lack of stability.


Enter Kai Nagata, the former CTV Quebec City Bureau Chief who, disillusioned with the business of broadcast news, recently quit his job. Nagata writes,

If storytelling turns out to be my true passion and the best use of my skills, then I'll continue down that path. If elder care, academia, agriculture, activism, art, education, Budo, or as-yet unforeseen pursuits turn out to make the flame burn brighter, I'll make the switch, or do them all...Right now I need to undertake a long-delayed journey of personal discovery. Having given away all the possessions that didn't fit into my truck, I've set out on the road again, heading West. I know I need to go home for a while. I need to surround myself with family and friends. I need to consult, meditate, and plan the next steps. I'm broke, and yet I know I'm rich in love. I'm unemployed and homeless, but I've never been more free. Everything is possible.

I identify with Nagata’s plight. He is a prime example of what has been called the “Peter Pan Generation,” for our refusal (or, if we are habitually unemployed, our inability) to grow up and don the mantle of a permanent job. He thought he had found something he could feel good about doing, and then discovered it was not for him. Regardless of whether or not his opinions on the business of news have merit, and despite the fact that many are shaking their heads at his Kerouac-like anti-career move, it took courage to follow his convictions. He, like so many of us, wants to make something of himself...or wants to make many things of himself.

I find myself in a similar soul-searching situation. But instead of looking at a myriad of interesting opportunities and trying to decide how many I can take on, I have made the choice to narrow down the options. As I apply for jobs in areas that I am passionate about, I am constantly asking myself- “Could I make a difference here? Does this use my skills in a way that I could be proud of? Is it something I can commit to?” If the answer is yes, I hit apply. If it’s not, I don’t, despite whatever financial consequences that may have. After six years of bouncing from cause to cause, I am looking for something that I can sink my teeth into, a job that I can devote myself to. I want to find my niche, and I want to work hard at it. Then and only then will I feel free to branch out again.

“Or do them all...” he said. For Nagata’s sake, I hope that's possible.

The Walrus

The Walrus is one of my favourite Canadian magazines, and my publication of choice for in-depth articles on politics and culture in Canada. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that my Dalton Camp Award essay is in the July/August online issue. I hope you'll check out their website, if not for my article, than for any number of other erudite reasons.



(Image © The Walrus)

Home

School is done. For good. As I've been applying for jobs and contemplating the imminent possibility of leaving Canada yet again, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of home. I've lived in London, Ontario for five years, but it is not my home. I love this town, but I've lived in a lot of places, and I know when it is time to move on.

The other night one of my fellow MAJ graduates asked me if I considered Toronto home (where I went to high school) or Sénégal home (where I grew up and where my family currently lives). In my mind I added a third place to the list: Newfoundland, where I was born and where much of my extended family on my mother's side still lives. Which is home? Where do I belong?

In a creative writing class in my last year of undergrad I penned a personal essay on this topic. Unfortunately, it was temporarily lost on a crashed hard drive that I have not yet been able to recover. But a little less than a month ago, Jenn, one of my missionary friends in Sénégal, used the last few lines from the essay in one of her blog posts. I was shocked and honoured that she had kept the quote for more than a year, then remembered it to put in her blog! The words hit home for me, reminding me that as a journalist, where my home is has to be my choice.

“Home, I have come to understand, does not only have to be “where the heart is”. It can be anywhere that you decide to live, and live well. You make a place your home when it becomes a point of purpose, of decision, and of life. You make home, wherever that may be, and it travels with you. Home, in my experience, is a verb.”

Why J-Schools need risk and trauma training.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
(The following article was published in J-Source)

Megan Radford (pictured below) is a graduate journalism student at the University of Western Ontario -- she's already undertaken an internship in Malaysia and covered the G20 protests in Toronto. Last weekend, in her final term, she attended a workshop on Journalists & Risk which explored physical and emotional safety considerations in her chosen profession. Now she asks: Are journalism schools paying too little attention to these issues -- too late?



As journalists it is sometimes our job to put ourselves in harm’s way, to get the grizzly details and weed out what the public should know...and what they perhaps should not. What some may not realize is that the toll of this kind of life begins early. For some it begins even before we have officially entered the field.

I am a journalism student who has been taught by those who I consider to be some of the best in the business. But until recently, I had been given no training in how to deal with the myriad of difficult events that I have encountered in the past few months. Had I asked or reached out, my instructors would have been quick to respond. But I didn’t know what to ask for. Now I do, and so, from a student’s perspective, this is what you need to know:

It happened so quickly. I arrived at 10 a.m. to the third floor video department of my internship placement in Malaysia, just like I had on every other day that month. But on this morning, my supervisor wanted me to accompany him, a reporter and another intern to an exclusive interview.

That same month M. Krishnan, a man of Indian descent, had died in the custody of the Malaysian police. There was evidence to suggest that he had been beaten and refused medical care. The family was demanding an independent post-mortem to investigate the causes of death. Up to this point they had refused to speak with the media. But because of the family’s belief that our news organization was one of the few not controlled by the government, they agreed to speak with us.

Our crew of four arrived at a block of crammed apartment buildings. We rode the most decrepit elevator I have ever been in to the third floor and came to an open door leading to a small apartment. I was not prepared for the number of extended family members inside the small one bedroom home. Krishnan’s teenage daughters smiled at me shyly from the kitchen doorway, their slender arms protectively around their younger brother. On the floor in the corner of the tiny living room were two older women. Their grave eyes watched us set up the cameras. We were brought orange soda to drink in glasses. Then the family retreated out of the shot and Krishnan’s wife and mother arranged themselves on the couch in front of the cameras.

Not speaking Tamil, it was my job to man one of the cameras while my colleague conducted the interview. I zoomed in and out, thinking of the shots I was told to get till I noticed that the mother, who was speaking at the time, had begun to cry. She did not wail or scream, so there was nothing to warn me when it happened. But I suddenly became very aware of the fact that sitting in front of me was a mother just like mine, a mother who had lost a son and very likely would never find justice for his death. After that, and throughout the interview with Krishnan’s stoically calm wife, I found it very difficult to keep my composure. Was I even allowed to cry? I honestly didn’t know.

In thinking back on that experience, and the other desperate stories I have reported on in my short time as a journalist, I feel like I want to scream. I want to scream for that mother who cried so quietly. I want to scream for the babies who are abandoned by their mothers on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. I want to scream for the women in the fashion industry who are treated as sexual objects by certain photographers. I want to scream for the Congolese family I interviewed in London, Ontario that is losing loved ones as the war in their home country continues.

I also worry that without the proper risk assessment training, young journalists like me will be put in physical danger. When I reported on the G20 protests in Toronto, I was unprepared for the kind of mayhem that broke out. Similarly, when I was in a crush of people at a Hindu festival in Malaysia, it was mere instinct that caused me to find a high point (a metal grate) and to avoid being pressed against a wall, rather than any kind of training I had received. Often our tendency as inexperienced go-getters is to run to the story, no matter the danger. We think we are invincible. We are not.

I recently attended a workshop co-sponsored by my journalism program and the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma. My professor, Cliff Lonsdale (formerly of the CBC and a host of other media outlets) is one of the co-founders of the Forum, and hosts these talks for his students every year. The workshop, through a panel of journalists and interviews with top reporters, cameramen and editors from around the world, gave an overview of the risks that we as journalists, whether at home or abroad, will encounter in our careers. They run the gamut from mortars, to lone attackers with guns, to the emotional toll of sitting through a gruesome trial.

We were told that when we go through these situations, we need to find outlets to deal with the stress right away. We need to find other hobbies outside of work, we need to exercise to work off the stress. Most importantly, we need to talk about what we are going through with someone that we trust. If we don’t, the cumulative effect of the traumas can build to the point of breakdown.

For some of us in the room, the scenarios were hypothetical. But for others, those of us who may have had to call a grieving family for comment, or been exposed to very immediate danger, they were not. The information we gained from this needed to be put into action. NOW.

I’m sure that my experiences are not extreme, but the point is that even in such a short time, this job has had an effect on me. We may be young and we may have been working in the business for less than a year, but that has not stopped us from experiencing the kind of heartbreak and fear that any seasoned journalist goes through. This is why we as young journalists need to be informed of the risks, both mental and physical, that this job can have, right from the start. Far from being dissuaded from a career in reporting, I believe it will make us braver, more careful, and ultimately better journalists.

Dealing with Baby Abandonment in Malaysia

Day 3- My first impressions of Malaysia

I have embarked on my one month internship in Malaysia! I will be working with Malaysiakini, an independent news organization based in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is known for placing tight restrictions on local broadcast and print news, but Malaysiakini is able to circumvent these by posting its content online. The website is subscription based, but I will be working in the video department which streams it's videos free on youtube.

After two slow first days at the office, today I got all the action I wanted...and more. But before I get into that, I wanted to quickly reem off some of my first impressions of Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur in particular.

The first thing I noticed as the plane touched down were rows and rows of palm trees. Malaysia is a major exporter of palm oil, which they produce monoculturally.

The second, as I walked outside, was that it is hot. But I expected and welcomed that.

My third observation was that KL is a city of malls. They are simply everywhere, which is convenient for my needs, but not so much for my wallet. Shopaholics beware!

My fourth observation came when I was trying to shake the jet lag with a quick nap an hour or so after I had arrived at my home-stay. I was dozing in my lovely air conditioned room when I was jolted awake by the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard. I jumped out of bed and opened a window to find a literal downpour outside. Rain, rain and more rain can be expected throughout my stay here.

After a weekend of fighting a cold and sightseeing (The National Museum, Central Market, Chinatown), I was definitely ready to get on the job this Monday.

From my homestay it is about a ten minute walk to the Malaysiakini office. The past three mornings I have arrived and had tea with some of my coworkers at a little outdoor restaurant/cafe right next door.

My first day at Malaysiakini was spent meeting people and looking for a story. My second day was spent calling people for interviews for said story. While the atmosphere in the editorial/print office downstairs is tense and serious (which seems to work well for the journalists down there), the TV office is a creative and fun environment.

Today I tailed a videographer/video editor and a journalist to a press conference and a protest. The press conference started late (do they ever start on time?), so the journalists assembled had time to smoke in the hallway of the government office and watch an Indonesian soap on the TV in the tiny room where the podium was set up.

The protest was interesting, but not as interesting as one would hope. It was hot, and though the police had formed a barricade, nothing particularly special happened. All told the real part of the protest was done in about 10 minutes, and then the organizers posed for pictures. Some of the journalists there, however, seemed more interested in taking pictures of the foreigner (me) than the protest and police. I was asked if I was from CNBC or BBC, and seemed to let them down when they discovered I was a lowly intern.

On another note, lunch didn't come till 4pm- a good reason to pack water and granola bars when you are on assignment. Sunscreen and a extra batteries never hurt either.

Tomorrow I will be interviewing people from several NGOs about how they are dealing with baby dumping, which has become a major concern for Malaysians. Unwed mothers in this country are unaware of their options and often feel ostracized and shamed. Some of them are choosing to abandon their babies in public places. We will be investigating a new initiative called "baby hatches," where mothers can leave their babies in a safe and caring environment without having to reveal their identities.

That's all for now. It's getting late and tomorrow morning will come early.

Disclaimer: any and all views expressed on this blog are the opinions of me, the lowly journalism intern/student, and not my university, Malaysiakini or my supervisors.

The Consequences

So we’re starting a new term in our Masters program. On the agenda, a class called Online Journalism, which, as it turns out is pretty interesting. The way our world is changing is daunting, but exciting. That we are able to post things right from the street and upload them in seconds so that people across the world can see them is changing the way information works.

But despite my interest in how the internet and technology is affecting our craft, this first class today freaked me out. Not because I don’t like iPads and Kindles and smartphones. I actually think some of them are pretty cool. But as I was writing my notes down, a question kept popping into my head. It became so persistent that I finally scribbled it in the margins:

What are the consequences?

In my undergrad we learned about how our choices affect those in other countries. In the 90s the outcry was against so called “sweatshops,” where factories in Asia pumped out the items needed to fulfill the West’s desires. For our generation, I believe one of the many issues that we have to grapple with is how the minerals and metals needed to make our smartphones, cameras, computers and more are fueling a war right across the ocean.

Coltan is one of the elements used in cellphones. In an article from 2008, Mike Pflanz of the Telegraph reports, “More than 80 per cent of the world's coltan is in Africa, and 80 percent of that lies in territory controlled by Congo's various ragtag rebel groups, armed militia and its corrupt and underfunded national army.”*

Congo has been in conflict since the 1990s, some of it a spill-over from the notorious war in Rwanda. The violence between the Hutus and the Tutsis continued when many Hutu men fled to Congo following the genocide. A few days ago I posted an article to Twitter about how there have been 500 rapes in the Congo in the past 2 months, according to the United Nations. In 2008 it was reported that more than five and a half million people have died since the war officially began in 1998.

Numbers like this should scare tech-savvy students and consumers like us when we consider that the role of conflict minerals in the deaths and rapes in Congo have recently been acknowledged in a confidential United Nations report that was leaked to the media. Organizations like The Enough Project have begun to make noise about the effect of conflict minerals. But computer and IT companies continue to trade with suppliers in war-torn Congo.

So my question is, are we willing to live with that? Are we willing to live with the fact that our desire to be on top of technological trends is directly linked to the death and rape of people in countries like Congo? As journalists, can we use these tools to reach our readers without a serious look at the ramifications? Don’t we have an obligation to the truth, however it might inconvenience us?

Because if we do, there are still options. News media sources are choosing those options each time they publish an article on the Congo. People are putting pressure on companies to make sure that the materials they use are ethically sourced. And as young journalists and consumers, we can do the same.

Progress for us and for the world shouldn’t have to mean suffering for someone else. Because how can that be called progress at all?

Note: This piece was originally posted on the Western Online Journalism blog, where it received almost 2000 page views.

*I would encourage you to read the entire article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/congo/3407217/How-the-mobile-phone-in-your-pocket-is-helping-to-pay-for-the-civil-war-in-Congo.html It is the most comprehensive piece I have found on the subject.

Other articles on Congo, minerals, and corporations:

“Human exploitation fuels mining trade in DRC: Apple, Dell look away”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amnesty-international/human-exploitation-fuels_b_243939.html

“Congo’s Death Rate Unchanged Since War Ended”: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/world/africa/23congo.html?_r=1&ref=congothedemocraticrepublicof

“The U.N. Report on War Crimes in Congo”: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/the-u-n-report-on-war-crimes-in-congo/?scp=5&sq=congo&st=cse

“Over 500 rapes in Congo since July: UN”: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/09/08/congo-un-attack.html