World Refugee Day 2020

Today is World Refugee Day.  As some of you know, my husband and I founded a refugee sponsorship group in our community in 2015, one of many groups in Canada that responded to the image of the dead body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi.  I wrote about that experience here.  Today, I would like to take just a minute to reflect on what I have learned since then, and what I believe about refugees.

I think that many refugees live lives of paradox.  They are among the most vulnerable and yet the most strong and courageous of people. They make the difficult decision to leave their homes, their families, their cultures, and everything that is familiar to them, not because they want a better income or a bigger house or a better job, but because their lives are in danger. They do not wake up one morning and say "Oh, I think I'd like to move to Canada (or wherever)." They wake up and think, "If I do not leave the home I love, RIGHT NOW, my family and I will die." They flee, in fear of their lives, to places where they are not welcome, that are already overcrowded with other refugees, but at least they are a tiny bit safer than they were before. They hope and pray that either their homelands will become safe again, or that they will find another home where they can live in safety and peace.  They leave family that they love, who, in all likelihood, they will never see again. They cannot go back for a vacation, or to see a dying parent, or for weddings.

Some refugees come from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds. But many of them come from lives that were, at one time, good. They had jobs, homes, things to look forward to in their lives. They had choices. They never dreamed that one day they would have to leave all that behind. Some of them have to leave in a hurry, in the middle of the night, taking only what they can carry with them. Some of them are born and raised in refugee camps, children of refugees, and know no other life.

If they are very lucky, they can register as refugees with the UNHCR, and then, they have a shot at being selected for resettlement in a new country. But that's only if they are refugees outside their home country. There are millions of people who have left their homes but are still within the borders of their home country, and these displaced people are not considered “refugees” under UNHCR guidelines.

In 2018, Canada settled the highest number of refugees of any country in the world -- 28,100 – followed by a slight increase to 29,950 refugees in 2019. That's great, and we can be proud of that for the most part (I won't go into problems with how the government does or does not assist refugees once they arrive; also, if you are a student of Canadian history, you will know that despite official government rhetoric, Canada has not always been the most welcoming nation, and in fact, has a strong history of racism and exclusionary policies with it comes to refugees and immigration... but that’s another story). But in today’s context, before we get too smug and self-satisfied, consider this: that figure represents only about 1.1% of the world’s refugee population, if my math is correct.  Current statistics from the UNHCR (https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html) show that as of last year, there are almost 80 million -- MILLION! -- people displaced by war and violence.  26 million of them are refugees (i.e. they have left their countries of origin), and HALF of those are children under the age of 18.

Some refugees live in refugee camps.  If you think living in a refugee camp is easy, I challenge you to do some research; there are many videos online that will take you to directly there (Za’atari, Kakuma, and Dadaab are three of the largest camps). Refugees are not given “free passes.”  They are not “economic migrants.”  Many of them face years living as refugees.  Many of them do not have legal standing in their host countries, so they are not able to work or to send their children to school.  Some of them live in fear of being beaten by hostile residents, or worse, being deported back to the countries they came from, where some of them are executed.  People who are displaced from their homes but have not left their countries face many of the same situations as refugees: overcrowding, lack of employment, fear, death. 

Refugees often wait for years before they are resettled in countries like Canada.  They face many obstacles – long wait times in host countries, difficulties that come from not having the proper official papers, expiration dates for medical and security screening, and often times, illegal demands for money from those who are supposed to be helping them.  When they apply for resettlement with the UNHCR, refugees are screened for security and medical purposes.  Then, once Canada indicates an interest in them, they are screened again by Canadian government officials.  CSIS checks for security issues, including all affiliations, and criminal records, and refugees receive medical exams.  If everything is satisfactory, the visa office can accept them as permanent residents.  It sounds simple, but it isn’t; it can take years, and medicals and security clearances can be expensive if they have to be redone every two years because the government has moved too slowly. 

Often, they do not choose the country where they will settle, and sometimes they arrive in their new country not knowing anything about it.  When they arrive, they are allowed the same amount of luggage as any other traveller.  There is no opportunity to pack up their possessions and ship them later.  It is a humbling experience to stand in an airport arrivals area and realize that the middle-aged couple you are welcoming has all of their worldly possessions, their entire life, in 4 suitcases. 
                               
We can do better. First and foremost, we can educate ourselves about refugees, asylum seekers (which I haven’t dealt with here), displaced persons, and the issues surrounding them. Second, we can support policies that will end war and conflict. That includes things like food security, disarmament, poverty, women and girls, and tolerance. Third, we can financially support organizations that work with refugees overseas. Fourth, we can make the issues concerning refugees personal by doing what we can to support refugees in our communities, and by building relationships with people who have come to Canada as refugees, and hearing their stories.  And there is so much more.

Today, and every day, I honour those that I have come to know who have lived this paradox, who have been so vulnerable and yet whose lives are filled with resilience,  strength and courage, and more than anything, who share their joy and generosity with people like us who already have more than we need.  I honour my friends Soz and Nizar and their children, and Nokar.  I honour Ahmet and Feride, Jafari and Mwaliasha and their children, and Kintu.  I honour Maluk, Maisaa, Debbie, Shinda, Jabar, and so many others.  And I thank them for everything they have taught me about life, love, and joy.

"Today Hurts"

Today I am proud to offer a guest post, written by my daughter Joanna. 

“Today hurts.” 

I saw that on someone’s Facebook post the other day. Such a short statement, but such a powerful one. And as I’m writing this, I can honestly say that: today hurts. This week hurts. Let’s be real, this whole year hurts. Recently, we all woke up on what should have been just another Sunday to discover that there was a man disguised as an RCMP officer who was making his way through Nova Scotia, killing innocent people as he travelled. Gabriel Wortman killed 22 people in the span of about 13 hours, in various communities, by setting their houses on fire, or by shooting them. It was, and continues to be, tragic.

 

People say that it is senseless and random. I see where they are coming from, but I disagree. It was not random. It began as an act of domestic violence, and that in and of itself is never random. Perpetrators of domestic violence are manipulative, calculating, and often get away with what they are doing by exerting control and power over others. Domestic violence is never random; it is an intentional act.

 

Gabriel Wortman was a perpetrator of domestic violence. I do not know much about him, and it will not do any good for anyone if I sit here and attempt to figure out what he was thinking, what his partner has endured, or any other specifics about this mass murder.

 

Instead, I want to urge you, PLEAD WITH YOU, to not ignore domestic violence. I work with survivors of domestic violence and I have seen things and heard stories that absolutely break my heart; some that have shattered my view of the world as a “good” place.  Sometimes I wish I could get on a rooftop and scream some of the things that I’ve heard, so that others can know how truly horrific domestic violence can be. Of course, I cannot. However, I can say that the effects of domestic violence continue to be swept under the rug by society as a whole, and it needs to stop. Survivors feel ignored and invisible; they feel unimportant. Domestic violence is not something that people want to talk about or address; it is a family problem, or an individual problem, and society should not get involved, right? WRONG. Domestic violence affects everyone. We can see this by the fact that a perpetrator of domestic violence just took 22 innocent lives. It is not a private matter, and it is not something that we can ignore any more.

 

This is it. This is the moment. This is the turning point. This is where we, as a society, get to decide whether we are going to continue allowing domestic violence to happen, or whether we are going to come together and put an end to it. We can support the women in our lives by knowing where to go for help; but more than that, we can educate the boys and the men in our lives to understand that masculinity does not rely on toughness, on violence, or on having power over others. This is a big change, a big shift, and it will not happen overnight. But we cannot ignore survivors anymore; we cannot say that it is too hard for us to hear what they have been through. As a society, it is time that we open our eyes and open our ears in order to know and recognize the signs and the effects of domestic violence.

 

In the last couple of weeks, Nova Scotia has been described as a peaceful, quiet, idyllic place in which people never suspected that a tragedy like this would occur. It’s described as a corner of the world where violence is unheard of. I love Nova Scotia, and it is a beautiful and unique province. But let me shatter your rose-coloured glasses and say that there is violence that occurs in this province, in supposedly peaceful, quiet, idyllic places on a daily basis. Nova Scotia is not exempt from domestic violence. We may not want to hear about it, and we may have felt as though we are able to ignore it because it happens behind closed doors. No more. Open your eyes.

 

The superintendent of the RCMP stated in his most recent press conference that “Violence against women is intolerable. It’s real, it exists.” He’s right. It’s intolerable. And yet, it is being tolerated in our society and that needs to change. And this is the moment that we, as a society, as proud Maritimers, get to decide whether we are going make that change, or whether we will continue to allow domestic violence to be tolerable, simply because it’s not happening to us. 

It might be the end of the world as we know it, and I'm not sure how I feel...

This is quite the time we are living in, isn’t it?

Our lives, individually and collectively, have been turned upside down.  Nothing is the same as it was three weeks ago.  Many of us are “working from home.”  Kids are home from school.  Activities and events are cancelled and postponed.  Nothing is normal.  I was in the pharmacy the other day in my small town, and there are plexiglass barriers separating us from the people working at the cash. I could never have imagined that I would ever see something like this in my town.     

We see friends walking by (from a distance) and can’t hug them.  I haven’t seen my daughter in person and up close for over three weeks because she works in essential services and she does not want to spread anything to us.  I haven’t seen the little children that I love for more than three weeks, and I MISS THEM SO MUCH.  We aren’t supposed to go where people gather: church, the beach, work, school, the mall, even walking on a busy street.  We don’t know when this will end, and we don’t know what our world and our society will look like when it does.

In my personal life, other changes add to the overall aura of uncertainty and anxiety.  My mother had a stroke on Christmas Day and was moved to a nursing home not long ago.  We haven’t been permitted to visit her in person lately, so she has had to do her settling in without us there to help her.  I can only talk to her occasionally on the phone, and it isn’t the same kind of conversation that we used to have – ranting, chatting, confiding, discussing.  Our conversations now are mostly me reassuring her that we are still here, even though we are not able to visit her in person, and that we love her and miss her.  I miss hearing her cheerful “Hi dear!” and I miss our daily conversations.

Another major change is that my husband has accepted a call to a new ministry in another city.  That means that over the summer, he will be moving.  We decided together that while my mom remains in the nursing home here, I will stay here as well.  This change will be significant – for the past 35 years, we have lived in the same place and shared the responsibilities of raising a family and running a household.  We don’t know how long it will take to find a place for my mom to live in the new city, so we don’t know how long this physical separation will last.

In the meantime, we are inundated with information.  The news is almost exclusively full of COVID-19 updates – how many new cases, how many dead, how many recovered – and reminders about social distancing, social isolating, quarantining, and for the love of God, WASH YOUR HANDS!  We are reminded daily about all the things that have been taken away from us, even temporarily, about where we can’t go and what we can’t do.  We hear consistently about groups of people who defy the advice of health professionals and end up infecting other people.  We read dire reminders about the added dangers of forced isolation to children and women in abusive families.  There are posts and articles about how to keep busy, how to learn new things, activities that you can do at home to keep busy, virtual tours and concerts and exhibits and church and almost every other thing you can imagine.  The sheer amount of information is overwhelming, and we don’t know who to trust.  Is the planet really healing itself because of the sudden drop in greenhouse gas emissions?  Did Hong Kong really see blue sky for the first time in years?  Who has the time and energy to sort through all this information to find the truth?

We are learning a lot about ourselves.  We are learning about how important it is to wash our hands.  We are learning how often we touch our faces.  We are learning about how social or unsocial we normally are.  We are learning to be patient.  We are learning about faith, and hope, and how strong they are in us.  Some of us are rediscovering how much we love our kids and our spouses; no doubt, some of us are discovering the opposite too...

We are smorgasbords of feelings.  Fear of what might still be ahead.  Anxiety at all the unknowns.  Concern for people we know who are still working in essential fields.  Sadness and grief at events cancelled, inability to be with family during times of loss or celebration, separation from those we love.  Frustration at hoarders who have created shortages of necessities such as cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and flour.  Frustration for feeling forced to become hoarders despite our best intentions.  Anger at the people who are still disregarding orders from government and from health experts and refusing to separate themselves from others, while we have sacrificed visits with those we love for the greater good.  Loneliness.  Depression.  Inadequacy.  Impatience.  Serve those up alongside the gratitude we feel at having homes where we can comfortably isolate ourselves, with people who, by and large, we love.  It is spring (although it is slow in coming here) and Easter, and if we take the time, we notice the return of our resident groundhogs and yard birds, the appearance of tulips in our gardens, and the gradual disappearance of the snow and ice.

We’re all longing for things to go back to “normal.”  But what is “normal” going to look like?  I think it’s safe to say that we will not be going back to the way things were.  Will anything positive come out of this experience?   That remains to be seen, but I hope so.  There are many reports of people helping their neighbours, looking out for those in need, generosities and kindnesses extended where they are least expected.  Some parents have reported that they have rediscovered their children during their enforced time at home, and they now realize that they have been missing important parts of their family life.  We all know now how dependent we are on farmers, grocery store workers, custodians, and others who we have overlooked previously.  I have read hopeful comments that this pandemic has taught us that we CAN change our lifestyles to use less greenhouse gas, and that we SHOULD re-evaluate our work/family life balance and our reliance on capitalism, big business and corporations.  I would like to think that we can reasonably expect that our society will be more open to considering some of these changes post-pandemic. 

But I wonder how far our generosity and willingness to change will extend.  I have no doubt that many of us will make changes in our personal lives.  But will we as societies and governments be willing to make large scale changes to meet goals such as, for example, the Millennial Development Goals?  These goals were adopted by UN signatories in the year 2000 to eradicate poverty worldwide, and were considered achievable and realistic by the year 2015.  And yet, in 2020, there has been no noticeable progress towards achieving these goals.  Will the level of international cooperation mean that sincere efforts to resolve wars and conflicts become reality instead of just rhetoric?  Will it mean that refugees and displaced persons find homes?  Will people living in poverty in our own communities find meaningful work and lives?  Will our governments introduce measures such as universal basic income? 

Will our obsessions with fame and wealth change?  Will we be more open to more equitable sharing of our financial and material resources?  Will the subjects of our hero worship change, or will we still hang on every word and action of celebrities?  It astonishes me that we will not take action or support a cause or even engage in intelligent behaviour such as social isolation until celebrities tell us to – even though scientists and doctors (you know, the ones who actually KNOW these things) have been telling us for weeks.  I really hope this focus on celebrities to influence our lives and our societies changes. 

I’d like to think that we will come out of this global crisis in a better world.  But if we look at history, we will note that the end of the 1918 pandemic seguéd into the biggest party in history, the Roaring Twenties, a decade of excesses and frivolity.  That decade-long party led to the crash of the stock market and the Great Depression, which only ended when the world went to war again.  And after the tribulations and deprivations of the war, consumerism became the new standard.  Will we learn from our mistakes in the past? 

I don’t have any answers.  I can’t contextualize my fears and worries and thoughts.  I am not a theologian or a philosopher or an economist or a politician.  I am trying to keep the small picture in the forefront: live through today, make some goals for the week, and that’s it.  But sometimes the rest of it all comes crowding in. 

Be safe.  Be smart.  Don’t take risks.  Check in with others, especially if you know they are vulnerable, or if you are feeling vulnerable.  I know it’s hard.  I know it’s lonely and isolating and inconvenient and depressing.  And I know we are all doing our best.  But I hope we can find small ways to cope, small gratitudes and beauty, and meaningful ways to connect.  And one day, maybe sooner than we think, we will emerge from our homes, breathe the fresh air, hug our friends and family members, and life will go on, hopefully in a better world. 

Even the statue of George Stanley is staying safe.

I DON'T KNOW IF I AM A FEMINIST

Recently, my online life has included some discussions about feminism.  Specifically, I saw a post about a book called Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices.  I commented on the post that I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the premise of this book, given that for many of my years as a Stay-At-Home-Mum, it seemed that the traditionally female domain of the kitchen, and the skills that went with that domain, were denigrated by more “progressive” feminists.  I wondered if it was ironic that activist, feminist women were now attempting to reclaim the kitchen as a place of female/feminist power (I’ll tell you a secret – SAHMs know that the kitchen has ALWAYS been a place of female power!).  There were some supportive comments, but there were also negative responses to my ponderings.  One friend said that this was all in the past, and another dismissed my personal experiences as “pop-feminist nastiness,” claiming that feminism has always supported and fought for the principle of being a SAHM. 

  

There was also a fair amount of online discussion about the halftime show at the Super Bowl, and how it was supposed to be empowering for women.  I won’t regurgitate that discussion; suffice it to say that many of my online friends disagreed with my perspective.  Most of the comments were respectful and we agreed to disagree, but I also apparently lost a Facebook friend because of my opinion.    

These interactions about feminism and what I have been told it is supposed to mean for me bothered me.  So I have a couple of things to say before I move on.  

First some background.  I was not raised in a radically feminist household.  By that I mean, my mother did not preach feminism to me.  However, she worked in paid employment outside of the home for many of my growing up years through the 1970s and 80s, and she and my father were very much equal partners in their marriage, in every way that I was aware of as a child – economically, parenting-wise, decision-making.  I was never made to feel “less” because I was a girl, at least, not by my parents, and I was free (and supported) to make my own life decisions about university (I went) and marriage (I did). 

When I got married and had children, my husband and I decided together that I would be a stay-at-home mum.  I did some casual work here and there while our children were growing up, and A LOT of volunteer work, but for most of my adult life, I have been a SAHM.  We were fortunate that we were able to make that decision, although I won’t lie, it was not easily financially; however, I have absolutely no regrets with the choice that we made.  I WANTED to be home with my children. 

Feminism has been a good thing for many privileged, white, middle to upper class women in Canada.  It hasn’t been so good for women of colour, Indigenous women, or low-income or uneducated women.  In fact, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which boasted intellectual giants such as Doris Anderson and Judy Rebick (both former presidents), imploded once immigrant women and women of colour such as Sunera Thobani, Dolly Williams and Teri Brown demanded their place at the table; the irreconcilable tension that was created between women of colour and white women from the privileged classes was one of the main factors in NACSW’S dissolution.   

Feminism has not always been friendly to women like me either (white and “privileged” as I am), who chose to stay at home with their kids in an era where that was not necessarily an acceptable decision for feminists (even though feminists have always talked about the freedom of women to CHOOSE for themselves).  In fact, the statements that feminism has always advocated for SAHMs, and that any perceived tension between the two is in the past are patently untrue.  Simone de Beauvoir, the icon of second wave feminism, said “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children.”  More recently, women such as Camille Paglia and Elisabeth Badinter have written about feminism and its antagonism toward motherhood.  As recently as 2017, feminist writers picked up on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s report that SAHMs were one of the biggest drains on the economy of Australia, with resulting articles acknowledging that feminism is not actually about choice, and suggesting that women have “employment responsibilities,” and that it should be illegal for women to stay at home once their children are in school.  Yes.  ILLEGAL.  Emma Johnson, an American business journalist, published a list of twelve ways that SAHMs hurt gender equality, suggesting that SAHMs need to suck it up and make choices that benefit the greater good (and her personally, of course).  All you have to do is type “feminism” and “stay at home moms” into the Google bar to find a wide range of articles, blogs, and posts by and about women who feel that feminism has let them down (one that I re-read recently is here), or that denigrate SAHMs.  

Personally, I have been told by a feminist that I was not contributing to society because I did not have a paying job.  I spent years volunteering (working for free) in schools and community groups that my children were part of, unlike many “working” moms; in fact, it was overtly suggested many times, mostly by other women, that because I “didn’t work,” it was expected of me.  I have been to countless social functions where women who had careers had nothing to say to me; after all, if I’m a SAHM it must be because I can’t get a job since I am uneducated or stupid or have nothing to say about anything other than my children; at least I could always talk sports with the men.   

So here we are again in 2020.  Once again, in the past couple of weeks, my personal experience as a SAHM has been dismissed by a feminist, and another feminist has mansplained to me that I should have found the overt sexuality of the Superbowl half-time show empowering, without really any explanation of how exactly it is empowering to an overweight 55-year-old who doesn’t dance very well.   

So. HERE’S MY POINT. You can talk ideologies, and theoreticals, and principles, and empowerment.  Feminism has been good to you and you have adopted its tenets, terminologies, and philosophies.  Fine.  That’s great.  That’s your truth, and it’s the truth for many women.  You can discuss and disagree with me about some of the ideas about feminism.  That’s okay too.   

But IT IS NOT OKAY to dismiss and deny the very real actual not-so-positive experiences that other women have had within the framework of feminism, at the hands of people who call themselves feminists.  By doing that, you are guilty of doing the exact same thing that generations of men have done, which is belittling and trivializing and denying the lived experiences of women.   

These attitudes and this dismissiveness… this is why, even though I fully support equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities, equal choice, and political, economic, and social equality for all women, I personally have a great deal of difficulty embracing the feminist label.