Hold in the light

May 21st and I'm staring down the last two weeks of semester work. Grappling with an ethics essay, I realize there's still quite a bit I haven't figured out about academia. I approach these questions with a strong feeling of what's going wrong with the world and how it might be approached, but the word on the hall is to curb the emotions and be methodical about it. Methodical and cool in a complex and throbbing world... hmmmm, a tall order for this heart. But I struggle along, and that's the point.

This semester is interestingly colored by the simulation of a peacekeeping mission to a fictitious SE African country named Mendu. Our class is divided into teams of UN organizations and NGOs who are mandated to maintain a cease-fire, disarm and reintegrate combatants, and repatriate Menduan citizens from 6 refugee camps and 5 IDP (internally displaced persons) camps. Through designing plans and budget requests to the 'powers that be' (played by four PhD students), we students grapple with the consequences of our decisions in all the ways unforseen. I have a unique role as a member of 'St. Lucia News' team, where I watch and report from a wider vantage point. Very messy, and made much messier by the abundance of 'developed world'-supplied weapons in use, and the diamond trade and oil industry multinationals looking to exploit where able...

And then, in 'real life', I went to Quaker meeting on Sunday, and on the bus there met up with a fellow attender from Burundi who had lived in a refugee camp in Tanzania for 10 years. I shared with him about our classroom simulation, and how one of the more difficult dilemmas that the organizations deal with is that the refugee and IDP camps are utilized by warring factions as sites of recruitment. Indeed, my Quaker friend shared, combatants would often come into camps under nightfall and offer children $30 for them to join their army. My friend worked with UNHCR to prevent such bribery to recruit child soldiers. When his life was threatened by those upset by his actions, Australia agreed to accept my friend and his family on a single case basis due to the circumstances. Yesterday my friend received a call from UNHCR that his refugee camp had been closed and combined with another. There were reports of many gunshots, and he's unsure what has happened, but requested we hold that place "in the light."

Hold in the light... the best we can do in such a confusing and seemingly backwards world. Draw our humble attention to a matter of apparent injustice and wonder what it all means...