| Making The Activist: SPEAK! For Goodness Sake, DURING the gritty 1994 refugees-from-Rwanda-crises resulting from the Hutu vs. Tutsi generations of Rwanda's civil-war that led to the Tutsi people being ethnically cleansed from their land, many charitable-projects and initiatives were globally and regionally set up as relief organisations and as productive reactions to the ongoing pressures carried at that time, in Rwanda. One of the many charitable events and activities that came my way was called the “forty hour famine,” and it was quite a popular one of memory. If you owned a T.V. or Radio set at the time in NSW Australia, you could not escape the jingle mentioning that it is the forty-hour-famine and that “YOU GOT TO DO IT!” The forty hour famine was simple to do it kind of worked like this; for each volunteer that signed up they would have to save whatever money they would usually have used on food for a greater and better cause within forty hours and instead donate that money to relief funds in order to aid the overseas crisis of mass-death and homelessness from the Rwandan-land at that time. By doing this the volunteer’s senses would be literally heightened to the importance of food as a need, and through the process will be taking part in the generous act of giving alms or money for the cause. There was a lot of feature campaigning, TV ad-ings, shiny-wide stickers and posters on the issues the Rwandan assistance campaign heralded, and sounded. Also there was advising peer-to-peer school association groups between the elected students themselves to represent. No peer who was associated did I personally know, but no one could simply have been unaware of the Rwandan crisis, and besides we were youths and so more manipulative to care then. To my surprise though, within that laid-back environment it was only my Chinese-lesson tutor that I personally knew to take part over the years when this event came. Mr. Hopkins was his name, an Australian, Chinese lecturer was the only one that actually spoke about what they were doing and why. I can’t remember his reason for taking part but I do remember him saying something about how simple things like taking a shower could be done twice by us each day, which is an abuse of the natural-resource if compared to the nations facing drought and famine but in this case the lack of basic humanities seeking shelter from murderers. Other than Hopkins, there was no class-mate I knew to be as bold enough to either challenge me that same way or confess that they were a part of the forty-hour-famine. I guess it wouldn’t have been cool for them to be a part of, missing two lunches in one week and all, so much for the peer-to-peer association then. "Fine-Tuning "on Peculiar Christian Poets These words in the prosy “Fine-Tuning” sees which way I would want my “voice of witness” to be heard here, if I was living over there in that crisis knowing where I am now, and how we act and look towards what we say is their problem - Individual and so apart - and not our - collective but shared - situation. Somewhere still now that same sound, that Horn that sounded from the Teacher who said on a mountain that: "what ever I tell you in secret, preach from the rooftop” is still sounding now. PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE:1948 |
| REMEMBERING THE HORN OF ’94 |
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| THIS is also dedicated to the survivors and sharers of the Rwandan Tutsi generation that were killed ignored by the UN army personnel and left mutilated, and homeless ten-years ago. |
| Looking Towards The Future Post-disaster relations with Australia in particular and their African neighbours. |
| Entry no:33 |