1:49 AM - 05.11.04
Unchained Melody
I'm pretty sure her name was Belinda. One of those names in the baby books that is supposed to mean Wisdom. She was a teacher. Whenever I decide to get involved in anything - especially volunteer or community "activism" type work - I prefer to do a fair amount of research to ensure that my time will be invested as effectively as possible and that I can wholly commit to whatever I am doing. It's that Aquarius thang of loyalty and humanitarianism. As you've probably noticed, dear diary, I have very strong opinions, but I like to think that at least they are based in fact and then my actions about those opinions are moulded by my values.
Anyway, when I decided to commit to working with the local Amnesty International group, I wanted to be certain that the people who I would be advocating for weren't violent criminals or that sort of person. Belinda's case was the first I read. She was a school teacher in Guatemala. She was also from the aboriginal people in that region. At that time, there was an open campaign of genocide being carried out against her ethnic community by the government. They were deemed a barrier to economic progress you see. As a teacher she had a lot of respect and therefore influence and she used it to advocate effectively for the people targeted to be murdered. Apparently the government thought she was too good at her efforts, because they had already jailed and tortured her at least once. Family here in Canada had appealed to our government to allow her to come to Canada as a refugee. The Canadian government had given it's approval and also provided her with protected status so no further abuse would be visited on her. On her way to the airport to come here she "disappeared". The AI request was for members to send letters to the Guatemalan government politely requesting that they provide information on her whereabouts and status. Not a hard letter to write. I felt proud that our country had extended protection to her and also thought the Guatemalan government must be humiliated that their horrible behaviour had been found out and publicized to the rest of the world. I expected to see them stop what they were doing and slink into some hole in the ground. Right. Continued on with researching other cases. About a month later, her body was found near the roadside where she had been travelling. It was apparent that she had been tortured extensively before she was murdered.
Lesson number one. Sometimes the best intentions can be deadly when applied to real life situations. Sometimes "helping" someone else from a perspective of "privilege" or "power" can do tremendous damage to the front line work of people who have no option, but to be in those circumstances. That "kicked in the gut" lesson was repeated again as I volunteered with family support services trying to help children who were being abused by their parents or to help women caught in a relationship with a violent man. Learned it even more personally when I was the one trying to cope with an abusive spouse. Someone else trying to help from an outside perspective, but who then doesn't have to deal with the consequences of their actions can set you back months or years with respect to progress, effort, and small advances when trying to remove yourself or your children from a dangerous situation. All one's work snuffed out in an instant by one well meaning but ill-timed or ill-considered gesture or "intervention". Dealing with abusive people, whatever their excuse for their behaviour, always has the potential for provoking explosive responses.
Lesson number two. Talk with the person who will have to cope with the consequences of your actions and only act if they request it. Even then one can't be certain that one can protect them or help them when the abuser feels challenged. The reports I read about Belinda were released close to 20 years ago but some things leave an indelible mark that no passage of time can erase.
Yes dear diary another ghost. It was triggered today as I was reseaching and asking for direction from different people with respect to picking up some courses instead of jumping right back in to the workforce. Why? One of the names of the people I was referred to for more information was one of the people who did an extraordinary amount of work around those human rights issues. One of the reasons I want some of the courses is so that I can deal more effectively with the intra and extra racial and cultural conflict I witnessed in my office staff during the last election. One thing I know is that if I intervene in some of the behaviour I've seen, even with the full power of my position and the best intentions, I can cause even more harm to the person or people who are targetted by the bullies. It's one of the reasons it is so hard to get people to come forward and tell you exactly what was done to them. Retribution offsite or in sneakier, meaner ways can be the result.
When I did community advocacy work, the only solution I ever found effective in stopping the abusive behaviour of bullies was to expose their actions publicly in a way that couldn't be explained away as anything else other than abusive behaviour. It's a lot more difficult than it sounds, because the perpetrators are usually working hard at creating and maintaining the facade of an up standing pillar of the community or someone who really is a "good person". You know you are getting close to outing them when they stop what ever abusive acts they are doing and attack you instead. When that occurs you need to be able to make certain that the behaviour is observed and documented by others who can corroborate the reaction and you need to be certain that you can survive and cope with the onslaught as well. For example, in some cases my children have been targetted as a way to stop me from continuing my work. One male used to call me up during the day and describe what my sons were wearing and telling me what they were doing at school as we spoke. I knew my children's schedules intimately and he always was precisely correct in his descriptions. The unspoken threat, of course, was that he could find and cause harm to my sons if I didn't back off. People who feel cornered and are violent to begin with - whether physically, verbally or emotionally - are very dangerous creatures indeed. I'm hoping that when I talk with this person that they can direct me to some classes that provide additional strategies for dealing with all the aspects of racism/classism. The target is never the only victim, the whole community is hurt too. So again dear diary - how do I deal with the bullies and bigots who manifest in my office.
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