Out of suffering…

Some Palestinians take grenades and use them as flower pots or for seedlings. Sudanese torture survivors have become councilors for other survivors. How do we recover from suffering? We name it and transform it into its opposite:

We fill the craters left by the bombs
And once again we sing
And once again we sow
Because life never surrenders

Unknown author, Vietnam

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OK, I want to talk about Ireland
Specifically I want to talk about the “famine”
About the fact that there never really was one
There was no “famine”
See Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes
All of the other food
Meat fish vegetables
Were shipped out of the country under armed guard
To England while the Irish people starved
And then on the middle of all this
They gave us money not to teach our children Irish
And so we lost our history
And this is what I think is still hurting me

See we’re like a child that’s been battered
Has to drive itself out of it’s head because it’s frightened
Still feels all the painful feelings
But they lose contact with the memory

And this leads to massive self-destruction
alcoholism, drug adiction
All desperate attempts at running
And in it’s worst form
Becomes actual killing

And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and understanding

Excerpt, Famine by Sinead O’conner