[The film can be viewed here: https://www.nfb.ca/film/everybodys_children]
This will probably offend some people. I'm having a very hard time writing this response. I've stopped myself half a dozen times now, erased everything, pulled my hair in frustration, and came back to nothing again. So I'm just going to rant. I'm going to say some things that I'll probably regret, but whatever, it's probably the only way I'll get anything down and not immediately erase it. This is going to be a lot of pent up frustration. A lot of anger and bile and self loathing. I don't know how people can watch “Everybody's Children” without feeling incredibly angry, ashamed and depressed. I guess maybe if you shut out everything else in the film, and just focus on the personal progress of these two individuals, you might be able to say “Yeah, they're doing well, their lives are improving.” But that would be ignoring every other facet of reality around them. You would have to ignore the horror and absolute sadness of the lives they come from, of how messed up our world is to allow those situations to exist. You would have to ignore the reality that they are two extreme cases of chance and good fortune, that they got out, had people help them, somehow managed to escape, and not get sent back, and are resourceful enough to keep working, keep fighting, and survive. How many others in those situations are left behind, currently still suffering, without any chance of relief or change? How can you not think about that and not get extremely depressed and want to yell and cry about it? I know I can't. How can you watch this film without feeling guilty? Guilty for our privilege (I hate that word right now) that we take for granted everyday. Guilty for never considering how lucky we are, fortunate we are, to have basic things, safety, food, education, loving families, friends, freedom to speak, walk, act as we want? Dress as we want, believe what we want? I know we're not supposed to feel guilty for everything, that those are simply facts of life and beyond our control, but that doesn't stop that feeling deep in the pit of my stomach which turns and knots itself within me. Don't you get that feeling watching this film? Don't you feel guilty that this is probably the first time you ever thought about what a refugee might actually face coming to Canada? No support, government aid, language help, nothing? Just get off a plane and start being questioned? And here we talk about how amazing Canada is as a bastion and sanctuary for people. We (general opinion as far as I can tell) look down upon countries like America, who refuse more refugee's than us. Yeah ... aren't we great. It feels like that's such a hollow gesture, an image we propagate to make us all feel good about ourselves, a nice pat on the back, 'We're Canadian, did you know how amazing we are? We help people all over the world.” And yet none of us know the reality of that situation unless you've lived it. It almost feels like this giant collective lie we buy into, just like our amazing “multiculturalism” that we sell every chance we get. Hey, I don't mean to be completely pessimistic. Yes, we are better than some countries when it comes to helping others. Yes, we do some good things. And even if it's the bare minimum, I guess that counts for something, right? But it makes me feel ashamed that we could be doing so much more, and whats worse, is that we care more about selfish interests; music awards, celebrity gossip, fashion, all those other distractions that mean so little when you think about it, but spend zero time thinking about people on the fringes of society. People who genuinely need aid, want to be Canadian, dream of having the same opportunities as us. What bothers me even more is that I know, in a day, two days from now, I'll go back to all those other distractions. Because that's how easily it is to just forget these issues. Why be reminded of the ugliness and struggle of life when we can watch a movie, download a tv show, go shopping, indulge in gratuitous, instant satisfaction? Take pictures of our meals, check how many likes our posts get; all the ways in which we dull our minds and engage in this new pop culture consumerism. Our lives are built around ease and excess, and anything that doesn't fit in nicely conveniently gets ignored and brushed aside. I know I'm passing judgment on everyone. I know that's wrong of me as well. Who am I to decide what people should be concerned with? How full of myself am I to presume to know better, to understand what a meaningful life should entail? And you'd be right to call me a hypocrite and a liar and delusional. I'm just as bad as everyone else. If not worse. I sit at family dinners, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and listen to my own family members criticize and degrade refugee's and immigrants here in Canada. I hear some of my own friends generalizing them, calling them lazy, freeloaders, drains on the economy. It makes me so mad, because they say these words while sitting a few chairs away from my grandparents, who came here to Canada, with nothing, taking low, manual labour jobs, struggling day in and day out, who were themselves targeted as dirty 'wops' or 'daigo's by established Canadians before them. My own grandparents came to Canada under the exact same circumstances. From war torn Europe after World War II, with nothing; no money, no English, no education, my grandmother couldn't even write her name. She simply signed with an 'X'. And now people who are suffering, from another region in the world, from another war, are being treated just as ignorantly, just as callously. Here are people I love and normally respect, pretending like we have some right to be here over anyone else. It makes me disgusted and frustrated and honestly, it makes me hate this idea of being a proud Canadian. People always talk about the “Canadian” identity. How it has become some hard to define idea because we are so multicultural now. I don't believe in that. Yes, we are a mix of cultures, and within that there is a lot of hatred and loathing and jealousy. Each new wave of immigrants and refugee's is targeted by those here before them. No one wants to give away their part of the pie. We are all selfish, and that's part of human nature. But we Canadian's love pretending we're different. 'We don't do that! Not in this great Country. We don't have racism or sexism!' If you want to see the real Canadian identity, you have to look at what actions we have done as a Nation, that truly defined us. That doesn't mean just the things we're proud of. I don't want to take away from them. Just a few days ago, Kenneth Taylor passed away, and I was struck by how few young Canadians know about him, about how his actions helped to cement our international identity as a country that cared about others and did the right thing. I think about my godfather, Alex J. Simmons, who lied about his age to fly in World War II as a tail gunner in a Lancaster. I can still hear him describing how it felt to feel his hands freeze as they flew over the Atlantic, how he survived being shot down into the ocean, and swam for a day before being picked up by an Allied boat. And more importantly, I remember how his voice would sink away and fall silent when he got to the people who had died next to him, about the horrors he had seen and how war wasn't all heroics and bravery. A lot of my identity as Canadian comes from people like my godfather, from my grandparents, from the celebrated elements of our countries history, and the ugly truths as well. Maybe that's why I'm soo messed up and I can't simply believe in one thing. Maybe that's why I get so incensed when I see movies like this, that show the harsh realities of people who truly love our country, and how poorly we treat them, the adversity they face, and how much ignorance and delusion everyone else lives with. I know I've gone way off track, and ranted and raved about issues maybe not even in this film. But it brought them all to the fore for me. This film really wasn't about education for me. It was about a deeper, more intricate issue, one I've struggled with for as long as I can remember. It's about life, and how unfair it is, and how some people can go about their everyday lives and never have to face that reality, while others will stare it in the eyes each and every day. And perhaps even more controversially, should everyone even have to? Should people who are safe, and well off, and living happy lives, do they need to feel guilty? Do they need to be brought down and forced to feel responsible or liable? How do we reconcile anything in a world where nothing is fair, and we don't even know if it's supposed to be? I remember, during the scene at school, where Sallieu is talking to his classmate about mental training, the other boy says something along the lines of “I don't even know if I should tell you, because this is serious stuff”. It made me so angry, for this other kid to judge Sallieu, treat him as if he was inferior, like he didn't have the mental toughness to do this ridiculous mental training, when he had been through soo much. Someone who had seen his village attacked, his own mother killed in front of his eyes, and some Canadian kid in his class is lecturing him on mental toughness? It made me want to scream. But even then, I catch myself, because I know we can't count people's suffering and experiences like points that add up. You can't assume that because someone hasn't seen as much hardship, or suffered as much, that their views or experiences aren't worthwhile. Because that's its own kind of ignorance and bias. How amazing does that make Sallieu? To not be bitter and angry about things? To move on from those experiences and be able to still listen to others, to not be jaded and feel entitled? I know I wouldn't be that strong. I know I couldn't accept the world and hold onto hope as he did. Maybe that's what I'm really angry about, maybe that's the real issue. Deep down I know I come from a “privileged” background. I haven't had to suffer like my grandparents or parents did. My life hasn't been easy, but it's nothing compared to the stories and experiences of soo many people around me. It's almost like survivors guilt, where I can't stand myself for being the exception, for being one of the lucky one's who didn't have to earn everything through blood, sweat and tears. To be honest now, at the end, I don't know what I was supposed to get out of that film. And I don't even know what I did get. I still feel angry. I still feel wrong. I want to erase all this and start again, and maybe if I did, I would write something completely different. Maybe I would try to look at something positive from this film. Both Joyce and Sallieu really are amazing people. I'm blown away with how resilient their spirits are. Seeing their suffering and struggles makes me want to be a better person. Maybe that's the take away message. That there are people in life, from any background, any situation, who are constantly striving to improve, to make a difference, to be good people. Those are the kinds of lessons you wish you could inspire, share in, develop, as a teacher. Right now, I don't feel very optimistic that I'd ever be able to do that. In fact, I feel exactly the opposite. I feel drained and helpless, depressed and lost. Where do you even start? How do you fix a system that is so complicated, so broken, so broad, that we can't even make sense of where to begin? I don't know. What's worrying me most about this whole process, about becoming a teacher, is that it's looking more and more that those questions that haunt me, aren't going to be answered, and that really, there are no answers for these problems. It's just life. And I'm not even sure I know what that means to me. Alright, I'm lost, and frustrated and just going in circles. I'm sorry if you read this, because I don't feel like I got anywhere. I just complained and whined and griped, and I feel like a brat. To be honest, I wish we had watched this film as a group, and sat down after for an hour or two, and just talked. These responses and responding are great, but its a sad excuse for real discussion and real sharing. I guess that's something I can take away from all this... Anyways, I'm done for now, thank you for listening. Hope I didn't offend anyone too much.
2 Comments
Linda radford
10/25/2015 07:14:02 am
I hear you Peter! The hybrid format for these courses is really problematic. We will be sure though to spend some time discussing our responses to this film after the break. Thank you for this rant here - it is powerful and truly pays tribute to the injustices.
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10/25/2015 07:39:59 am
Thank you for not erasing this. Responding to this film in person will be very important and as Linda says, something we will aim to do after the break. I wonder how this film could be used with a school staff and the discussion that could follow.
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