First hand account of a life surrounded by war/ Sudan

[inthebrain]

Poeted this earlier.

Don't know if it got lost or what. Great read!!!!


I was born and there was war. 20 years old I've lived and still war hasn't left me. If someone were to ask me how I feel about America going to war with Iraq, whether they should have gone or not, I would say that no; that they really didn't have to go fight. Why? Because first of all, nobody is sure of what this war is about. At first, President Bush was saying it is war on Terrorism. Others are saying he's trying to take over the oil. At the present time, Bush is saying that this war is about Liberating the people of Iraq. Personally, I don't think Americans had to go over there to leberate Iraq because there's millions of countries out there in a much more genocidal situation than Iraqis. If this war was really about terrorism I wouldn't have been typing this entry at the moment. Nobody likes war, I don't like war. Although I guess life is war.

I was born into the civil war, slavery in Sudan. The war is now 22 years old, older than myself. I actually wrote this entry as a letter to The Oprah Winfrey show last Friday and today. The question that caught my interest was, they asked if war has helped me solve a personal conflict; and well the answer to that question is no. Instead, the war has changed my views about life. I think that America didn't have a clear reason to go to war with Iraq. One might say I'm jealous, the other might say I have the right to complain. First of all, I hate war because war is my life. War does not solve anything, all it does is loose lives, to die within that land or try and survive into poverty.

Elsewhere, immigration is always the last option; like my family and I escaped to be living in the U.S today. Though I'm considered a survivor of war, it doesn't mean I've escaped war for life. War has followed me everywhere I go and it is never going to leave me. My definition of war is lost life and confusion. Lost because I'm not in my country and confused because I don't know whether I'll ever live there one day and in peace. Like me, America is confused and going to war with Iraq was its only solution. The only difference is that it isn't lost neither is it crying silently. Something like war is done only if there isn't any other solution. America is going to war because they found it was their only option.

It is like I was born to face war like Venus and Serena were born to play tennis. War has made me move thousands of times including having to walk more than 1000 miles with my family and relatives from Sudan to Ethiopia; and then from Ethiopia back to Sudan and from there we walked to a Kenyan refugee camp. Basically, it seems we walked the whole east Africa. Now I'm living in the United States. And by the way, no I didn't walk over here (some Americans may think so). Oh, and I feel very lucky I'm here but I'm not in my own Country. I came here as a teenager about 14 years old which was pretty young. But I was not too young to feel hurt, loss and confusion. Racism is one thing war has shown me in my face. If it weren't for war, I would have never had anyone make fun of the color of my skin nor the language that I spoke. War has shown me many cruelties. I can understand if I were here to visit as an exchange or international student, life wouldn't be war to me then. Also if I were here because I want a better life and not because war has chased me out, I wouldn't be writing this entry today. Then I would look forward to going back to my country and dying there. I'm not living a better life today knowing that my people back home are dying and I'm here in America lost and hopeless. It's the sadess situation living while knowing I moved many times because of war. Nobody likes to die or watch others die and surely no one likes to leave his or her own country because of war. In my life at war, I have seen the dead flowing over the river. I'm living through having to see the same man flowing over a river at the same time that I'm wishing I was in my country. I was only 8 years old when I saw the dead flow over a river but he comes right back to me this very moment. I hate it that this man had to die; he didn't even have a family to bury him.

I'm one of those people like my dad, he believes that his children deserve a life in their own land; that his children shouldn't have had to move if it wasn't for war. If it wasn't for the war, I wouldn't have had to live through 2 different cultures.

I wouldn't have had to go through 2, 3 different worlds. Immigration is something I have gone through, but that's just a tiny part of my definition of war. I really don't mind adopting other cultures, infact, I love the American culture better than my own. I'm given the opportunity to discover and that's a wonderful thing. However, there's nothing more painful than having to discover the pain that lies beneath those discoveries; the question of what if that was that and this was this. For example, the question, "what if blacks were in the position of whites and whites were in that of blacks?" Why is it that a black man suffered more than a white man, why? I feel lost, I feel helpless. Even a dark skinned person has called me black, the ugly. Why is it that the color of skin makes such difference, I don't understand. Although, this isn't about the question of skin color but one concerning war. I just pursued the idea of skin color because we are dark in color, the darkest people in the world. Yet our darkness and skin texture defines beauty that hasn't been touched. We are judged before we are touched. We are beautiful people; I have never denied that even through many racist conflicts I've been through. One has called me, "black the ugly" and I responded with the words thank you. I rather be this color for it defines beauty, strength and confidence. As a young girl being made fun of because of my skin color, I always told myself, I'm black and beautiful, that others said did not matter. If it wasn't for war, I wouldn't even mention the color of my skin because to me it doesn't really matter like any white or yellow skin color. The first time I ever saw a white person was in Kenya. I saw black Kenyan kids chasing the beautiful white people around as if they were angels. I was 12 years old then. I stared at the white complexion and the language the white man spoke and I would be like, "oh my God, what other colors are out there?" I was eager to learn English then also because every white man chased by those kids spoke English. I think English is such a beautiful language I just had to learn it though to gain popularity in school. I have discovered new things, wonderful things and I don't mind but it just isn't fair I have to live through the memories of my past through the war. And they aren't even just memories but stuff happening at the present time. My dad talks about how one day, that I'll go back to Sudan and live in my own big house in Sudan, my own free land. He says that one day we'll get our freedom and I ask how; and he says we'll fight. Every time he says we're going to fight for freedom I question how. He doesn't really answer because I don't ask the question out loud but through the silence of a cry. I cry it out silently because if I cry it out loud, the world cries back with silence. My people for 22 years have been going through much silence of deaths, many silent cries. I'm living in America and still I live through the silence of my cries from back home. How are we going to fight for freedom when half of us are dead? I've lost complete hope from looking at the dead and television showing genocide, the lost boys who found a way to America and so on. While the boys are refer to here as "the lost boys", who's going to fight the war back home, the girls? What is American television suppose to show next, the lost girls, the lost Southern Sudanese?! Are we ever going to live in our own country one day, will we continuously be living and dying silently as "lost people of Sudan" or will the world cry out loud for a change, will the world help us in time soon?! Was I born to face war, was I born to be forgotten? Everyday, when I think of my people back home especially the ones that have already died in silence, I shed tears.

The United States is a great country. Like one Sudanese man said on 60 minute, on ABC, "This is like a second heaven I think", with a smile on his face. Even though this man said these words, I believe that somewhere in his heart he knows there's no place like home. Home is where the heart is. Otherwise someone better start questioning, "If America is like a second heaven, then what is Sudan?"

America lighted up my face the first day I was here. I loved it; I mean I really love this country. While I'm not home I feel lost in one great nation. There are many times when I have wished I was born and raised in Sudan as many Americans were born and raised in America. I feel I'm still at war at heart as well as physically. I can't go through a song with the words, "I miss you", without a tear on my face, a silent cry. I think of many that have died as well as many I've left behind to die silently. I think of my self, listening to the silence of my cries and in the future, looking forward to the silence of my death. I'm not accomplishing anything while in America, I'm not any different then those left back home. The only difference is that I have much more greater opportunities; I'm feeding myself as any chicken would anywhere in the world. Immigration because of war has had tremendous impacts on my life. I've discovered that there is more out there than just Sudan itself, and that's a great thing; I have got the opportunity to be educated. I eat, shower and drink fresh water everyday. However in spite of all that, feeling like a chicken I question why I have all this stuff while people back home have nothing; when people back home, when all they could look forward to is death, silent death. It is the saddest situation knowing this fact and being human; the fact that you cry everyday without being heard. Furthermore as a result, I'm going to die a silent death and nobody would care whatsoever, I would just be one in millions of deaths of my people. It doesn't matter where in the world I end up dead, what matters is how I end up dead; and dying after a silent cry isn't the best death. Everyday we're forced to believe in a religion we don't want to believe in, everyday every portion of our land is occupied by the northern (we are the southern Sudanese in conflict with the north). I'm lucky indeed, I mean I'm alive. But what difference does it make when my heart every single day cries wishing it was us Southern Sudanese that Americans had gone to liberate and not Iraqis; because world, there's more genocide in Sudan then there is in Iraq.

At the moment, my hopes are to graduate college and help the people of South Sudan anyway I can. But what can I do to maybe liberate my people? I'm just a 20 year old female who hardly studies politics, war issues or anything in that particular. But I know what I have gone through and go through everyday because of this war in my country. This war has gone beyond its limitations, this is enough, yet nobody cares. I feel like the world is ignoring our issue and thinking, "it's just another poor African party, they're just Africans, they don't matter. They can live in refugee camps forever, they don't matter!"

My dream is to write a novel one day about my life and what war does to people. Again, war isn't the solution to any problem because nobody likes to die; and surely nobody likes having to leave his or her own country because of it. I hate that I left Sudan the way I did. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to be raised at my dad's house. There's no joke, even though I've moved out away from war I still live through the memories today. Evidently, I still see the pictures of the dead, the life I went through and go through today. Furthermore, American television reminds me of hunger, of genocide. The world now knows us as the skinny bony individuals. They only refer us to that, not knowing what it is we went through to look this way. Again, silence is dominating. Therefore, I wish somebody would do something about it! Silently, I cry and if I cry out loud, it wouldn't make any difference, the world wouldn?t listen. I wish the United States had gone fighting for my people and not the Iraqis.

It is not fair! This war is not fair! Again, in silence I say these very words, "It isn't fair I have to die in silence!" Why is it that Iraq gets help, while genocide is a mass in other countries like my own? Somebody please ask Oprah if this war is really about liberating the people of Iraq; because if it is, I'm sorry there's something called life. If this war is about liberating Iraq, my definition of life from now on is war. Like many other normal cries, my cry to stop war in my country seems to others, it isn't any different. It is a silent cry, the one anybody hardly hears.

In Silence dies the Southern Sudanese, while Iraq celebrates their freedom out loud. How many more years will my people still live on U.N support, in refugee camps drinking unhealthy water and waiting in line for supplies and food? How many more years, God please give me n answer, this world can't really hear me! Does Iraq need more help than those other Countries, did the U.S have to go over there and fight for them? I thought this war was about fighting the weapons of mass destruction, getting rid of all the weapons Sadam might have.

Another thing, I don't think the U.S has time to worry about the present; it only has time for what might happen in the future. The U.N would do nothing but continue its supplying, so I guess the U.S went against that, they don't want what happened to us happen to Iraq. Although, I think the one in the most need deserves first hand. Until I get that hand, my life will go through many silent cries, even a silent death to come.

[inthebrain]

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