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I'm reading a book at the moment - well two... okay, four books.... but the one I wanted to write about today is a book about refugees.
It's called the Bee Keeper of Aleppo and it's a bestseller - you may have seen it around. It's beautifully written and very emotive. The problem is that I hate reading it.
I am forcing myself to continue out of guilt, because the topic, however carefully and delicately framed is the inhumanity of humanity. It's written about Syrian refugees from the civil war that has raged there for a decade but it could be about any displaced people from anywhere. They are just people who had lives and families and homes and jobs and who now have nothing - and worse than nothing, they have those who prey on them for sex or cash or labour, or use them as a political tool. In a lot of ways the reaction to these poor people is as bad if not worse than that which they suffered in their own countries. They were forced to leave and come looking for safety and a chance to heal and thrive but all they find is bureaucracy and contempt and indifference. It is heartbreaking - this book is a work of fiction, but I know that the author worked with refugees, so I believe that a lot of what she has put in there comes from real life accounts.
So I am struggling through this book because to look away and to hide from the brutality of a refugee's life would be the easy thing to do - it's awful - everyone knows that, but my awful and what those people have endured are two very different things.
I read a chapter or two, then I put it down - I go outside and I look at the violets pushing up everywhere and I listen to the skylarks, telling me that it's spring and I am grateful for never having had to know the things I am reading, for real. There but for grace, right?
It's called the Bee Keeper of Aleppo and it's a bestseller - you may have seen it around. It's beautifully written and very emotive. The problem is that I hate reading it.
I am forcing myself to continue out of guilt, because the topic, however carefully and delicately framed is the inhumanity of humanity. It's written about Syrian refugees from the civil war that has raged there for a decade but it could be about any displaced people from anywhere. They are just people who had lives and families and homes and jobs and who now have nothing - and worse than nothing, they have those who prey on them for sex or cash or labour, or use them as a political tool. In a lot of ways the reaction to these poor people is as bad if not worse than that which they suffered in their own countries. They were forced to leave and come looking for safety and a chance to heal and thrive but all they find is bureaucracy and contempt and indifference. It is heartbreaking - this book is a work of fiction, but I know that the author worked with refugees, so I believe that a lot of what she has put in there comes from real life accounts.
So I am struggling through this book because to look away and to hide from the brutality of a refugee's life would be the easy thing to do - it's awful - everyone knows that, but my awful and what those people have endured are two very different things.
I read a chapter or two, then I put it down - I go outside and I look at the violets pushing up everywhere and I listen to the skylarks, telling me that it's spring and I am grateful for never having had to know the things I am reading, for real. There but for grace, right?
