First a warm thanks to all at Pambazuka News who provide an invigorating forum and a vehicle for awareness & change.

Dear Eva,
(In response to Eva Dadrian, Letters, Pambazuka News 153)

Forgive me if I have offended you by using the example of a young girl who asked me to respite my ignorance of her history and a particular human atrocity. My point in using the Israeli example was not to offend the Palestinians – but to urge awareness of all human failure to find empathy and conquer ignorance within our communities. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to highlight the example of the Arab Village where I later lived for some time, herding goats.

I had been warned, as two American tourists had just been killed in the Wadi Kelt, not to enter the village and to display distrust and reticence, but, despite this, I lived in the village in a sublime peace. As a white woman, in jeans and a t-shirt, I represented everything that the community should find unacceptable culturally speaking, yet I was privileged and trusted to take care of the village of Arab Al Ramshe’s 356 strong herd of goats, because it made me happy to be in the mountains with them – the entire wealth of the village goat herder and his family, a trust that defies thousands of years of tradition. They shared their stories of triumph with me, their stories of hope and tragedy, their heritage, their food and their home in a hospitable and respectful humility that I have seldom experienced in my travels since. They too taught me of awareness – that a one to one trust, devoid of history, soul to soul, was key to overcoming the violent approach that tragically some politicians fall prey to when first they take on positions of power.

I agree with you whole-heartedly that the dividing walls between us all should come down, that we should end apartheid in every form, but we need to remove it from our minds first or I do not believe we can achieve anything in practicality. We need to stop dredging up history for the sake of recrimination and reproach. If it cannot be a clear teacher for us then perhaps it should be mute.

I doubt very much that the young girl who took me to the holocaust museum at Akko had any idea what was to follow in her country but I very much believe, in learning to know her as a person, that she does not condone what is happening in her country today. Quite the contrary, I am certain it is breaking her heart. And certainly - I think she is now sensitive to it also. To some extent we are all victims of ignorance but I respect her duty to try and bridge that ignorance. More often than not, these issues are intentionally misrepresented. We are privileged to have the freedom to speak openly.

I think you are perfectly correct that we should listen with two ears and build awareness of all aspects of the phenomenon of genocide. This was the point of my letter and in fact, it was in order to address the situation in Rwanda, but yes you are right, it applies to America, Spain, South Africa and now Sudan. Is there a place where mankind has not failed himself. Can we try again?

I did not anywhere in my letter condone the attack on Palestinian children, instead I called for us as an African community to never become desensitized, which I can see you are not. You say No, No, No, Nicole, but in truth, I think we are agreed.

I think we are all participant in Pambazuka to find solutions and avoid recriminations. My solution may seem simplistic but I feel that change begins with love and love begins with understanding, so I thank you for your letter, I will read Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's "When 'never again' becomes again and again" – again, and I invite you to write me to discuss this further so that you and I may build a bridge over the distance I have inadvertently created with you. Let us seek the things common between us and find solutions for Africa today. Indeed if I am offending you, please patiently teach me again and help me to understand. Can we begin with you and me? As Tajudeen says, can we “Keep Hope Alive”.

We need to do more than hope, we need to make it a reality. That means that we need to enlist those that are working for good to work together, we need to network and to utilise our collective resources for targeted and significant action.

Everyday in South Africa, where we also celebrate 10 years of democracy after a complicated oppression, I am in awe of how much work needs to be done. Everyday I am witness to both tragedy and triumph - but I know this - we must go on, we must go forward, and we must do it now.

While so many countries immerse themselves in strife - our world is being lost to us, the breath of our mornings forever lost - our lives, our futures tainted and the futures of our children snatched from their cradles.

Just a few years back, I lived some time in Jerusalem and travelled much around Israel. It was a girl called Simone in the northern town of Akko who convinced me to attend the holocaust museum there. At first I was reticent. But she persisted - she said: "You need to know, so that THIS may never happen again." I went. Indeed, 50 years + after the holocaust, I fail to understand things so painful that the mind cannot comprehend them, but I have learnt that people need to know. People need to learn to feel for each other again - and cease from reducing themselves to redundant elements of the systems that proliferate oppression.

We need to build awareness - so that people can act.

There is no "Africa", or "Europe" - there is you and me, each one of us in Africa, or Europe. People make a country, not countries, their people.

These things were NOT MEANT TO BE - it is time for us to wake up and realise that they are not INEVITABLE - they are the collective result of individual choices - made in error and blindness and greed. None of these characteristics are essential to the human character, they are forged by circumstance, social disintegration, lack of self esteem, domination....

But within us all we have the capacity to love, to nurture and to heal. We all must work towards the realisation of these qualities within ourselves and our communities and those of us who are willing and able, have a moral obligation to strive for our brothers freedoms, not only our own.

We write history each day as we each make a passage through our lives, every little action and every grand gesture. We are not puppets - and the time has come for us to break free of the kind of thinking that accepts inevitability, that instils in us inertia.

It is not escapist to say that the "International Community" fails Africa. In many ways, it does, in many ways, the global family fails itself, Africa fails herself and she fails the international community. It is so terribly easy to fail, but in so many ways, we must recognise we have triumphed.

We must strive to respond to any "accusations" of failure with open hearts - to say "If I have failed you brother - let me redress - if I can help you sister - let me take a stand, and if I fail because you are beyond my reach and means, may God help me to keep trying again."

Let us never forget.
(A response to Valentine Ngwa published in Pambazuka News last week, from the AFRO-NETS mailing list)