What compels someone to risk everything to make a stand for human rights?

Photo taken by Dianne Lang Copyright 

Wishes are often aligned to dreams of something in the future. My past influences my wishes today.

My first wish would be to have some kind of invention that can remove all hurt, anguish and pain from the memory. That hurt, trauma and pain that makes it difficult to move forward in life. The pain that becomes the baggage that we carry around with us and that inevitably affects not only ourselves, that colours our future, but that also affects those who try to love us. Memories of trauma and pain are buried within our minds and in our tissues and remain with us as a constant reminder of what happened. It does not recede to the distant past. It is right there, under the surface. A smell, a sound, a colour, a word, a conversation; all these things can bring that memory flooding back as though it is happening to us in the immediate moment and we feel all the emotions, the anxiety and the body responses to that memory.

A device that can wipe out traumatic memories and put them into the distant past would allow people to move on and lead a more productive lives.

My second wish is jumbled up with the guilt I feel for having taken on the roll of human rights activist. My activities as a human rights activist has affected my relationship with my adult children, mostly because I was a single parent most of their lives.

My son has always been my biggest fan.　He always said that I had the biggest balls of any man he knew.　 This was a backhanded compliment.　 Although he was proud of what I was doing, he did not like it one bit, continually begging me to stop because he was afraid for my life.　 He also felt that I had no time for him as I was hell-bent on saving the world.

My daughter became estranged from me for a while, blaming me for putting the family at risk; for not having any time for her or her brother and the grandchildren; for wanting to save the world and for not caring enough for the family.

As much as I loved and wanted to be there for my children 100% of the time, the human rights abuse I saw round me have driven me and I did not give them the undivided attention they deserved.  I wish I could go back again and be a little less preoccupied with my mission. 

Ken Wiwa, the son of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a human rights activist who was executed in November 1995 in Nigeria, asks in his book "In the Shadow of a Saint", "What is it that compels a man to risk everything - his life, his family, the lives of people around him - to make a stand for human rights?"

I am trying to answer this question.  It is not religion.  It is a deep horror of injustice that drives me to do something about it.　 It is also a feeling of being the only one to really see the pain and abuse, the feeling that not enough people are prepared to do something, or to take action...this is what drives me to take more and more risks.　 It is a feeling of not having enough time and of a job that is too large to complete.　It is a feeling of living in the moment because tomorrow will be too late.　 It is a feeling of every life being precious and if nothing is done about the other out there, then nothing will be done about these around me.　 It is a feeling of "if I look out for those, then these of mine will be OK".　 It is a deep resentment of the abuse of others.　 It is a loathing of unkind and uncompassionate behaviour.　 It is the contempt for those who sit by and do nothing, knowing that while they look on they are as much to blame as the abuser and the oppressor.　 It is a feeling of frustration that pushes me to the limits of my endurance.It is an all-consuming love of the people, of those who need protection the most.

Only when you know what it is like to walk barefoot on the rocks while the hot sun beats mercilessly down on your head, while your belly screams in hunger and you feel the thrash of the whip on your legs, when you have personally had your rights abused, when you have been the victim of unfairness or prosecuted without just cause or if you are the only one to take the blame...only then do you have the will and stamina to fight someone else's fight.
My personality and my experience gave me no choice, for as Carol Lee says, “By turning my back on myself, I would have broken my spine”.

I wish for peace, solitude and a little stone house over-looking the water where the neighbours are too far away to hear my music playing. I wish to write with a glowing fire in front of me and a hot cup of coffee next to my computer. I wish to have someone on the other end of the telephone who knows me and loves me and who does not judge me. I wish to know that all children are free, that there is real justice in the world and that no one feels alone, afraid, hungry and forgotten.

I don’t want to feel driven like this. I wish it were different. I wish we lived in a perfect world, but we don’t …so I fight for those without a voice. I will not forget people like Ken Wiwa, nor will I forget Eugene de Kock until he too can walk free!