What I have in Common with Ken Saro-Wiwa

My life was busy, happy and I felt contentment most of the time when I was not mad at the system which was letting others down – or if I saw or heard something that was unjust – I could not help it, I had to do something about it.

Then suddenly, like a thief in the dark, illness grabbed hold of me and refused to let go. My acute illness turned to chronic illness and then included the gut-wrenching words “life-threatening, and ‘prognosis’.

No longer could I jump into my car and hair around bends to get to the abused or violated person…no longer could I jump onto the phone and call my connections around the world…no longer could I physically go into a shebeen and physically pull a child away from five men who were attempting to rape her…no longer could I actually, do what I felt I was put on earth to do.

How could I still have my life with so much of it taken away – I grieved for over a year for that which I could no longer do. And then I decided, just one morning when I woke up, that I would continue to do what I have always done, but I would do it via the internet. I could still make a difference from my bed. I realized that if I did not do what I was put here to do, I would be turning my back on myself, literally snapping my spine and rendering me paralysed in every sense of the word.

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 is precious and if nothing is done about the other out there, then nothing will be done about those 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.

I was born with an aversion to injustice – it is in my DNA and I can do nothing about it. It is who I am, sick or not.