There Is A Lot Of Love

"Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"Can I give you a hug?"
"Well, I’ve been waiting for one of those all night."

I hugged him tightly, probably more than is expected when two people meet for the first time.

...

I went to a special lecture by Stephen Lewis the other night and I experienced nearly the full gamut of my emotions within an hour or so; joy and laughter, awe and inspiration, anger and confusion, heartbreaking sadness.

His biography tells you that he is the Chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, author of the national bestseller Race Against Time and U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. He has served as Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations, he chaired the committee that drafted the Five-Year U.N. Programme on African Economic Recovery, and he was also the Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF at one point. In 1997, he was appointed by the Organization of African Unity to the Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda and he is currently a Commissioner for the World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, a Senior Advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York and also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. There's an infinite number of things you can say about Stephen Lewis being a lifelong social democrat and diplomat, because he's done a million and one things to try and save the world. He's made a difference, but little has changed.

In his speech, he spoke of the Canadian veneer of multi-culturalism, a subterranean racism that exists in this world, because there is something out there that is preventing us from easing the suffering that goes on worldwide. He spoke of gender equality, of diversity and what it means to truly embrace it. He spoke of Uganda, of HIV/AIDS in Africa, of the human condition and how bitterly frustrating the world can be. I know all that. As a sociology student, it seems that all I learn about are the troubles of the world; I learn about poverty and the problems with migration and globalization and transnationalism. I know about race and ethnic relations, of immigration policies, of structural inequalities, of exploitations and classism. Yet, never have I learned what to do about any of these issues. I know cab drivers who have come from other countries where they were doctors, I've been waxed by a woman who has a degree in chemical engineering. My degree feels so relevant when it comes to knowing and yet so irrelevant when it comes to doing.

I made a comment in class last week about cultural identity and got shot down immediately by someone speaking about experiences with racism and discrimination. Apparently everyone has seen racist behaviour coming even from a seven year old. I wondered to myself, How is it that I grew up not knowing racial slurs and slang words? How is it that I don't see these things too? Do children really refuse to play with dolls that have a different skin colour than they do? At times I feel so cultured and experienced because of the things that I've done, the parts of the world that I've seen, the people that I've met, the things that I have learned, but at other times I feel like the most naive person to ever exist because I don't see discrimination like everyone else does. Am I really wearing those stupid rose-coloured glasses?

Listening to Stephen Lewis speak was like listening to a really sad poem, it was like seeing the suffering of the world flash right before my eyes. I'm reminded of that scene in The Fifth Element where Milla Jovovich learns about the history of war in the world and she see the images flash on the computer screen in front of her, and she cries. It was like that. I cried. A lot. I cried mainly because I didn't understand; it wasn't so much Why the suffering? but moreso Why is nothing being done? There is a quote from the Boondock Saints that will always resonate with me: "We must always fear the wicked. But there is another kind of evil that we must fear the most, and that is the indifference of good men." He even boiled it down to the simplest of things: education. All we need to do is learn about each other and accept and embrace each other. It all starts with the smallest, most important things. All we need to do is learn to love each other. And maybe then, the hurt will stop. The funny thing about diversity is that ultimately, we're all the same: Human.

I left the lecture feeling emotionally drained and very melancholy. I wanted to do something and I didn't know where to start. I researched his foundation, CIDA, UNICEF, and there's more on my list: CARE, Doctors Without Borders, WarChild, the CCIC...the list goes on. The next morning, I sucked it up and did the Run for the Cure for breast cancer because, if anything, that was a start. I wasn't running just for breast cancer anymore, I was running to find a solidarity against suffering. You supported me with $432, and from the bottom of my little heart, Thank you. You'll be happy to know that I did indeed run the entire 5 kilometers without stopping. It turns out that when I was training for the run at the gym by running 5km on the AMERICAN treadmills, I wasn't running 5k at all. It was more like 5 MILES, which is the equivalent to 8km, which is probably the reason I did not die while running yesterday morning, which is probably why I'll opt for the 10km run the next time I try to save the world from breast cancer. And next time, I'm going to opt for doing much, much more than raising $432 and running a few kilometers if I want to save the world from anything.

...

As I stood there, with my arms wrapped around the shoulders of Stephen Lewis, I didn’t ever think, “Wow! I’m hugging Stephen Lewis!” because, despite the fact that he is the poster-child for everything that I want to be when I grow up, I felt like I was hugging someone who was just so real, so human. So humane. I whispered to him, “Thank you for trying to save the world.”

“Well, it’s nice to try, now isn’t it?" He smiled at me. "You can pick up where I left off.”

Life has a funny way of breaking my heart and giving me hope at the same time.
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