Podcasting has become one of my favourite ways to get through my more than hour-long commute to work. I love a good book, but there is something more powerful when storytelling is done through a podcast by the persons who have experienced the story. Passing Through by Nneka Julia which I started listening to this year, has fast become my best podcast. Nneka takes you through her journey in life through the places she has been; infused with her soothing voice and background sounds which make the stories come to life.
Last week, I listened to my all-time best story by Nneka, the account of her mum surviving the Cambodian genocide. It was so raw and pure, words cannot bring it to life like the way she did. The 20-minute episode does not take us through the genocide through the killing factions, but through how her mother who was a teenager at the time transversed through Cambodia with her family seeking safe refuge. She humanises the genocide to show what the actual non-warring factions went through. For example, talking about how the value of food (rice) was more valuable than gold or money, hospitals turned into morgues rather than treatment facilities and rice fields into caskets. She uses sounds so perfectly from; water swishing and swooshing, walking through grass, crowds of people, the night and its creatures, guns and bombs going off. You are transported to Cambodia in 1975. A key phrase from the episode is still lingering in my mind, “Ignorance will keep you and your family alive”.
The general meaning of war is an armed conflict between states, governments, societies and informal paramilitary groups, such as mercenaries, insurgents and militias. However, for me, war is an unnecessary show of might by states or individuals to; enrich themselves or sell different ideologies to people who do not need or care for them.
A lot of times when you learn or are taught about the war the story is from the perspective of the warring factions and the effects of war such as; the destruction of cities, human loss and suffering, displacement of people etc. Do not get me wrong, this is important, but what happens to the stories of the ones who/ whose:
“were caught in the crossfire of the war; did not even see the war coming; were displaced from their original homes forced to start over again; lost half or all their families; watched their families being slaughtered; family members joined the military to fight a war they did not even understand; never reunited with their families years after the war ended; lived each day not knowing whether they would live to see tomorrow.”
Imagine a history lesson assignment that asks each student to document their mums/dad or grandmother/father's stories of colonialism, war, genocide or conflict. Not just absorbing their stories and letting them evaporate with you, but recording them with pen or recorder and sharing them with the world. For example, my late grandfather was a mau-mau fighter, he passed before he got his reparations from the British Government. This is because according to the British narrative of colonialism, mau-mau fighters were terrorists. However, to my late grandfather, their story of resistance was fighting for their lands and freedom which had been taken from them to satisfy British imperialist needs. His going to resist meant he spent fewer days at home with his family. My grandmother was left to take care of the home and the children.
These are the stories that matter when it comes to learning about war, conflict or genocide because they teach us why war is not necessary. This is because nothing good comes from war/conflict apart from death, loss of his/her — stories, suffering, despair and displacement.
