My search is always to find ways to chronicle, to share and to document stories about people, just everyday people. Stories that offer transformation, that lean into transcendence, but that are never sentimental, that never look away from the darkest things about us. Because I really believe that we're never more beautiful than when we're most ugly. Because that's really the moment we really know what we're made of. As Chris said, I grew up in Nigeria with a whole generation -- in the '80s -- of students who were protesting a military dictatorship, which has finally ended. So it wasn't just me, there was a whole generation of us.
Ja uvek tražim načine kako bih zabeležio, podelio i dokumentovao priče o ljudima, o običnim ljudima. Priče koje nude preobražaj, koje naginju transcendenciji, ali koje nikada nisu sentimentalne, koje nikada ne zatvaraju oči pred onim što je u nama najmračnije. Pošto zaista verujem da nikada nismo lepši nego onda kada smo najružniji. Jer to je trenutak kada shvatamo od čega smo napravljeni. Kao što je Kris rekao, odrastao sam u Nigeriji -- tokom osamdesetih -- koji su protestovali protiv vojne diktature, koja je kasnije i okončana. Dakle, ja nisam bio jedini, postojala je čitava generacija sličnih meni.
But what I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa, they have a phrase called Ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me. But if you're like me, my humanity is more like a window. I don't really see it, I don't pay attention to it until there's, you know, like a bug that's dead on the window. Then suddenly I see it, and usually, it's never good. It's usually when I'm cussing in traffic at someone who is trying to drive their car and drink coffee and send emails and make notes. So what Ubuntu really says is that there is no way for us to be human without other people. It's really very simple, but really very complicated.
Međutim, ono što sam shvatio, bila je činjenica da svet nikada ne spasavaju veliki, mesijanski gestovi, već akumulacija blagih, mekih, gotovo nevidljivih izraza saosećanja, svakodnevnih izraza saosećanja. U Južnoj Africi postoji fraza pod nazivom ubuntu. Ubuntu potiče od filozofskog pogleda koji kaže da je jedini način da budem human, ako u vama vidim odraz svoje humanosti. Ali ako ste slični meni, moja čovečnost je više nalik prozoru. Ja ga ne vidim, ne obraćam na njega pažnju sve dok se, znate, na njemu ne pojavi mrtva buba. Tada ga iznenada primetim i to obično nije lep prizor. To se uglavnom događa kada, u saobraćaju, opsujem nekoga ko pokušava da vozi ispijajući kafu i pišući e-mailove ili beleške. Dakle, ono što ubuntu zaista govori jeste da ne možemo biti čovečni bez postojanja drugih ljudi. To je zaista veoma jednostavno, ali je, u stvari, i veoma komplikovano.
So, I thought I should start with some stories. I should tell you some stories about remarkable people, so I thought I'd start with my mother. (Laughter) And she was dark, too. My mother was English. My parents met in Oxford in the '50s, and my mother moved to Nigeria and lived there. She was five foot two, very feisty and very English. This is how English my mother is -- or was, she just passed. She came out to California, to Los Angeles, to visit me, and we went to Malibu, which she thought was very disappointing. (Laughter) And then we went to a fish restaurant, and we had Chad, the surfer dude, serving us, and he came up and my mother said, "Do you have any specials, young man?" And Chad says, "Sure, like, we have this, like, salmon, that's, like, rolled in this, like, wasabi, like, crust. It's totally rad." And my mother turned to me and said, "What language is he speaking?" (Laughter) I said, "English, mum." And she shook her head and said, "Oh, these Americans. We gave them a language, why don't they use it?" (Laughter)
Zato sam mislio da bi trebalo da počnem sa nekim pričama. Trebalo bi da vam ispričam nekoliko priča o izuzetnim ljudima, pa sam mislio da bih mogao da počnem od moje majke. (Smeh) I ona je bila crna. Moja majka je bila Engleskinja. Roditelji su mi se upoznali u Oksfordu, tokom pedesetih, i moja majka se preselila u Nigeriju. Bila je visoka 158 cm, veoma energična i velika Engleskinja. Evo koliko je moja majka velika Engleskinja -- ili koliko je bila, jer, nedavno je preminula. Došla je jednom u Kaliforniju, u Los Anđeles da me poseti i otišli smo do Malibua, za koji je smatrala da je veoma razočaravajuć. (Smeh) Potom smo otišli u riblji restoran, u kome nas je posluživao surfer iz Čada. Prišao nam je i moja majka je rekla, "Da li biste nam nešto preporučili, mladiću?" A momak iz Čada reče, "Normalno, imamo tog lososa, koji je, kao urolan u neku koricu, kao od vasabija. Vrh je." Majka se okrenula ka meni i rekla, "Koji to jezik on govori?" (Smeh) "Engleski. mama," rekao sam. A ona odmahnu glavom i reče "Oh, ti Amerikanci, pa dali smo im jezik. Zašto ga ne koriste?" (Smeh)
So, this woman, who converted from the Church of England to Catholicism when she married my father -- and there's no one more rabid than a Catholic convert -- decided to teach in the rural areas in Nigeria, particularly among Igbo women, the Billings ovulation method, which was the only approved birth control by the Catholic Church. But her Igbo wasn't too good. So she took me along to translate. I was seven. (Laughter) So, here are these women, who never discuss their period with their husbands, and here I am telling them, "Well, how often do you get your period?" (Laughter) And, "Do you notice any discharges?" (Laughter) And, "How swollen is your vulva?" (Laughter) She never would have thought of herself as a feminist, my mother, but she always used to say, "Anything a man can do, I can fix." (Applause) And when my father complained about this situation, where she's taking a seven-year-old boy to teach this birth control, you know, he used to say, "Oh, you're turning him into -- you're teaching him how to be a woman." My mother said, "Someone has to." (Laughter)
I tako je ova žena, koja je prešla iz Engleske crkve u katolicizam kada se udala za moga oca -- a niko nije fanatičniji od katoličkog preobraćenika -- odlučila da, u ruralnim oblastima Nigerije, posebno Igbo žene, podučava Bilingsovoj ovulacijskoj metodi, jedinoj kontraceptivnoj metodi koju je katolička crkva odobravala. Ali, ona nije dobro govorila Igbo jezik. Tako da je vodila mene da prevodim. Bilo mi je sedam godina. (Smeh) Tu su, dakle, bile žene koje nikada nisu razgovarale o svom ciklusu sa muževima a ja bih ih pitao, "Pa, koliko često imate menstruaciju?" (Smeh) I da li primećujete neke izlučevine? (Smeh) A koliko vam je stidnica otečena? (Smeh) Moja majka sebe nikada ne bi smatrala feministkinjom, ali je imala običaj da kaže, "Sve što muškarac može da uradi, ja mogu da popravim." (Aplauz) A kada se moj otac žalio na ovu situaciju, jer ona vodi sedmogodišnjeg dečaka da podučava žene kontraceptivnoj metodi rekao bi, "Jao, pretvorićeš ga... naučičeš ga da bude žena." Moja majka mu je odgovarala, "Pa, neko mora da ga nauči." (Smeh)
This woman -- during the Biafran war, we were caught in the war. It was my mother with five little children. It takes her one year, through refugee camp after refugee camp, to make her way to an airstrip where we can fly out of the country. At every single refugee camp, she has to face off soldiers who want to take my elder brother Mark, who was nine, and make him a boy soldier. Can you imagine this five-foot-two woman, standing up to men with guns who want to kill us? All through that one year, my mother never cried one time, not once. But when we were in Lisbon, in the airport, about to fly to England, this woman saw my mother wearing this dress, which had been washed so many times it was basically see through, with five really hungry-looking kids, came over and asked her what had happened. And she told this woman. And so this woman emptied out her suitcase and gave all of her clothes to my mother, and to us, and the toys of her kids, who didn't like that very much, but -- (Laughter) -- that was the only time she cried. And I remember years later, I was writing about my mother, and I asked her, "Why did you cry then?" And she said, "You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you."
Ta žena -- tokom nigerijskog građanskog rata, doživeli smo taj rat. Moja majka je bila sama sa petoro dece. Provela je godinu dana po izbegličkim logorima, dok nije stigla do uzletne piste sa koje smo mogli da napustimo zemlju. U svakom logoru u kome smo bili, morala je da se suočava sa vojnicima koji su hteli da regrutuju mog starijeg brata Marka, devetogodišnjaka, u dečake-ratnike. Možete li da zamislite ovu ženu, visoku 158cm, kako se suprotstavlja naoružanim muškarcima koji hoće da nas ubiju? Čitave te godine, moja majka nijednom nije zaplakala, ni jedan jedini put. Ali kada smo bili na aerodromu u Lisabonu, neposredno pre leta za Englesku, jedna žena je ugledala moju majku u haljini, opranoj toliko puta da je postala gotovo prozirna, sa petoro izgladnele dece. Prišla je i upitala ju je šta se dogodilo. Moja majka joj je sve ispričala. Žena je ispraznila svoj kofer i svu odeću je dala mojoj majci i nama, kao i igračke svoje dece, kojoj se to nije baš mnogo dopalo, ali -- (Smeh) Bio je to jedini put da je moja majka plakala. Sećam se da sam, godinama kasnije, pisao o svojoj majci i pitao sam je, "Zbog čega si tada plakala?" Ona mi je odgovorila, "Znaš, srce možeš stegnuti pred bilo kakvom nevoljom, bilo kakvim užasom. Ali jednostavan gest dobrote, koji ti ukaže potpuni neznanac, potpuno će te razoružati."
The old women in my father's village, after this war had happened, memorized the names of every dead person, and they would sing these dirges, made up of these names. Dirges so melancholic that they would scorch you. And they would sing them only when they planted the rice, as though they were seeding the hearts of the dead into the rice. But when it came for harvest time, they would sing these joyful songs, that were made up of the names of every child who had been born that year. And then the next planting season, when they sang the dirge, they would remove as many names of the dead that equaled as many people that were born. And in this way, these women enacted a lot of transformation, beautiful transformation.
U očevom selu su starice, nakon rata, pamtile imena svih pokojnika, i pevale bi tužbalice, sastavljene od njihovih imena. Tužbalice, toliko melanholične, da bi vam sledile srce. Pevale su ih samo dok su sadile pirinač, kao da su sejale srca mrtvih u njega. Ali, kada je došlo vreme žetve, pevale bi radosne pesme, sastavljene od imena dece koja su se te godine rodila. A kada bi sledeće godine, tokom setve, pevale tužbalice, uklonile bi onoliko imena umrlih, koliko se dece rodilo. Na ovaj način, ove žene su donosile ogromnu transformaciju, divnu transformaciju.
Did you know, that before the genocide in Rwanda, the word for rape and the word for marriage was the same one? But today, women are rebuilding Rwanda. Did you also know that after apartheid, when the new government went into the parliament houses, there were no female toilets in the building? Which would seem to suggest that apartheid was entirely the business of men. All of this to say, that despite the horror, and despite the death, women are never really counted. Their humanity never seems to matter very much to us.
Da li ste znali da je, pre genocida u Ruandi, silovanje i brak označavala jedna ista reč? Ali danas, žene ponovo grade Ruandu. Da li ste znali i to da, po završetku aparthejda, kada je nova vlada ušla u zgradu parlamenta, nije bilo ženskih toaleta u zgradi? Što bi, izgleda, trebalo da znači da je aparthejd u potpunosti bio muški posao. Poenta je da se, uprkos užasu, uprkos smrti, žene nikada ne računaju. Njihova čovečnost nam, izgleda, nije mnogo bitna.
When I was growing up in Nigeria -- and I shouldn't say Nigeria, because that's too general, but in Afikpo, the Igbo part of the country where I'm from -- there were always rites of passage for young men. Men were taught to be men in the ways in which we are not women, that's essentially what it is. And a lot of rituals involved killing, killing little animals, progressing along, so when I turned 13 -- and, I mean, it made sense, it was an agrarian community, somebody had to kill the animals, there was no Whole Foods you could go and get kangaroo steak at -- so when I turned 13, it was my turn now to kill a goat. And I was this weird, sensitive kid, who couldn't really do it, but I had to do it. And I was supposed to do this alone. But a friend of mine, called Emmanuel, who was significantly older than me, who'd been a boy soldier during the Biafran war, decided to come with me. Which sort of made me feel good, because he'd seen a lot of things. Now, when I was growing up, he used to tell me stories about how he used to bayonet people, and their intestines would fall out, but they would keep running. So, this guy comes with me. And I don't know if you've ever heard a goat, or seen one -- they sound like human beings, that's why we call tragedies "a song of a goat." My friend Brad Kessler says that we didn't become human until we started keeping goats. Anyway, a goat's eyes are like a child's eyes. So when I tried to kill this goat and I couldn't, Emmanuel bent down, he puts his hand over the mouth of the goat, covers its eyes, so I don't have to look into them, while I kill the goat. It didn't seem like a lot, for this guy who'd seen so much, and to whom the killing of a goat must have seemed such a quotidian experience, still found it in himself to try to protect me. I was a wimp. I cried for a very long time. And afterwards, he didn't say a word. He just sat there watching me cry for an hour. And then afterwards he said to me, "It will always be difficult, but if you cry like this every time, you will die of heartbreak. Just know that it is enough sometimes to know that it is difficult." Of course, talking about goats makes me think of sheep, and not in good ways. (Laughter)
Dok sam odrastao u Nigeriji -- mada ne bi trebalo da kažem u Nigeriji, jer je to suviše uopšteno, već u Urhobu, lgbo delu zemlje, odakle potičem, uvek su postojali rituali prelaska za mladiće. U suštini, muškarci su učeni da budu muškarci, na način koji ih razdvaja od žena. Mnogi rituali su uključivali ubijanje, ubijanje malih životinja, i odrastajući, kada sam napunio 13 godina -- mislim, to je imalo smisla, bila je to poljoprivredna zajednica, neko je morao da ubija životinje, nije bilo Whole Foods marketa u kome ste mogli da kupite šniclu od kengura -- tako je, kada sam napunio 13 godina, došao red da ubijem kozu. Ja sam bio čudno, osetljivo dete, koje to nije moglo da uradi, ali sam ipak morao. I trebalo je to da uradim sam. Međutim, jedan moj prijatelj, po imenu Emanuel, koji je bio dosta stariji od mene, i koji je bio dečak-ratnik tokom građanskog rata, odlučio je da krene sa mnom. To mi je, na neki način, pomoglo da se osećam bolje, jer je on dosta toga video. Dok sam odrastao, on mi je pričao priče o tome kako je ubadao ljude bajonetom, i kako su oni nastavljali da trče iako im je utroba ispadala. I tako je ovaj momak pošao sa mnom, ali, ne znam da li ste nekada čuli ili videli kozu -- one zvuče kao ljudska bića, zbog toga tragedije nazivamo "kozjom pesmom." Moj prijatelj Bred Kesler kaže da nismo postali ljudi sve dok nismo počeli da čuvamo koze. U svakom slučaju, kozje oči su poput dečijih. Kada sam pokušao da ubijem kozu i nisam mogao to da uradim, Emanuel se sagnuo, zatvorio joj je usta rukom, i prekrio joj oči, tako da ne moram da je gledam, dok je ubijam. To nije delovalo kao nešto posebno, jer je ovaj momak, koji je toliko toga video, i koji je -- kome je ubijanje koze sigurno delovalo kao neka svakodnevna stvar, ipak osetio potrebu da me zaštiti. Bio sam kukavica. Plakao sam jako dugo. Posle svega, on nije rekao ni reč, samo je sedeo i posmatrao me kako plačem čitav sat vremena. Nakon toga mi je rekao, uvek će biti teško, ali ako svaki put budeš tako plakao, srce će ti prepući i umrećeš. Samo znaj, da je ponekad dovoljno saznanje da je to zaista teško. Naravno, priča o kozama me je podsetila na ovce, i to ne u pozitivnom smislu. (Smeh)
So, I was born two days after Christmas. So growing up, you know, I had a cake and everything, but I never got any presents, because, born two days after Christmas. So, I was about nine, and my uncle had just come back from Germany, and we had the Catholic priest over, my mother was entertaining him with tea. And my uncle suddenly says, "Where are Chris' presents?" And my mother said, "Don't talk about that in front of guests." But he was desperate to show that he'd just come back, so he summoned me up, and he said, "Go into the bedroom, my bedroom. Take anything you want out of the suitcase. It's your birthday present." I'm sure he thought I'd take a book or a shirt, but I found an inflatable sheep. (Laughter) So, I blew it up and ran into the living room, my finger where it shouldn't have been, I was waving this buzzing sheep around, and my mother looked like she was going to die of shock. (Laughter) And Father McGetrick was completely unflustered, just stirred his tea and looked at my mother and said, "It's all right Daphne, I'm Scottish." (Laughter) (Applause)
Ja sam rođen dva dana nakon Božića. I tako sam, znate, odrastajući, imao tortu i sve ostalo, ali nikada nisam dobijao poklone, jer -- rođen sam dva dana posle Božića. Kada mi je bilo oko devet godina, ujak mi se tek vratio iz Nemačke, i jedan katolički sveštenik nas je posetio. Moja majka ga je ugostila čajem, a moj ujak je iznenada rekao, "Gde su Krisovi pokloni?" Majka mu reče, "Nemoj o tome pred gostima." Ali on je očajnički želeo da pokaže da se upravo vratio, tako da me je pozvao i rekao, "Idi u sobu, u moju sobu. I uzmi šta god poželiš iz kofera. To je tvoj rođendanski poklon." Siguran sam da je pomislio da ću uzeti knjigu ili košulju, ali ja sam našao ovcu na naduvavanje. (Smeh) Naduvao sam je i utrčao sa njom u dnevnu sobu, držeći prst tamo gde mu nije mesto, Mahao sam unaokolo tom ovcom, koja je šuštala, a moja majka je delovala kao da će umreti od šoka. (Smeh) Otac Mekgetrik je bio savršeno miran, samo je promešao čaj, pogledao moju majku i rekao, "U redu je, Dafne, ja sam Škotlanđanin." (Smeh) (Aplauz)
My last days in prison, the last 18 months, my cellmate -- for the last year, the first year of the last 18 months -- my cellmate was 14 years old. The name was John James, and in those days, if a family member committed a crime, the military would hold you as ransom till your family turned themselves in. So, here was this 14-year-old kid on death row. And not everybody on death row was a political prisoner. There were some really bad people there. And he had smuggled in two comics, two comic books -- "Spiderman" and "X-Men." He was obsessed. And when he got tired of reading them, he started to teach the men in death row how to read, with these comic books. And so, I remember night after night, you'd hear all these men, these really hardened criminals, huddled around John James, reciting, "Take that, Spidey!" (Laughter) It's incredible. I was really worried. He didn't know what death row meant. I'd been there twice, and I was terribly afraid that I was going to die. And he would always laugh, and say, "Come on, man, we'll make it out." Then I'd say, "How do you know?" And he said, "Oh, I heard it on the grapevine." They killed him. They handcuffed him to a chair, and they tacked his penis to a table with a six-inch nail, then left him there to bleed to death. That's how I ended up in solitary, because I let my feelings be known. All around us, everywhere, there are people like this.
Tokom poslednjih dana u zatvoru, poslednjih 18 meseci, moj cimer -- tokom poslednje godine, odnosno, prve godine poslednjih 18 meseci -- moj cimer je imao 14 godina. Ime mu je bilo Džon Džejms, a u to vreme bi vojska, ukoliko je neki član porodice počinio zločin, uhapsila vas kao taoca, sve dok se vaš rođak ne preda. I tako je ovog četrnaestogodišnjaka čekala smrtna kazna. Nisu svi osuđenici na smrt bili politički zatvorenici -- među njima je bilo nekih jako loših ljudi. Ovaj dečak je prokrijumčario dva stripa -- Spajdermena i strip X-men. Bio je opsednut. A kada se zasitio od čitanja, počeo je da uči osuđenike na smrt da čitaju iz ovih stripova. Sećam se kako su se, iz noći u noć, mogli čuti ovi ljudi, ovi okoreli zločinci, kako zbijeni oko Džona Džejmsa, izgovaraju, "Eto ti ga na, Spajdi!" (Smeh) Neverovatno. Bio sam vrlo zabrinut. On nije znao šta znači smrtna kazna. Ja sam bio dva puta u zatvoru i strašno sam se plašio da ću umreti. Ali, on bi se uvek nasmejao i rekao, "Ma hajde, čoveče, izvući ćemo se." Ja bih mu odgovorio, "Kako znaš?" A on bi uzvratio, "Ma, čuo sam glasine." Ubili su ga. Vezali su ga lisicama za stolicu, i ekserom od petnaest santimetara su mu zakucali penis za sto. Onda su ga ostavili da iskrvari do smrti. Tako sam završio u samici, jer sam pokazao svoja osećanja. Svuda oko nas postoje ovakvi ljudi.
The Igbo used to say that they built their own gods. They would come together as a community, and they would express a wish. And their wish would then be brought to a priest, who would find a ritual object, and the appropriate sacrifices would be made, and the shrine would be built for the god. But if the god became unruly and began to ask for human sacrifice, the Igbos would destroy the god. They would knock down the shrine, and they would stop saying the god's name. This is how they came to reclaim their humanity. Every day, all of us here, we're building gods that have gone rampant, and it's time we started knocking them down and forgetting their names. It doesn't require a tremendous thing. All it requires is to recognize among us, every day -- the few of us that can see -- are surrounded by people like the ones I've told you.
Igbo su govorili kako su sami stvorili svoje bogove. Istupali su kao zajednica, i tako bi izrazili svoju želju. Njihova bi želja tad bila izneta pred sveštenika koji bi potom pronašao ritualni predmet, i određena žrtva bi bila prineta, a za boga bi bio podignut hram. Ali, ako bi bog postao samovoljan i ako bi tražio ljudske žrtve, Igbo bi ga uništili. Srušili bi hram, i prestali da izgovaraju ime toga boga. Tako bi ponovo osvajali svoju ljudskost. Svi mi ovde, svakoga dana, podiženo bogove koji su postali osioni, i vreme je da počnemo da ih rušimo i zaboravljamo njihova imena. To ne zahteva mnogo. Sve što je potrebno jeste da, svakoga dana, prepoznajete među nama nekolicinu nas koja vidi da smo okruženi ljudima poput ovih o kojima sam vam pričao.
There are some of you in this room, amazing people, who offer all of us the mirror to our own humanity. I want to end with a poem by an American poet called Lucille Clifton. The poem is called "Libation," and it's for my friend Vusi who is in the audience here somewhere. "Libation, North Carolina, 1999. I offer to this ground, this gin. I imagine an old man crying here, out of the sight of the overseer. He pushes his tongue through a hole where his tooth would be, if he were whole. It aches in that space where his tooth would be, where his land would be, his house, his wife, his son, his beautiful daughter. He wipes sorrow from his face, and puts his thirsty finger to his thirsty tongue, and tastes the salt. I call a name that could be his. This is for you, old man. This gin, this salty earth." Thank you. (Applause)
Među vama, u ovoj prostoriji, ima neverovatnih ljudi koji nam svima nude ogledalo naše sopstvene ljudskosti. Želeo bih da završim pesmom jednog američkog pesnika po imenu Lusil Klifton. Naslov ove pesme je "Pijanka", i posvećujem je mome prijatelju Vusi koji je ovde negde u publici. "Pijanka " Severna Karolina, 1999. "Nudim ovoj zemlji, ovaj džin. Zamišljam starca kako ovde plače, izvan vidokruga nadzornika. On gura jezik kroz rupu gde bi mu stajali zubi, da je i dalje čitav. Boli ga to mesto gde bi mu bili zubi, gde bi mu bila zemlja, i njegov dom, žena, sin, njegova prelepa kći. On briše tugu sa lica, i stavlja žedni prst na svoj ožedneli jezik, i kuša so. Ja dozivam ime kojim bi se mogao zvati, ovo je za tebe, starče. Ovaj džin, ova slana zemlja." Hvala vam. (Aplauz)