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.
Moja potraga je uvek za načinima da se pohrane, podele i dokumentuju priče o ljudima, svakodnevnim ljudima. Priče koje nude promenu, naginju ka transcendenciji, ali koje nikada nisu sentimentalne, koje nikada ne sklanjanju pogled sa najtamnijih stvari o nama. Jer zaista verujem da smo najlepši onda kada smo najružniji. Jer je to momenat kada zaista znamo od čega smo napravljeni. Kao što je Kris rekao, odrastao sam u Nigeriji sa čitavom generacijom - u '80-im - studenata koji su protestovali protiv vojne diktature koja se konačno okončala. Dakle nisam samo ja bio u pitanju, bila je to čitava generacija.
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.
Ali ono što sam shvatio jeste da se svet se spašava velikim mesijanskim delima, već dugim nizom nežnih, mekanih i skoro nevidljivih dela saosećajnosti, svakodnevnim postupcima saosećajnosti. U Južnoj Africi postoji izraz "ubuntu". "Ubuntu" dolazi iz učenja koje kaže, jedini način da ja budem čovek jeste da mi ti vratiš tu moju ljudskost. Ali ako ste poput mene, moja humanost je više poput prozora. Zapravo je ne vidim, ne obraćam pažnju na nju sve dok ne vidim, znate, mrtvu bubu na prozoru. Odjednom je vidim i obično, nije dobra. Obično onda kada psujem na nekoga u saobraćaju ko pokušava da vozi svoj auto i pije kafu i šalje email i pravi beleške. Dakle, ono što ubuntu zaista govori jeste da ne postoji način da budemo humani bez drugih ljudi. Ustvari je vrlo jednostavno, ali zapravo vrlo 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)
Tako sam pomislimo kako bih mogao da počnem sa nekim pričama. Trebalo bi da vam ispričam nekoliko priča o značajnim ljudima, pa sam odlučio da počnem sa svojom majkom. (smeh) I ona je bila tamna. Bila je engleskinja. Moji roditelji su se upoznali u Oksfordu '50-ih, i moja majka se preselila u Nigeriju i tamo živela. Bila je visoka oko metar šezdeset, vrlo živahna i prava Engleskinja. Evo kolika je Engleskinja - ili je bila, nedavno je preminula. Došla je u Kaliforniju, Los Anđeles da me poseti i otišli smo u Malibu, za koji je mislila da je razočaravajući. (smeh) A onda smo otišli u riblji restoran, i posluživao nas je Čed, surfer, i došao je, a moja majka je rekla, "Mladiću, da li imate neke specijalitete?" A Čed je rekao, "Naravno, kao, imamo taj losos, to je kao rolovano u ovoj kao, kao vasabi, kori. Ludilo." I moja majka se okrenula i rekla: "Na kom jeziku on govori?" (smeh) Rekao sam: "Na Engleskom, mama." Protresla je glavom i rekla: "Oh, ovi Amerikanci, 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)
Dakle, ova žena, koje se preobratila iz engleske crkve u katolicizam kada se udala za mog oca - i nijedan preobrat nije toliko fanatičan kao katolički - odlučila je da predaje u ruralnim oblastima Nigerije, naročito među Igbo ženama, Bilings metod ovulacije, što je bio jedini odobren vid kontracepcije od strane katoličke crkve. Ali njen Igbo nije bio previše dobar. Pa je povela mene da joj prevodim. Imao sam sedam godina. (smeh) Dakle, tu su te žene, koje nikada sa svojim muževima nisu razgovarale o svojim menstruacijama, i ja koji im govorim: "Pa, koliko često dobijate menstruaciju?" (smeh) I da li je nekada izostala? (smeh) I koliko je otečena vaša vulva? (smeh) Nikada ne bi o sebi razmišljala kao o feministkinji, moja majka, ali je uvek govorila, "Sve što muškarac može da uradi, ja mogu da popravim." (aplauz) I kada se moj otac žalio na ovu situaciju, gde ona vodi svog sedmogodišnjeg sina da podučava o kontracepciji, znate, imao je običaj da kaže: "Pa ti ga pretvaraš u, učiš ga kako da bude žena." Moja majka reče: "Neko mora." (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."
Ova žena - za vreme rata u Bijafri, bili smo u sred rata. Moja majka sa petoro male dece. Bila joj je potrebna godina provlačenja kroz izbegličke kampove, da dođe do neke piste sa koje možemo da poletimo izvan zemlje. U svakom od tih izbegličkih kampova, morala je da se suoči sa vojnicima koji su hteli da odvedu mog starijeg brata Marka, koji je imao devet godina, i da naprave od njega dečaka vojnika. Možete li da zamislite ovu metar i po visoku ženu, kako se suprotstavlja muškarcima sa puškama koji hoće da nas ubiju? Kroz čitavu tu godinu, moja majka nijednom nije zaplakala, nijednom. Ali kada smo bili u Lisabonu, na aerodromu, pred poletanje za Englesku, neka žena je primetila haljinu koju je nosila moja majka, koja je toliko puta bila oprana da je praktično bila providna, sa petoro izgladnele dece, došla je i upitala šta se dogodilo. I ispričala je toj ženi. I onda je ta žena ispraznila svoj kofer i svu odeću poklonila mojoj majci i nama, i igračke svoje dece, kojima se to nije baš dopalo, ali - (smeh) To je bio jedini put kada je plakala. I setio sam se godinama kasnije, kada sam pisao o svojoj majci, i upitao je: "Zašto si plakala tada?" Odgovorila je: "Znaš, možeš da zamrzneš svoje srce protiv svake nevolje, bilo kog terora. Ali jednostavan čin dobrote od potpunog stranca će ga odlediti."
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.
Stare žene iz očevog sela, nakog ovog rata, zapamtile su imena svake osobe koja je poginula, i pevale bi žalopojke sastavljene od ovih imena. Žalopojke toliko melanholične da bi vas opekle. I pevale bi ih samo dok su sejale rižu, kao da tako seju srca umrlih u nju. Ali kada je došlo vreme žetve, pevale bi te živahne pesme, sastavljene od imena svakog deteta rođenog te godine. I onda sledeće sejne sezone, kada bi pevale žalopojke, uklonile bi toliko imena mrtvih, koliko je dece rođeno. I na ovaj način, ove bi žene napravile mnogo promena, prelepih promena.
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 reč za silovanje i reč za brak zapravo bila jedna te ista? Ali danas žene ponovo izgrađuju Ruandu. Da li ste isto tako znali da nakon aparthejda, kada je nova vlada prešla u parlament, nije bilo toaleta za žene u zgradi? Što bi sugerisalo da je aparthejd u potpunosti bio muški posao. To je sve da istaknem kako uprkos hororu i smrti, žene zapravo nikada nisu ubrajane. Njihova humanost izgleda nam nikada ne znači mnogo.
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 - i ne bi trebalo da kažem Nigerija, jer je to suviše opširno, veću Urhobu, Igbo deo zemlje, odakle potičem, postojali su ti ritualni obredi za mlade momke. Muškarci su učeni kako budu muškarci na načine na koje nismo žene i to je u suštini to. I mnogi rituali su uključivali ubijanje, ubijanje malih životinja, pa sve većih, tako kada sam napunio 13 - i mislim, imalo je smisla, bila je to zemljoradnička zajednica, neko je morao da ubije životinje, nije postojao "Whole Foods" gde ste mogli da kupite šniclu od kengura - tako da kada sam napunio 13, bio je red na mene da ubijem kozu. A ja sam bio to čudno, osetljivo dete, koje to nije moglo da učini, ali sam morao. I trebalo je da to uradim sam. Međutim, moj prijatelj, Emauel, koji je bio znatno stariji od mene, i bio je dečak vojnik za vreme rata u Bijafri, odlučio je da krene sa mnom. Što je na neki način učinilo da se osećam dobro, jer je on video mnoge stvari. Sad, dok sam odrastao, imao bi običaj da mi priča priče o tome kako bi rasporio ljude bajonetom, i njihova creva bi ispala, ali bi nastavljali da trče. Dakle, taj momak krene sa mnom, i ne znam da li ste ikada čuli kozu ili je videli - zvuče poput ljudi, zato tragedije zovemo "kozja pesma". Moj prijatelj Bred Kesler kaže da nismo postali ljudi dok nismo počeli da čuvamo koze. Kako god, kozije oči su poput očiju deteta. Tako da kada sam probao da ubijem ovu kozu, i nisam mogao, Emanuel se nagnuo prema dole, stavio ruke preko kozjih usta, prekrio oči, kako ne bih morao u njih da gledam, dok ubijam kozu. Nije izgledalo previše zahtevno, za ovog momka koji je toliko toga video, i koji - kojem je ubijanje koze sigurno izgledalo kao sasvim obično iskustvo, ipak je probao da me zaštiti. Bio sam slabić. Plakao sam još dugo vremena. Nije rekao ni reč nakon toga, samo je sedeo i gledao me kako plačem čitav sat. Nakon toga mi je rekao, da će uvek biti teško, ali ako budem uvek ovoliko plakao, umreću od infarkta. Samo biti svestan da je ponekad dovoljno znati da je teško. Naravno, razgovor o kozama me tera da razmišljam o ovcama, i to ne na dobar način. (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)
Dakle, rođen sam dva dana nakon Božića. I dok sam odrastao, znate, imao sam tortu i sve ostalo, ali nikada nisam dobijao poklone, jer - rođen sam dva dana nakon Božića. Dakle, imao sam oko 9, a moj ujak se tek vratio iz Nemačke, i došao je i katolički sveštenik, moja majka ga je zabavljala sa čajem, a moj ujak je iznenada rekao: "Gde su Krisovi pokloni?" Majka je odgovorila: "Ne spominji to pred gostima." Ali bio je očajan da pokaže da se tek vratio, pozvao me je i rekao: "Idi u spavaću sobu, moju spavaću sobu. Uzmi šta god poželiš iz mog kofera. To je tvoj rođendanski poklon." Siguran sam da je pomislio da ću uzeti knjigu ili košulju, ali sam našao ovcu na naduvavanje. (smeh) Pa sam je naduvao i otrčao u dnevnu sobu, sa prstom gde mu nije mesto, i mahao sam tom zviždućom ovcom naokolo, a moja majka je izgledala kao da će da umre od šoka. (smeh) A otac MecGetrik je bio potpuno neuzbuđen, mešao svoj čaj i pogledao moju majku i rekao: "U redu je Dafne, ja sam Škot." (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.
Moji poslednji dani u zatvoru, poslednjih 18 meseci, moj cimer - tokom poslednje godine, prve godine poslednjih 18 meseci - Moj cimer je imao 14 godina. Zvao se Džon Džejms, i u to vreme, ukoliko je član porodice počinio zločin, vojska bi vas držala kao otkup sve dok se vaša porodica ne preda. I tu je bilo to dete od 14 godina, osuđeno na smrt. I nisu svi smrtno osuđeni bili politički zatvorenici - bili su tu i neki zaista loši ljudi. I on je prokrijumčario dva stripa - "Spajdermena" i "X -mena". Bio je opsednut. I kada se umorio od njihovog čitanja, počeo je da uči ljude na smrtnoj kazni da čitaju, uz pomoć ovih stripova. I tako, sećam se da bi svake noći, čuli te muškarce, ove tvrdokorne kriminalce, skupljene oko Džona Džejmsa, kako recituju, "Tako treba, Spajdi!" (smeh) Neverovatno je. Zaista sam bio zabrinut. Nije znao šta smrtna kazna znači. Ja sam bio tu dva puta, i užasno sam se bojao smrti. I uvek bi se nasmejao i rekao: "Ma daj čoveče, izvući ćemo se." Onda bih ja rekao: "Kako znaš?" A on je rekao: " E, pa saznao sam." Pogubili su ga. Zavezali su ga za stolicu i zakucali njegov penis za sto ekserom dugim 15 centimetara. A onda su ga ostavili da tu iskrvari na smrt. Tako sam završio u samoći, jer sam dozvolio mojim osećanjima da se vide. Svuda oko nas, svuda, postoje ljudi poput ovih.
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 narod je imao običaj da kaže da su sagradili sopstvene bogove. Došli bi skupa, kao zajednica, i izrazili želju. A onda bi njihova želja bila doneta pred sveštenika koji bi pronašao ritualni objekat, i odgovarajuće žrtve bi bile prinete, i hram za boga bi bio izgrađen. Ali ako bi bog postao neposlušan i tražio ljudsku žrtvu, Igboi bi ga uništili. Srušili bi hram, i prestali da izgovaraju božje ime. Ovako bi povratili svoju ljudskost. Svakoga dana, svi mi ovde, gradimo bogove koji se osile, i vreme je da počnemo da ih rušimo i zaboravljamo njihova imena. To ne zahteva neverovatnu stvar. Sve što zahteva jeste da prepoznamo među sobom, svakoga dana, nekoliko nas koji to možemo da vidimo, okruženi smo ljudima poput onih 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)
Neki od vas u ovoj sobi, neverovatni ljudi, nude nam svima ogledalo da prepoznamo svoju humanost. Želim da završim sa pesmom američke pesnikinje, Lusile Klifton. Pesma se zove "Libation" (žrtva livenica) i to je za mog prijatelja Vusija koji se nalazi negde u publici. "Libation", Severna Karolina, 1999. "Nudim ovoj zemlji, ovaj džin. Zamišljam starca kako ovde plače, izvan pogleda čuvara. Gura svoj jezik kroz rupu gde bi zub njegov trebalo biti, da je on ceo. Boli, tamo gde bi zub trebalo biti, gde bi njegova zemlja bila, njegova kuća, žena, sin, prelepa kći. On briše tugu sa svog lica, stavlja svoj žedni prst na svoj žedni jezik, i oseća so. Zovem ime koje bi moglo biti njegovo, ovo je za tebe, stari čoveče. Ovaj džin, ova slana zemlja." Hvala vam. (aplauz)