Dr. Robert Canfield

Professor of Anthropology

Washington University in St. Louis

The Power of the Moral Imagination

Every once in a while great cultural moment happens. Iconic displays of the human imagination seem always to be unpredictable. But when they happen they reveal something about ourselves to ourselves. The Elian Gonzales affair was such a moment. Simply by arriving on the shores of Florida, alone, his mother and others lost at sea as they desperately fled Cuba in a fragile sea craft, Elian provided nothing more than his own presence into which people from many persuasions could invest their opinions about the Cuban question. A child who had essentially nothing to do with it other than his own person, became the focus of an intense public furor. [See Marshall Sahlins, Apologies to Thucydides]

Such a moment has just happened again, only this time it is a little different. A few days ago a 47 year old woman appeared on a talent show in Britain. Someone described her as fumpy. She wore her best dress, something worn earlier to a nephew’s wedding. She had fixed her hair herself. And she came on stage to sing. The hosts and the audience were kind enough, but pervading the whole scenario was a palpable doubt, even condescension, about this woman. She was a pathetic figure, vulnerable. This was an aggressive audience, expressive; they were ready to drive a performer off the stage. The hosts, the talent judges, were clearly dubious. One of the judges asked this woman her name and where she was from. She was Susan Boyle from a small town — well, a collection of villages, she said. Then he asked what her ambition was. She wanted to be singer. Who would she like to be like?, he asked. Like Elaine Paige. It was easy to regard this woman as tragically unaware of her own limitations, with aspirations that surpassed her ability. And she was now on stage, on TV. Before a huge audience. Here was a disaster in the making. This would be difficult to watch.

She chose to sing Fantine’s song, “I dreamed a dream” from Les Miserables, when Fantine was left alone, unemployed and destitute.

Her first note changed everything. The audience was electrified. As she sang they began to cheer. One of the judges, a gorgeous blond, folded her hands and held them up to her face, as if hoping desperately, praying, for this woman not to stumble. Everyone seemed to be rooting for her. Some people wept. This is what she sang:

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

When she was finished the judges were ecstatic. One of them said that at first everyone had been laughing at her but no one was laughing now. The babe said it was a wonderful moment for her because she knew that everyone there had been against Susan. Susan Boyle was showered with praise.

That was on April 11. On April 15, 2009, when you google “Susan Boyle singer” it gives you 132,000 sites. The clip of her performance, seven minutes, has been watched over 3 ½ million times.

Here is an event that so embodied something profoundly, even personally, gripping for thousands of people that the seven minute clip on UTube is being watched over and over again, by the same people. Susan Boyle’s moment on stage objectifies something buried in the psyche, something in the human moral imagination. The discussion of how and what that could be will be going on for weeks.

Here is one instance:
On popwatch [http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/04/susan-boyle-why.html] Lisa Schwarzbaum writes that she is still crying. She plays the YouTube clip over and over again. And she asks herself what every anthropologist should ask: why are you listening again and again? And why are you crying? She proposes an answer, at least for herself: “In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging — the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts — the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective . . .”

Buried within the human psyche are feelings, yearnings, anxieties too deep for words, usually. Only sometimes do we see it in ourselves. Always it is something outside ourselves that touches us, somehow, where we feel most deeply. At such moments we remember that we are humans — not mere living creatures, but human beings, profoundly and deeply shaped by a moral sensibility so powerful that it breaks through our inhibitions; it can burst out, explode into public view, to our own astonishment. And sometimes that objective form — a person, an event, an object, a song — embodies deeply felt sensibilities for a lot of us at once, so that we discover how much we share in our private worlds, worlds otherwise inaccessible to anyone one else. It becomes a social event, so we can all rejoice, and weep, together.

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Speech – Dreeni Geer BA, LLB

October 25, 2008

UG Guild of Graduates

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. First of all thank you to our hosts this evening, the university of Guyana guild of graduates. I’m pleased to be here tonight and very honored to have been asked to speak.

Thank you for your warm welcome and gracious introduction. I have been introduced this evening as an international Advocate for human rights. And what does this title actually mean? It means quite simply that I’m a professional story teller. I tell a story to decision makers, in order to get them to do something. I tell a true account about real people, to compel those in power, to use their power, to help. For example, I am currently working on an advocacy campaign on the girl child. I am telling governments around the world the unknown or forgotten story of girls, so that they will do something through their laws and policies to stop gender and age based discrimination.

Tonight I’ve also been introduced as the daughter of Dudnath Hetram, Guyanese educator and first native dean of Queen’s College. His story is one that is well known especially to his descendants when we weren’t doing well in school! My grandfather is definitely a hero and I was proud when in Guyana to be introduced as Dudenath Hetram’s Datah’s datah. But there are other heroes in my family whose stories are unknown. My grandmother Lucy Hetram, who passed away last month, just before her 92nd birthday, was the creator, nurturer and teacher of 5 children, 11grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

I am also the granddaughter of Sugrim and Suquari Geer, community leaders in Providence and Lombard Street shop owners. Their story is also unknown. My grandmother Suquari was behind the scenes raising 5 children while my grandfather Sugrim became known as a community leader. He led a committee in Providence to start a Hindi school. He got a piece of land from the estate and every Friday would show up at the plantation pay office to beg money from the sugar workers to buy lumber to build that school. So actually between Dudnath and Lucy Hetram, and Sugrim and Suquari Geer, I am the grand-daughter of 4 educators.

Tonight I raise these stories to you all, to make a larger point about who we are, where we come from, and how these elements should affect how we live our lives, something which I’ve come to reflect upon through my professional activities. So let me return to advocacy and my professional work. Advocacy can be effective in many ways. For instance, repeating your message over and over with a loud voice shouting into deaf ears. For example the US Presidential elections. “Yes we can. Yes we can.” Barak Obama is telling his story over and over to decision makers, the American public, so that they will use their voting power to elect him.

Advocacy can also be effective by quietly whispering into big ears. For example it was Dr. Ashok Khosla, a University professor, who put the environmental winds in Al Gore’s sales who then went on to champion the environmental movement and receive the Nobel prize. Whether shouted or whispered, the common medium and most important element of advocacy is, as I’ve said already, the story. And in a world where we are constantly bombarded with information, that story has to be well crafted to capture the attention of decision makers.

In the field of human rights this is also true. Human rights violations have been occurring throughout the history of humanity. We have created laws in countries to protect human rights, here in Canada we have the provincial and federal human rights codes and the Charter of rights and freedoms enshrined in our constitution. Globally we have international laws such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Conventions on the rights of the child, and the Convention on the elimination of discrimination against women. However, their existence has not stopped human rights violations. Whether it is discrimination in the work place, racism or acts of genocide, human rights offences continue.

I recently visited the post-genocide country Rwanda, which is located in Central Africa. Rwanda is a beautiful lush country with green rolling hills, it reminded me of Hosororo in region 1 in Guyana. Rwandan people were incredibly, hospitable, open-hearted and generous, when I expected that people coming out of a terrible war would be guarded and calloused. I visited the genocide memorial in the capital city of Kigali. It was a heartbreaking experience, but a tremendous learning opportunity for me, particularly in the story of the 1994 Genocide. In Canada, we all heard about General Romeo Dallaire, now Senator, helplessly asking for 5,000 UN troops to stop a genocide that he saw occurring.

What I learned at the memorial was that Kofi Anan, who at that time was special representative to the UN for Rwanda, agreed to send 5,000 troops, however not to stop the genocide, but to get the ex-patriots out. Get the westerners out, and leave over one million Rwandans to die. So for some reason, Senator Dallaire’s story was not convincing enough to compel Kofi Annan to use his power to do something. And in fact, Kofi Annan’s mistake was not compelling enough to prevent his promotion to Secretary General of the United Nations.

Anyway, there I was in Kigali, standing on the mass gravesite of 50,000 Rwandans, watching many foreigners walk through the memorial. Mostly Belgians who have come to work in Rwanda. I am reading the blurbs on the wall, about the history of Rwanda, how prior to colonization it had a long history of peace and co-existence between its diverse tribes. I am reading how the Belgians and the French divided up the people, how they created Hutu and Tutsi tribes, turned them against one another, and then made lots ofmoney selling the weapons that were the tools of the genocide.

In the memorial, I turned to my Rwandan colleague Eugene and said to him, “how can these French and Belgians stand to be here, knowing what their countries have done to Rwanda.??” And it was at that moment in time, I gained a new sense of pride. In the next breath, I said to Eugene, even though I am a citizen of Canada, it brings me great relief to know that I do not bear the weight of the colonial sins of Canadian forefathers. I was proud then and am proud now to say that I am of third world roots. That like Rwandans we Guyanese, were the victims of colonization and exploitation. And my colleague Eugene turned to me and said, “yes you are different than most Canadians.” So let me continue to introduce myself to you, let me keep unwrapping this parcel named Dreeni Geer to discuss identity and situation. Not only am I an international human rights advocate, and the grand-daughter of 4 educators, but I am also a Guyanese born, Canadian citizen of Indian origin. I am also a woman, a lone parent, a racialized minority and immigrant in a white country. These are all aspects of my identity. These are the truths of my life that I take everywhere I go and affect everything I do; sometimes by choice and sometimes because of discrimination. As an immigrant child, I straddle 2 cultures and live with a complex national identity. And although for the years of my youth this had been the basis of dissatisfaction, it is now a true feather in my cap, for in the work I do, I am able to successfully straddle two very separate realities, life in the Global north i.e Canada the West, the rich folks and the developing world, or the Global South, the poorer world majority.

Now, as an International Human Rights advocate, I understand both the privileges and burdens of my identity. I have the privilege of having attended university, receiving my law degree, being a native English speaker, who is accent-free (or in other words Canadian accented). This side of me, gives me entry into the world of decision makers. It gives me the ability to tell stories that the Cdn officials can understand and relate to. And it was with these accolades of privilege fresh in my head that I travelled to Guyana. I had been hired by the Canadian Lawyers Association for International Human Rights to do a comparative study on Guyanese, British and Canadian sexual assault laws. It was my first time being in Guyana since immigration when I was 2 and a half years old. I was excited to be returning to my homeland. I had visions of the sea wall, Kaieteur falls, Stabroek market and other places that had been spoken of by my family. When I arrived there, I was quickly told by a young Rastafarian in the middle of Regent Street (and please excuse my terrible creolese) dis gyurl, she born here, she raise abroad and she come back. No Guyanese there saw me as a local daughter, my Canadianness eclipsed my identity. Meanwhile the Canadians who had accompanied me had a quite different reaction to me. They could not understand creolese. I could. They did not how to eat the food, I did. And they couldn’t dance to the music. I could. They suddenly started speaking loudly and slowly to me, as well as ordering me around. I was no longer one of them, no longer a Canadian, I was another, I was a member of the underprivileged. So for that moment in time, in my non-Canadian-ness and my non-Guyaneseness, I became nationless.

One might think that being nationless, could be a moment of freedom, to identify with the whole, and not the parts. This is the philosophy that they are employing in Rwanda to promote and maintain peace. It is forbidden to speak of tribes, to identify as Hutu or Tutsi.

To forgive and move on, they must think of themselves as one people. But in that moment in Guyana, beyond nationality, globalized. At that moment I learned that stripped of nationhood, I belonged to nobody. It did not feel empowering, it felt isolating. I didn’t feel universal, I felt small and insignificant. Nevertheless I took that experience to heart, and decided that my career path had been validated. I was to serve all people, not any country, nor any government. I was to tell the stories of the disenfranchised from an outsider’s point of view.

My work has taken me to Thailand, the Philippines, the UK, Nepal, Pakistan and more. I have lived in small villages and large cities around the world. And from my outsider lens, I have seen stories that compel me again and again to do something. I have worked on behalf of many marginalized groups advocating for change to protect and promote their human rights. It is profound work, however not without its frustrations. As I mentioned before, despite the numerous stories of the hardships in the global south there seems to be widespread apathy. We are drowned in a storm of stories about those less fortunate. Is this the cause for the apathy?

I was considering this question, one day while coming home on the subway. It was rush hour and I was at St. Patrick station. We were packed on the platform like sardines. The subway arrived, the doors opened, and no one came out. But people went in. At first it was orderly, people filed in one by one, but then time began to run out, the first chime of the train signaled the door was closing, people began to push their way in. The doors began to close and then people completely forgot about order and began pushing any body part that could fit, into that door, to force it open, and force themselves onto that train. Was I any different than these Toronto commuters? I had let the first packed train go by, with some resentment, but then when the 2nd train flew by without even stopping, I started to get annoyed. It was 5 o’clock, I had to pick up my daughter from daycare. The 3rd train came, and I didn’t care who was in my way. I had to get on that train. I pushed by a group of young boys, “they didn’t have any children I should get on first”. I pushed past the well to do couple, “they had each other, I am a single parent”. And slowly I rationalized my way onto a spot on that train.

That’s when I realized the problem, the problem that was affecting my advocacy work and that was affecting me as a non-national. We live in big cities that are difficult, they are packed, they are polluted, they are expensive and they are isolating. We hustle in our very independent, self-reliant, lives to get through all the things we have to do in a day. Life is difficult, to get our children clothed fed and transported to school is difficult, to care for our parents or our grandparents, with whatever time we have left, is difficult. We often don’t have any time for ourselves, much less our neighbours and definitely no compassion for the hundreds of people that are clawing for that rush hour subway. We are tired, and although intellectually we know that we have more of everything here in the Global north, we are disconnected and suffering from compassion fatigue. So in this globalized world, we somehow feel connected to celebrities, but no connection to our neighbours. We may know the story of Dudnath Hetram, and Queen’s College, but not know about Sugrim Geer, and a small Hindi school in providence. I once asked my Grandmother Lucy Hetram, why she wanted to go back home to Guyana. She knew the reason, she was not cluttered in cross-cultural angst. She told me, and this is a direct quote, Life was different back home. Not like here. Here you have your house and your little backyard, which you can’t use to plant much, because of the snow. You know your neighbours to maybe say hi, hello but no more. Back home is different. In Guyana whenland was not so expensive. I would buy half the street and you would buy the other half.

You have the cutlass and I have the pitchfork. You cut and I’ll dig. And then all you have to do is decide do you want coconut or mango. And then she smiled. And I got it, I understood. People need each other in small rural places. It was ok to need each other. In our world that is divided into rich and poor, the rich have the web, cell phones, blackberries, TV for company and pizza delivery. We don’t need anybody over here. We can get through our days in complete self reliance. I read somewhere that humans have the capacity to feel compassion for 100 people. That’s about the size of a large family and a few streets of neighbours. But in our lives in the Global North where we see 1000’s of faces everyday we have no reservoir of compassion for those in the Global South.

So in the end is it hopeless? Do the holders of the world’s riches ever release their purse strings and share? Can we only emotionally connect with icons and not neighbours? Will my daughter or her daughter cease to straddle 2 cultures, and have less empathy and understanding than me, as I have less than my grandparents?

I don’t know. Really I don’t know the answer. But I do know that gatherings of this sort, remind us not that we belong to an institution, but that we belong to each other. And although we have migrated to Canada, the identity that flowed from affiliation with the University of Guyana, makes us remember a compelling story from our own history. I know that I will keep trying, keep telling stories, whispering and shouting into ears of all sizes, hoping for change. Hoping to make human rights advocates out of everyone I come across. I hope that I have done that for even one of you this evening.

Thank you.