Our Voices

‘We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.’

-Malala Yousafzai

What difference can one person [or one voice] make? That is a question I hear repeated over and over. We feel so helpless, so powerless in the face of whatever tragedy has befallen, whatever need there is. I know. I’ve been there nightly watching the human suffering on the TV news as I’ve seen the women and children huddling in the rubble hoping to escape from the next blast, the appalling conditions on our own reservations where again the children are doing without the necessities of life. ‘How can this be?”, I ask myself and feel even more hopeless.

With all the focus on the Syrian refugee crisis in the news recently, my mind has gone back some 37 years to 1978 when I was part of a group that sponsored a boat family. In fact over the next 6 or 7 years that same group sponsored 27 people, at four different times, coming from Vietnam and South America. I clearly recall at that time, people saying to me, “What difference do you think you can possibly make by bringing over one family?” [I’m also sure that the question was rhetorical back then, although now I would have an answer for them!]

Now, all these years later, I have an answer for the critic, for the nay-sayers. What difference has what that group did all those years ago made? It has added, not just 27 people contributing to the economy but that number has grown exponentially as their extended families have joined them and their own families have grown. That original group of 27 now includes university graduates, teachers, a policeman, bus drivers, an IT specialist and the list goes on. All are contributing members of this society.

If our voice had been silenced all those years ago by the government of that time under Prime minister Joe Clarke, our country would be much poorer today. That is what happened when the Jewish refugees were turned away from our shores during World War 2, and sent back to meet their fate in Europe. We never had the opportunity to add their gifts to this society. Our voices have been silent long enough over the Syrian refugees. Let’s not let it happen any longer. Our voices, all our voices, do matter. Let our politicians know that we want our voices to be heard, and to be heard clearly.

Malala had the courage to let her voice be heard. We can too!

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