A sense of belonging

N.B. This piece has been taken from my reflective writing journal and should be understood as tentative and incomplete :)

After our group session this morning [actually on October 28th], which surfaced many questions for me, I had a good long (much appreciated and really valuable) chat with one of my co-learners... It's hard to relate it all without the background so I won't try to get into the detail of it all... But the conversation also made it clear that I need to be more aware of and explicit about certain aspects of my own behaviour, thinking and worldview. It also generated a lot of conundrums for me. This is my attempt to make sense of it all!

Two main ones that stand out and perhaps permeated our whole conversation were (a) my desire to change people or want people to be a certain way or do a certain thing; and (b) my use of the word 'we' which taps into the bigger question of whether this is ok or not, why I do it and, ultimately, my sense of belonging in the world. I decided to ponder these ideas as I went out into the pastures and the forest of Stanmer Park. The walk led me up a hill, in the sunshine, to a little bench carved out of a tree trunk where I sat cross legged for some 15 minutes in contemplation. It then took me back through a little stretch of forest to my class, where I am sitting now.

I will start with a question around my sense of belonging. I came into this world as the product of two people from different cultures; a Jewish (culturally but not religiously) Tunisian mother who emigrated to France at the age of 18 to pursue her higher education in Paris, and an English father (from a down-to-earth middle class family) who had travelled to India by train in his early 20s. The two of them met while travelling in Greece. Various happenings led to my mother moving to England where my father was pursuing his Masters at the time and after some time they were married and my older brother was on the way. I came five and a half years later (during which time my parents and brother had visited India and lived in Hong Kong.

I was born in England in the Norfolk and Norwich hospital. Before turning one, I was in Qatar and Bahrein. My mothers parents and siblings had all moved to Paris and we would visit them once in a while. I was back in England until I was 4 when my family first moved to Hong Kong - where I stayed until I turned 8. During that time I visited Bali, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore - often more than once. I was studying in the English stream of the French International School.

By the time I was 8 and heading back to England, I had almost no recollection of what the place was or who my friends had been. My brother seemed shocked that I couldn't remember my childhood friends. Indeed, the whole house (where I had spent my first months and most of my first 4 years) seemed like a complete blur. It soon became normal. I completed primary school and then had my first two years of high school in England... By the time I was a teenager, I was headed back for Hong Kong where I spent the next 5 years. Again, plenty of travelling around South East Asia, this time adding Vietnam, Phillipines and China (proper) to the list. I remember during this time often being the one who was friends with everyone - including people who were not friends with each other... it was a fine line between belonging and not belonging. And I got that everywhere.

When I turned 18, I was headed for England for my undergraduate degree. I had chosen Environmental Policy with Economics at the LSE because it seemed to be the course that combined everything I was interested in. I already knew that I wanted to make positive change in the world. After the initial months in halls of residence I joined a group of friends that I clicked with. Only one of them was fully English. The rest? Turkish, Iranian, Singaporean-German, Korean-Irish, Indian, Mexican-Israeli, Luxembourg... And so it goes on... While there was a strong affinity on many levels, we were, I think, ideologically quite different. Nonetheless most of my undergraduate years were spent feeling that these people were as close to a family as I could have without actually being with my biological family.

When I finished my studies we all went to India together. I knew that I wanted to work for an NGO, to experience this 'development' thing first hand (as my course had seriously problematised it for me!). So we all went off together, they left one by one and I stayed for 5 years (that's how one of my friend's described their take on it). During that time I became part of the organisation where I was working, I lived-worked in a small town for one and a half years, dissolved whatever barriers existed between my life and my work, became almost fluent in Hindi... and here I am today.

Now. To what do I belong? How am I supposed to have a legitimate sense of belonging in the world? What am I a part of? Deep inside me, the overarching identity identity that really resonates with me is that of being part of the 'world family'; of being human. I am not English, or Tunisian; I am not a Hong-Konger; I am also not Indian, though there are many elements of all of these cultures and I do identify with each. Regardless of where you are from I look at you as a something much like a sibling; usually as a sister or a brother. When I speak of 'we' I speak as a self-proclaimed member of such a family attempting to establish such a relationship with those around me. I suppose it is a bit like a member of a regular family saying to another 'shall we go to the seaside?' or 'what have we done?' or 'we really know how to have a good time' or 'we've been through a tough time, lets put our heads and hearts together and try and sort this out'.

Now. My own family may ask me what right I have to use 'we' for extending my sense of what's going on, for making judgements about the situation or for making appeals. We are all individuals! Don't try to make a 'we' out of us as if we weren't unique individuals! Point taken. But how long would a family with no sense of 'we' actually hold out? Isn't this collective identity part of what gives us strength, what keeps us together and fills our lives with joy and meaning? Perhaps this is only my belief. My way of looking at it. At this point, I feel the need of putting in a disclaimer: I'm not saying I don't get joy from my own individuality, because I do. But my sense of belonging is important. Though I can't source the quote, someone said: "I am because we are". That's my point.

So I extend this 'we' to what I consider to be my extended family. People I have never met before. A bunch of 'total strangers'. Strangers? OK, I suppose that's a relative term, there are degrees of strangeness. But we all share the same home! We, effectively, eat from the same pot and drink the same water. We depend on the same biological or ecological life-support system (our environment). If some of us damage it for our own benefit at the expense of others, reality will pay us back - through terrorist attacks, through financial turmoil, through food crises, through water shortages and floods and countless other factors. We (oops, see how I have slipped into this 'we' thing?) are all in this together. Aren't we?

Now I recognise that not everyone might feel that they are part of the 'we' that I write about (it seems like a bit of a generalisation and could appear to lack respect for 'our' diversity). Does that mean that there is something not quite right about my usage of the word 'we'? Should I not be using 'we'? Perhaps I do not yet have an answer and this is something for me to contemplate. But do I plan to stop using it? Not yet. I do, however, feel that I can find ways of tempering my usage of 'we'. For example, I can weave in a little bit of 'I' to demonstrate that I see myself as an equally questionable part of 'we' not something above or separate from 'we'. I can also add a bit of 'you' to acknowledge the uniqueness of the reader. To invite them not only to engage with the ideas I put forth but also to challenge them.

The next question is about changing people - my desire to change people - what is it and is it ok? This is one of those awkward questions that tries to hide away most of the time because it's not an easy one to answer. Building upon some of the views that I have shared earlier about 'we', I do find myself feeling that a lot of change is needed in the world.

As a person studying development - whether I am for it or against it (whatever that means) - I clearly have some sense of what I value, what seems important to me and how I would like the world to be. Rather than seeing the world as immutable with myself merely as an entity that must adapt to it in order to attain some kind of ability to continue existing, I see the world as something subject to human influence, something we can act upon in ways that can be positive or negative from various stand-points. I, therefore, see that we all have a potential responsibility for influencing the world in ways that are positive - not just for ourselves, but for the 'we'. If I see people doing things that I see as being negative, then I will feel a sense of discomfort. A tension will emerge and I will want to see how such a situation can be transformed into something positive. For example, if I see someone beating another, I would want to step in. I would probably want to assess the situation first, however: after all it could be self-defence! So context does matter to me. Now, imagine I see people as being tangled up in a vicious cycle of conflict. I see suffering emerge as a result. I would like to find a way of addressing the issue. So I would come up with some kind of a strategy for engaging. I would want to talk to people about what was going on. About why there was a conflict. About how they felt about it. And if they both said there was no other option... would I simply walk away? Even if I knew that innocent children were dying? Even if I knew that the conflict was being fuelled by some external factor - for example, some unconnected geo-political concern?

Yes! I want to change people! I don't want to tell them what to do though! I want to invite them to inquire deeply, openly, honestly into themselves, into each other, into the systems of which they are a part; to gain and create knowledge about their realities that matter to them and that they can apply in order to live lives that are closer to what they want. But to engage in ernest, both individually and jointly, in a process of reflection and to act upon what emerges... this change I would love to bring! Does it make sense? I would like to help people who are locked in or trapped, in pain and discomfort, to break free from the shackles that oppress them, whether imposed by self, other or both.

And, of course, I know that I have much to learn. That I am probably still very naieve. That things are not so simple. That I will make many mistakes in my efforts to do this. That I will make judgements at times which later I see as wrong - or perhaps even regret. That I will have to change myself a great deal in order to be successful in fulfilling my aspirations. That it may not be possible. That I may be confused, or lost, or just plain wrong. But, and bearing all this in mind, I really believe right now, that this is OK. So long as I strive to be honest about it; so long as I continue to challenge my own ideas; so long as I invite others to challenge me and my views; and so long as I am respectful of the perspectives, experiences and opinions of those I interact with. So please help me to be helpful!