House of Dreams

Living in the northern hemisphere and even though I curate my incoming news as much as possible, we are drowning in the terrible anguish of those citizens and refugees seeking help from Western nations to lift them out of Kabul. 

The news cycle is bleak, how great the task of rescuing the fleeing Afghans whose future under the Taliban is horrific to consider. I have read so many analytical pieces of reporting on the history of the last 20 years, and then the decades before that, creating the fabric of this tribal nation. It feels complex and the struggle of the Afghan nationals incomparable to anything we have witnessed in our safe and settled Western countries. 

As I witness the desperation of those wanting to escape, and finding solace in the bleakest refugee camps across the world,  I feel deeply ashamed of those Australians who are complaining about their food and accommodation in the quarantine hotels in Brisbane and Sydney. It has humbled my experience here in Europe as we wait for our flight home and knowing we will too soon be in quarantine. We cannot live through the devastating experience of Afghanistan's last days of western occupation, and be blind to the suffering of others.  We are too privileged, too comfortable in all that we consume, and all that we desire. When we see what is unfolding in other countries where suffering and eking out an existence seems a birthright, I cannot  be unmoved and impacted by the scale of what we have, compared to other countries. What actions can we offer to become part of the solution?