A well crafted documentary as Qatar’s Al Jazeera always creates. Survivors of that tragedy are even today shattered by their experiences. Many have committed suicides or are unable to work or function normally. Even those involved who are non-indigenous were and are traumatized.
A similar situation happened amidst the poverty of Goa during the early and middle decades of the last century except that it was seemingly voluntary. Many families of even the upper class were poor and had a hard time feeding their 10 to 12 children. It became a norm to send one or two of them to the lifetime service of the church not only because there would be less mouths to feed but also because once they became priests they would support the rest of the family in whichever way they could. They would leave the house to go to the minor seminary when they would be no more than 10 years old. You can imagine the emotional hurt to these young people who had no say in the matter. They would endure the hardship of the institution and in the words of one of them, they would run to the gates when it was time for their mother to come once a month with washed clothes and some home food treats. This may be nothing compared to what the indigenous children had to go through when they were snatched from the Indian reserves which were their homes, but there it was for us to dwell upon. In today’s world in a somewhat different way, these events still play out when war shatters the lives of people in places like Libya, Iraq and Syria, Palestine and parts of Africa. Children may be famously said to be resilient but imagine you’re a five year old with your parents killed in a bombing or shelling night and you plucked out and taken to refugee camps to be one day transplanted into a strange home in an alien city. Blessings, prayers, reparations apologies, truth and reconciliation be damned. Let’s just learn to live well together. That’s all it takes. https://youtu.be/peLd_jtMdrc Roland. Toronto.
