Where have all the brave people gone?

The goal of eradicating extreme poverty is within the means of this generation. Never before has it been more important that we make courageous decisions, driven by compassion and love.

What depresses me is how desperately conservative, cautious and risk-averse so many of our choices are.

I may still be in culture shock. Earlier this year, we were living and working on Thai/Burma border. We travelled inside Burma to visit internally displaced Karen and Shan communities. These people have been forced from their homes by the Burma Army. These are surviving in the jungle – refusing to leave their homeland or come under the control of their enemies.

In Burma, I learnt the meaning of courage and of resilience.

I will never forget a man I met in Shan State in Burma, called Waling. He had and epic story of survival. He told me that a few years before the military junta had attacked his village in Northern Shan State. Of the 70 families in his village, only 4 made it to safety; he didn’t know what happened to the rest.

What was shocking was that when I asked him if he’d lost any members of his family in the attack, he said that his elderly parents had been too slow and that they had been burnt alive in their home.

The Burma Army had taken everything from him bar his dignity and yet he could look me in the eye, without a trace of self pity. That is courage.

The Burma Army has destroyed 1800 villages like Walings’ – displacing a million people. There is plenty for the people to complain about – plenty of excuses to give up. Yet they fight on. The men and women I was with never complained. Furthermore, they maintained their sense of humour. That is resilience.

So, I am frustrated returning to the UK. There is no correlation between our security, wealth and opportunities and the levels of fear and worry that seem so evident. We are so often protective, so insular, so suspicious. This is scandalous given all that we have. Why? Because in our forensic interest in our own lives, we forget that places like Burma exist and we can legitimise our indifference to the suffering of men like Waling.

In five weeks time, I will become a father. If I don’t bequeath anything else to my child, I hope to inspire him or her to live bravely.