higher english

What is your intro?

'Spiritual Damage ' by Fergal Keane is a reflective essay which explores the impact on Keane of witnessing the Rwandan genocide. This non fiction prose presents a powerful examination of the crushing, emotional and traumatic effects of his experiences, as well as an attempt to film a documentary with his crew in Rwanda. The essay also has a purpose to convince us that atrocities such as the one witnessed in the central african country should not be deemed as unimportant due to their geographical isolation from our day to day lives. Jeane is also critical of the internation response to the genocide.

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Keane structures his reflective essay in a slightly unusual way. He creates a contrast between his feelings before getting to Rwanda and the horrors and guilt depicted when he gets to Rwanda. He starts the essay by giving positive descriptions of the luxuries that would make you think that he was on holiday. "We were sitting in an air conditioned room in Nairobi, sipping cold drinks and waiting for our first hot food in what seemed like an age." This is effective as it creates a stark contrast with the settings he later reflects on, particularly his 'nerve-wracking' journey to Nairobi and the descriptions of the roadblocks and the victims of the genocide. These descriptions serve to shock the readers as they move on to read of the genocides impact. He illustrates just how nerve wracking the experience of the last bit of their journey was by referencing the long, never ending journey through the roadblocks. "Through roadblock after roadblocks after roadblock manned by drunken Hutu militiamen, Riza had pleaded our case." The repetition of 'roadblock' suggests that his experience seemed to go on and on. Keane describes those manning the roadblocks as 'drunken Hutu militiamen' which emphasises a sense of danger is demonstrated as the men are clearly volatile, unpredictable and violent. We begin to worry about the group and their safety. The word choice of "pleaded" has connotations of begging, making it clear that Keane and his crew were at the mercy of the militiamen.

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We see Keane's clear view towards the militiamen "Machete-wielding thugs" The word choice suggests they are out of control and are out to cause trouble. He uses emotive language like "thugs" which suggests they are involved in criminal activities which makes Keane's negative viewpoint of them very clear. "Most of these people had been involved in the murder of their tutsi neighbours. Tutsi men, women and children had died at roadblocks like this. Now and again the smell of the dead would drift out across the warm air of the afternoon." These sentences are designed to shock the reader with the listing sentence emphasising the fact that these militiamen had been indiscriminate in their actions towards the Tutsis. The reference to the smell is important as it shows that Keanes memories of these events are, in many ways, sensory rather than intellectual, suggesting that while they are far too horrific to be understood, they are also too traumatising to be forgotten. The smell of the dead would be quite pungent and it shows us that even though he can't see the dead he still gets reminded by the smell. The fact that he can recall it shows how strongly impacted he is by this. An idea of how smell can trigger many memories is created here. This particular reference really drew me in because it made me imagine what it must have been like to be chased by the smell of the dead.

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Keane writes about the dismissal of the genocide in Rwanda. "We compress the horror into minutes of the television film or assemble it between the covers of a book." Keane uses imagery to show how reductive and simplistic the media make such a devastating tragedy. People have lost their lives yet they "compress the horror" for the convenience of the audiences at home and to spare them the gory details. The image of the horror being compressed suggests the real essence and tragedy is not being reported or researched properly showing a real lack of empathy. It suggests a lack of care and that it has been done quickly. This suggests the victims are being shown little empathy or support, their devastating story is summarised in a quick news bulletin which is disrespectful and insensitive."We must not report countries like Rwanda as if they were demented theme parks, peopled by savages doomed to slaughter each other in perpetuity." The image of demented theme parks creates an image of a place where no one listens to rules. The image challenges those who dismiss events such as the genocide as being 'just the way things are' in Africa. Theme parks, places where the 'real' world is suspended and different rules apply, are an entirely appropriate comparison for what happened in Rwanda. Most of the world was detached and too far removed from the situation to really comprehend or even care about what was happening. This is something that still happens when stories of crisis and war in other countries are reported. The victims are seen as "other" and we ignore it. The word savages suggest that the world sees African people as less evolved and uncivil. It proposes that they cannot be controlled and that they are subhuman so we shouldn't care what happens in these faraway places. Keane doesn't think that this should be the case he wants the events that took place in the genocide to be remembered.

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Keane dives into his harrowing experience of the Rwandan genocide, we see that he still thinks about the genocide and the readers are left feeling bad for Keane as we can see how badly he was affected. "What has not gone, what may never go, is a deep feeling of sorrow or all the poor ruined humanity I encountered in those months of spring last year." Keane uses parenthesis to highlight his belief that has been fundamentally changed by his experiences, and that the emotional impact of what he witnessed is likely to remain with him for the rest of his life. The repeated negatives 'not...never' emphasise the permanence of his trauma. The metaphor 'poor ruined humanity' conjures images of destruction too which contrasts with the season of spring which normally represents new beginnings, life and growth. Keane is ultimately reflecting on the permanent sense of pity he carries with him. "To this day I am at loss to describe what it was really like. That smell. On your clothes, on your skin." Keane once again highlights is ability to adequately express the reality of what he saw, drawing our attention instead to his strong sensory memory of the experience. Just like in the first paragraph this reference to 'smell' demonstrates that the events witnessed by Keane were too awful to be understood, but too shocking to be forgotten. Anaphora is used to suggest the idea of the smell being everywhere and inescapable, even more than year after the experience itself. "I can remember attending a mass funeral where the families of the dead were almost knocked over by jostling cameramen and photographers. One part of me was sickened by the spectacle, the other busy ensuring that my own cameramen were able to keep standing and focus on the grieving relatives." Here Keane reveals the disgusting and very disrespectful way the media behave at a funeral for the victims. He uses words like "jostling" to show how invasive and almost violent the media are which is shocking and disturbing for the readers. He shows his disapproval through the use of the word "sickened". Keane is repulsed by the actions of these people. Yet ironically, he admits that he too was more concerned about getting a good shot than the grieving family. This tells us that the media are extremely selfish and do not care who they upset or insult. Their main priority is to be the media outlet with the best shot. Keane is disgusted with the whole industry including himself. This is particularly moving as he is being so honest about himself and his actions.

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Finally, Keane writes about the international response to the genocide. He explains how more could've been done to help. "...the catastrophe in the camps was the direct consequences of one of the worst acts of genocide since the Holocaust. It was as if the memory of mass slaughter was being buried under a fresh mound of dead bodies." Here Keane combines a reference to the Holocaust with a particularly shocking image; the suggestion being that the world forgot about the previous massacre once its attention was focused on a 'fresh mound of dead bodies'. The definitive image of the Holocaust itself is a 'mound of bodies' and to reuse this iconic image is to turn it into the definitive symbol of the sort of suffering witnessed by Keane and his team. Here Keane's viewpoint that money motivates international actions is conveyed clearly. "The Americans, who had bickered over the funding of armoured vehicles which might have been used to protect the beleaguered Tutsi population, now rushed to organise air drops." He contrasts the American's motives here by explaining they 'bickered' over financial implications which could have helped protect people. It has connotations of childlike fighting too which suggests he feels America did not take the Rwandan genocide seriously. This is contrasted with how they 'now rushed' to organise aid as a result of the cholera outbreak. It is cleat by reading between the lines that Keane believes this type of aid may not have been needed had the root cause (the genocide) had been given the support to end the suffering and protect victims."...if we ignore evil we become the authors of a guilty silence." Keane concludes his essay with this powerful and memorable statement , echoing a number of famous phrases which relate to the triumph of evil through the inaction of good people. Keane's determination that we must 'care about what happens in remote African countries' is rooted in the belief that by failing to act to prevent evil we become complicit in it. This is an extremely provocative and uncomfortable conclusion to the whole text.

conculsion

In conclusion, 'Spiritual damage' by Fergal Keane is a very powerful reflective essay. Keane tells us about how terrible the Rwandan genocide really was and how much it changed him. I found this text really upsetting at times but also quite inspirational. At first i didn't know much about the Rwandan genocide but now i know a great deal and have my own views which largely agree with Keane's.