By Kwang Yi Jing
The Symposium brought together amazing speakers with amazing stories. When I was traveling back from school a while ago, I read a BBC article written by a survivor of human trafficking who had gone on to create an organization to combat the illegal movement of sex workers worldwide. Four months later, she was standing on the stage in person, inspiring 700 other students with her astounding courage and self-sacrifice. Ms. Shandra Woworonku is not so different from you and I, and what happened to her was beyond her control. I recommend everyone to read her story on BBC when you have the chance. This is not to discount the impact that the other speakers made. Each of their stories has an incredible emotional gravitas that only a firsthand perspective can provide.
From the beginning, it was clear what the Symposium set out to do. It sought to inspire its participants to address humanitarian issues across the globe. The Symposium wasn’t intended to give us the solutions – it was to give us the impetus to come up with solutions of our own by re-emphasizing the problems that we already know exist. By showing us multiple angles and unique perspectives of human suffering, it was hoped that we would be inspired to transform the communities we belong to (hence the tagline of this Symposium). I’m not sure whether it succeeded. That’s something that can only be judged twenty years down the road.
However, there are some other takeaways from the Symposium. One thing that struck me about the speakers was that they never preached. Instead, they exposed you to the problem and allowed you to reach your own conclusions. To preach is to impose your ideas onto somebody else. But the genesis of real action does not lie in force. The change that needs to be wrought is immense, and the only person that can convince you to undertake that effort is yourself.
I disagreed with one of the key messages that the Symposium tried to get across, which was that everybody should start to create change now, as who they were. Oddly enough, my favorite quote – and my guiding philosophy – has always been this one by Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” But it should always be used in context. What the Symposium failed to address was that everybody has different aspirations. To want to tackle the humanitarian crises brought up in the Symposium requires a paradigm shift in one’s aspirations. This can only happen when your current aspirations are already met, or if you encounter something traumatic enough to fundamentally alter them.
I therefore also disagreed with the implied notion that listening to people with amazing stories can inspire change. Of the five days we spent in the Symposium, four were spent in lectures. On the one day that we did head out of the air-conditioned climes of the Marriott Hotel, I had the opportunity to visit 3rd-generation victims of Agent Orange, a health-threatening herbicide which was liberally used in the Vietnam War. I met children who were deaf-mute, who were unable to prevent their hands from shaking; who couldn’t form a single intelligible sentence. Yet, these are but the most minor of impediments caused by those chemicals. You do not create a life-changing experience by sheltering participants from the very worst cases.
Having said all that, I am not saying that the Symposium was ineffective. It impacted each and every one of us. But how we choose to address this will differ radically from person to person. For me, I cannot see myself being at the forefront of change. I cannot simply throw away my notes and say that I want to end poverty in Africa. I have a life to live. Yet, this Symposium has motivated me to look out for opportunities for others to live theirs.
I love quotes. They represent the very best of human expression, distilled into a few words that inspire so many others. I end my reflections with one more by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“To laugh often and much…to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
In Singapore, we live to seek the 5 Cs – Car, Condominium, Cash, Credit Card, Country Club Membership. It is difficult in our country to define success by any other measure. But our path forward lies not only in the one community we currently belong to, but in the many that we will have the privilege of being a part of. In each we will see things that cause us to rethink what we aspire to. Keep an eye open for them.
