Emmanuel Jal did a TED Talk not too long ago, and every time I run across this guy I like him even more. The talk below is long, but well worth the investment:
This video evokes the usual platitudes for me – get off your bohunkus, stop armchair charity and start actually helping – but there are a few things that were absolutely striking to me.
The first is Jal’s version of these same platitudes, because his English is so plain and his poetry so earnest. “What would I be?” The punch line is powerful. I quote from the song:
I remember the time when I was small
When I couldn’t read or write at all
Now I’m all grown up, I got my education
The sky is the limit and the cup is running over
How I prayed for this day to come
And I pray that the world find wisdom
To give the boy in need some assistance
Instead of putting up resistance, Yeah
Sitting and waiting for the politics to fix this
It ain’t gonna happen
They’re all sitting on they asses
Popping champagne and scrunching up the masses
Coming from a refugee boy-soldier
But I still got my dignity
I gotta say it again
If Emma never rescued me
I’d be a corpse on the African plain
Second is Jal’s dance. It starts around 16:40, when Jal announces “I’m gonna get crazy now.” I can’t get over that dance. It looks like the way I should have spent every Gloria Patri I’ve ever sung, so sincere and vulnerable and beautiful and while it’s unlike any dance I’ve ever seen, I know exactly and precisely what it means. It is the dance of a man made alive by love.
That song makes me want to get up and dance every time.
That is sweet. His ‘investment not aid’ line played really well with the TED audience. That song is terrific.