WUNRN
Women’s Feature Service
LESSONS FROM KAYLA MUELLER’S TRAGIC END
By Elayne Clift
Vermont (Women’s Feature Service) – I had just filed a
book review about a woman who risked her life in 2013 trying to help people in
the Congo suffering under the rule of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance
Army (LRA), when I happened to see a journalist on CNN talking about Kayla
Mueller, the young aid worker killed by IS in Syria. The juxtaposition of what
I’d written and what the journalist said about having met Kayla just before she
entered Syria was striking, and could offer important lessons for other young
idealists who want to head off to foreign lands to help people in war-torn
zones.
The book I reviewed is called ‘Mama Koko and the
Hundred Gunmen’ by Lisa J. Shannon, a young woman with courage, conviction and
a craving for adventure. Shannon went to the Congo with a Congolese friend to
tell the stories of what was happening there under Kony in the hope that those
would motivate governments and individuals to intervene and provide aid.
By weaving narratives of what life was like pre-LRA
and what it had become, Shannon skilfully revealed a tapestry of events at once
moving and frightful. Central to the tale is Mama Koko, a matriarch, who stays
strong as her family loses everything and is driven into the bush with slim
hopes of survival. One by one her relatives become victims of unimaginable
cruelty. Back in town Shannon lives with Mama Koko and other survivors. She
hears their stories and films people she interviews, putting herself and her
friend, Francisca, in harm’s way to capture what they were willing to share with
her.
The question becomes, why? When a UN security officer
asks, “Who are you with? What is your function?” she struggles to answer for
herself. “It was weird enough in the US answering questions about how I
supported myself as a volunteer, the independent nature of my work. … The
strangeness [in Congo] was exacerbated by the fact that I wasn’t sure I knew,
even secretly, what my ‘function’ was.” It was a question that troubled
Francisca the longer they remained in danger.
Why put yourself and others in terrible danger when
you have no sponsor, no media assignment, and no organisational support, I
wondered. What was the expected outcome and how, specifically, might what
Shannon did help the victims of a long and vicious war? I questioned whether
the author’s ego may have played a part in her altruism, a thought that was
supported by what Shannon recalled about leaving the Congo. “The question [was]
what now? I had decided how I wanted all of this to end. … Francisca would
emerge a leader for her country. I had … suggestions for [her] future
leadership role, the one I had built up in my head...”
But years later, “[Joseph] Kony was still out there.”
There were more deaths and greater shortages. And “for the people of [Mamma
Koko’s town] there are all the things that are gone, that will never come
back.”
In no way am I suggesting that Kayla Mueller, that
beautiful, budding young woman who loved life and wanted to do good things, had
an over-sized ego. Nor do I know if Lisa Shannon does. But like Shannon, Kayla
was young and idealistic. It appears that she, like Shannon, acted
independently in entering a war-torn country, without any of the rigorous and
urgent training required by such groups as Doctors Without Borders, United
Nations affiliates, or NGOs. It also appears that she had no plan for how to
translate her efforts into helpful action when she did leave Syria. She didn’t
have an exit plan.
The journalist who met Kayla on the Turkish border
with Syria before she embarked on her mission described Kayla as “young and
naïve”. The seasoned professional who had worked in many terrifying conflict
countries worried about what would happen to her, especially in the absence of
training and affiliation. She reaffirmed all that was good and true in Kayla
and her motives. Then she warned other young idealists not to do foolish
things.
During the years when I worked in international
development I met a lot of Shannons and Kaylas. They often came to me to ask
for advice about how to implement their plans to “help people”. They were
special young adults with a lot of stars in their eyes. I always found them
inspiring. But very few of them knew the reality of aid work, affiliated or
not. And that was in the days before terrorist groups like IS were even
imagined.
So I honour Kayla Mueller, and I grieve her premature
death. Like other bright twenty-somethings, she gave us all hope for a better
future when our kinder natures might prevail to prove that love conquers all.
You only had to look at pictures of her bright, smiling face to know what she
might have given the world had she made it out of Syria.
And therein lies the tragedy of Kayla’s untimely
death, and the lessons it might hold for other young, vital idealists. Because
the question is not only why? That’s not so difficult to answer. The hard
questions are what is my plan and is it realistic, am I properly prepared, how
dangerous is it and what are the costs and benefits, how will I make a
difference, and, maybe most important of all, who will have my back when I need
to get out of there?