“Gunmen Kill Irish Aid Worker in Somalia.” The story made the headlines on Monday February 22, 1993.
The worker was Valerie Place, 23, of the Irish charity Concern. For months the media had been bringing us the latest on famine-ravaged, war-torn Somalia, and it seemed that in almost every story an Irish volunteer was quoted. Now one had been killed.
Relief workers have no guarantees on personal safety. “I came to help you. I didn’t come here to die,” these words uttered by a young Irish Aid worker who was kidnapped and narrowly escaped death, are part of the story, “Somalia: Ireland’s Concern,” brought to you this month by Irish America writer Oistin MacBride.
Perhaps it’s the historic memory of their own Famine that prompts the people of Ireland to contribute more per capita for hunger-relief than any other country in the world. Why there are so many relief agencies in Ireland, and why so many young Irish people risk their lives to bring relief to people in such faraway places as Sudan, Ethiopia, Liberia and Somalia. Ireland’s President, Mary Robinson, the first head of state to visit Somalia, is from Mayo, a county that was devastated by the Irish famine, perhaps that is why she went.
Robinson’s visit earned her the International League of Human Rights Award. But more than that, her subsequent address to the United Nations, and appearances on many radio and television shows focused world-wide attention on the horror and sadness.
Yet the story that Oistin MacBride brings us from Somalia is one of hope amidst despair. Of young teachers rebuilding schools, of children who are learning to smile again. One can only hope that the recent weeks of violence that brought many more deaths of peace-workers, and the deaths of four American soldiers, is an aberration and that Somalia won’t fall back into the abyss and turmoil that brought about the deaths of some 500,000 people from famine and civil strife.
Nothing can be more horrifying than seeing a baby, its belly swollen from malnutrition, sucking on the empty breast of an emaciated woman. Every time I see such a photograph I think of what it must have been like for my own people during those horrific years of the Irish Famine. Yet coupled with such images and thoughts is the knowledge that the survivors who made it to America, prospered in their new land.
Not that the famine Irish who landed on these shores had it easy. Another story in this issue illustrates the courage of one Charlotte Grace O’Brien, a young woman who didn’t favor emigration, but being a realist, she campaigned for better conditions for those traveling, and was instrumental in opening a home for Irish girls landing, often penniless, jobless and homeless, in New York. But however poor their circumstances they at least had the hope of a brighter future.
But the days of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses …” may well be ending. More and more countries, including the United States and Canada, are closing their borders to emigrants. Closing off the doors of hope and the promise of a new life.
One can imagine the despair of the family from Somalia who wait in Buffalo, New York, facing possible deportation, having been turned down for landed-residency in Canada. And the anguish of the hundreds of desperate Chinese washed up on the beaches of New York recently, who now await their fate.
There is a backlash against immigration that is evident in this country at the moment. More and more one hears talk of keeping America for the Americans.
Perhaps it is a good time to remember that we are all immigrants, if you go back far enough. And while acknowledging that these are tough economic times we must not turn on immigrants and make them scapegoats. They are, we are, part of what has made this country great in the past, and also part of its future.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September October 1993 issue of Irish America. ♦
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