This weeks column by Jeremy Blumel in the Squamish Chief, reflects on the privilege of the climbing lifestyle in comparison to the plight of the Syrian refugees.
It was a day I had been moaning and complaining about the weather, droning predictably like a good Canadian on how we were supposed to get another week of clear, cool, fall-tinged bliss before the rain set in. I had begun training at the gym in earnest, feeling spiteful towards Mother Nature and her quick, emotionless turn around from glorious, sun-baked, splitter blue skies to West Coast water works.
That was the day the image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s washed-up body appeared on international news channels, a slice at Syria’s war torn situation that made visible their vulnerable human core. This image has begun a refocusing of international attention on the refugee plight coming out of Syria.
I read about the event, the terrible flight from Syria, the father’s grief and the world’s mounting reaction. I read that their small rowboat was headed for Kos, a Greek island that I had flown into in 2010 when on a climbing trip to Kalymnos, a Greek rock-climbing destination. At that moment, remembering back to the fun of 2010, a seeping and spreading guilt took hold, the encompassing shame of knowing that our lives in Canada are truly taken for granted, that those of us privileged enough to climb are, as in the title of French Alpinist Lionel Terray’s autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless.
It’s incredible, really, that in a country of such riches, we choose to inject danger back into our sedentary lives through various means such as climbing. We have food, water, shelter, freedom of thought and speech, health care, education and opportunity for employment enough to provide for our families and ourselves. Are we so wealthy we’ve come to take our very lives for granted, throwing ourselves into endeavours which risk life and limb just to give us some perspective, some distance? While we climb, interacting with nature in this totally unproductive and beautiful way in our free time, this fleeing family tried to find the beginnings of a better life, only to lose everything. The juxtaposition takes my breath away.
For the full article, please visit the Squamish Chief.
