Where Peace Found Me Again
In 2023, I became disillusioned with peace. It was a concept I talked about constantly, but over time, it began to lose its meaning.
I’d just spent six months immersing myself in the history behind, events of, and actions following the Rwandan genocide. I watched countless documentaries, read first-hand accounts, conducted interviews and participated in a university field trip to Kigali. All this to learn about the country’s path to peace, following some of the worst human brutality ever seen.
The other students and I came back from Rwanda brimming with hope and our hearts full of forgiveness. If Rwandans could overcome their history and stand together to build their communities back up, then surely peace could be within reach anywhere.
This optimism came crashing down only a few months later, when I moved back to Australia. I had returned during the lead up to The Voice, a constitutional referendum to recognise First Nations people in Australia by legalising an Indigenous Voice to parliament. All hope and understanding felt lost in the midst of a vicious, racist and polarising campaign to reject the referendum.
In the same month, I began to receive distressing photos from my fellow graduates back in the Netherlands. During the student-led Palestine protests, people I’d been sitting next to in a classroom only months earlier were now sharing stories of violence, unlawful arrests and beaten, bruised and bloody faces. They sent videos of my university, a place I used to feel safe, failing to protect its students.
Around this time, a deep sense of dread had settled further and further into the pit of my stomach, making itself comfortable. Hopelessness became an unwanted companion. Peace felt a million miles away. For the first time, I felt truly fearful of what the future may hold.
I tried to act ‘normal’. I moved to a small country town in Australia and started working in a mundane job. I stayed away from news headlines and distracted myself with light, trivial personal projects. I tried to grasp for control in every way I could. But in my attempts to silence my fears, they only grew louder.
It’s taken me a long time to break out of that cycle. Over time, I’ve developed deeper friendships and learnt to lean on them in times of need. I’ve watched on as the people around me find gratitude and fulfilment from the smallest of things in their everyday lives. I’ve seen the town come together to support local causes, neighbours greeting each other every single morning, and the joy my friends get from supporting their communities through meaningful work.
If you had asked me back in 2023 what peace meant to me, I may have given you a detailed account of the magic I observed in Rwanda. How inspiring it was to see trust, understanding and community pave the path to peace in a country that had been torn apart by violence and prejudice. How that approach was in stark contrast to the people back in my home country, who couldn’t even have a conversation with someone who held a different political belief to their own.
Now, I realise that my view on peace shines with optimism once more. Because even when I hid myself from the world, paralysed by fear and hopelessness, I experienced unconditional kindness, empathy and support from the community around me. Even when I lost hope, peace found me in the place I least expected it.
And that magic I’d seen in Rwanda? I’ve felt it for myself now, deeper and truer than ever before.
