Fergal Keen

It was Tony Grant, a man called Tony Grant, who was the editor of From Our Own Correspondent, this wonderful program on the BBC, which is heard all around the world. It's one of our oldest programs. And it does a very simple thing. It says to the correspondent,

kirjoita sitä, mitä olet kokeillut. Ja erittäin yleensä, joskus sitä, mitä olet tuntenut. Meillä ei kuitenkaan esitellytä omaa tunteemme päiväkirjoituksessa. Se ei ole se, mitä olemme olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet olleet

With the kid sitting in one arm and typing with the other hand. And I was absolutely blown away by the beauty of this child. I was just overwhelmed at what he represented, at the possibility of new beginnings. And it brought up memories of the children that I had seen, so many of them, who didn't enjoy the protection.

that my child had in my arms in a nice comfortable apartment in Hong Kong, looking out at the dawn, knowing that his future was going to be one surrounded by love, care and security. And so writing it got really, I was very, very churned up because it brought together so many different strands of my experience as a war correspondent over the previous decades.

Kaksi päivää sitten he jäivät, uskovaan, että he olisivat tappaneet kaikkia niitä tuutteita. Mutta lopulta tästä rannasta, ympäri kirkkoa, huonosti, mutta edelleen huumaamassa, Valentina jäi ylöspäin. Viikkoja ja iloja hän jäi edelleen, kuulemassa kaikkia ääniä. Pidin siellä jonkin aikaa, yli kuukauden. Kun yritin aloittaa, menisin.

So when I first saw Valentina, it was during the genocide, and she was with a handful of other survivors in an abandoned government building. And there were some nurses from the rebel Rwandan patriotic front who were trying to help her, but they had no medicine. Her hand was gangrenous, and she also had a big gash in her head from where she'd been macheted.

But she did survive. You know, I went back three years later and Valentina was alive. And she was living with her aunt, who had also survived the genocide. Did that trauma stay with her over the years? I mean, I can't imagine it didn't affect her in some ways over the years. Yeah, it does. I mean, you know, the expression that I absolutely hate is closure. You don't get closure on an experience like that.

If you witness massacre, if you see your family being butchered, you don't close a door and suddenly it's gone. She had a dream where her mother came back to her in the dream. She dreamed of that, of a moment of being reunited with her mother. Of course that was never going to happen. But a couple of years after that,

Valentina was back in school. She came to London. She met my own kid at my house. Oh wow. When was that, Fogel? That would have been, I guess, maybe 1999, there or thereabouts. Okay, so you stayed in touch with her over years? Yeah, I did, yeah. And she went to school and then she emigrated to the States. Oh wow. Where she now lives. But she's made a life and she has kids of her own.

The big lesson is that given a chance, the human spirit, and especially children, are phenomenally resilient. I don't believe that anybody is doomed by what happened to them in their childhood.

Ja paradoksaalisesti se, mitä se teki, oli luoda minulle tarve olla paikoissa, joissa se tunne odotusta, se tanssi, oli muodostunut. Koska olin täydellisesti suunniteltu, jotta voin toimia sotilaallisuudessa. Olin hypervigilaattinen.

From the very earliest age, obviously watching out, you know, am I under threat? Is there a danger to me here? And that makes you very skilled at navigating a place like Rwanda or the streets of Belfast in the middle of rioting. When I came out of Rwanda in 1994, nobody was talking about journalists and PTSD. We went and we got drunk and talked about it in the bar and that was it.

And I self-medicated with alcohol and, you know, ended up as a fully functioning alcoholic. Because that is, you know, such a common coping mechanism. Anything to take you away from the pain, anything to take you away from that void, which is full of nightmares and bad memories. I kept running and I kept running into conflict zones until I had...

A pretty big breakdown in about 2008. I went into hospital and was formally diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of numerous wartime experiences. But you know what? I came out. And I was a good boy for a while. I didn't go to the war zones. And then I went back. I mean, that is the definition of insanity.

Ja menin takaisin ja takaisin, kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin kunniin

Really at the deepest low possible and feeling shame because of what I brought on my family. Trauma, PTSD doesn't affect just one person. Addiction doesn't affect just one person. It affects all of those who love you, who live in fear about what is going to happen to you.

I was watching a TV program, as you do, in the dark hours of the night, when you can't go to sleep. And there was an American psychiatrist on it. And he sat down, he was talking to a celebrity. And he said, number one, he said, life is full of pain. Number two, it's full of uncertainty. And number three, that if you're going to have decent mental health, you've got to work at it every single day of your life.

Ja se oli se asia, josta tuli huomioon, että voin saada koko maailman autta vanhemmille, mutta minun täytyi todennäköisesti ottaa toimia itselleni. Ja mitä se vaikuttaa? Se vaikuttaa jatkuvasti terapiaan, pysyvän vallan ulkopuolella, ja se vaikuttaa ympäristöstäni niin paljon rakkaudesta kuin voin löytää. Ja tämä menee takaisin siihen, mitä puhuimme lasten kanssa. Se on juuri niin tärkeää vanhemmille.

To be around people who love you and to give that love back.

Well, the most recent figure we have is from 2024 and that talks about 520 million children living in conflict zones.