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A Look At Alder's Ledge

For the past several years Alder's Ledge has been pushing ourselves to grow. We struggle for every last inch we gain. We fight for every ear we find willing to listen, to hear our collective scream. It's a war of sorts, and endless battle that saps every last ounce of strength our team has. And yet they, a surprising team of misfits, are relentless... ever passionate... ever willing to take to the cause day after bloody day.

We read articles about atrocities and suffering just as though it were as natural to us as breathing is. Some might look at this as a morbid fixation, a perversion of sorts, and yet for us it is a duty... a calling. Every word we read, every story that crosses our screens, strikes a chord within us. These accounts of others suffering ring in our own history as a team. We all have a past with genocide. We all have a relationship with these topics. And for that we reason we cannot turn away.

Genocide has a way of galvanizing our ranks. It's flames created the reason our main author fights with every ounce of energy left in him. It's cruelty gave birth to the reason our most beloved sister, an anchor for us all, struggles to keep us going even when everything has fallen apart. It's insanity is why the calming voice of the most gentle soul we have amongst us is so refreshing... motivating us when we stumble along. Genocide has a way of creating within our ranks a reason to remain when all the rest have turned away.

This year we started out with only six team members stretched across the globe. There was always someone online. There was always a conversation going on somewhere. And it was in this constant talking that we came to the conclusion that we needed to expand our voice. It was then that we took to Twitter for another outlet to scream.

Most of you who read this are probably from Twitter. And despite our presence there for most of the year being through our main author's account, we are all greatly blessed through getting to know you. We appreciate all the support and encouragement you all have given us over this past year. The ability to scream with people from all walks of life about these topics has been an amazing experience. And for that we always want to say thank you to each and everyone of you.

As a team the experience of expanding has made this past year one we will never forget. We went from six team members to a team of just under two dozen. This of course had every growing pain imaginable and plenty of frustration. But we are all still committed to the same fight... just stronger for all the struggling along the way.

With this expansion in members came a plenty of reasons to expand the reasons for which we scream. With new members came new histories and new personal stories that contentiously leak into the paragraphs that fill our posts. When we started writing about human trafficking we could not help but to include the passion of those amongst our team who lived through it. When we write about child abuse we have no way of filtering out the agony of our members who survived it. And when we write about refugees we speak with the voices of our members who were made to flee or born beyond their homelands' borders. These voices, this collective experience we all now share, are the heart and soul of our little team. These are the driving passions of our members.

At times these passions become so bold that we as a team have had to place warnings of sorts before the main body of given posts. When our soul can't be confined to what might be considered polite, we have tried to warn our readers of the post's content. Not because we are apologetic, but because we are brutally honest.

Yet for all the good this passion does for our team in motivating us it has also driven us to the point to breaking. This year we lost a member who struggled with some of the subjects we cover here. His passing has admittedly left us breathless as our team has struggled to say goodbye. We will never forget his desire to scream relentlessly. We will never forget how his presence amongst us made each and every day we had with him feel like a gift. And most of all, we will never forget how even as the hate mail came pouring in he prayed for those who hated him for how G-d created him. His memory will forever be embedded in all that Alder's Ledge does. His passing will never be forgotten.

As for the year ahead...

As a team we have a long path ahead. We are putting our main author on the road twice in the coming year. And our team mates in Asia are taking our message off the computer and putting it to words.

In China Alder's Ledge is taking to campuses where our members are introducing audio and visual depictions of what it means to be a "screamer". In a country where "the party" has control over most everything (despite appearances) we are pushing the envelope as team members there take risk to spread our message. They are telling their communities about the Rohingya people's plight. They are talking about China's complicity in North Korea's abuses of it's own people. They are talking about ethnic cleansing, genocide, human trafficking, and the need for protests and civil disobedience (if need be) to force change. None of this is popular with those who still believe in China's party line.

As for our main author, the face of Alder's Ledge, the trip down the path starts in England, Germany, and Croatia. Many of our team members will finally meet with the punk that started all this to begin with. And then the path ends in the Philippines or China.

All of this is to spread our message. It isn't a complicated message. It doesn't have many parts to remember. All we ask of those we meet is that they scream.

So what does it mean to scream?

A scream is a violent and desperate act to grab the attention of a deaf world. It is the relentless effort to force a blind world to open it's eyes and look at the suffering of those we fight for. By using our voice we restore a voice to those the world has ignored and left beyond hope's embrace. By screaming we tell the world that there is, if nothing else, a point where we as a people will no longer tolerate the anguish of the forgotten. We will not look away.

A screamer is thus someone who has become aware or witnessed genocide. A screamer is someone who has lost the desire to set on the sidelines while genocide culls the flock laid out before them. A screamer is someone who lets out the battle cry. A screamer is someone who runs toward the sounds of silent cries so that they might use their voice to bring recognition to those hushed voices. A screamer is relentless, remorseless, and tireless. 

We are spreading our voice.

We are screaming.

Now we ask simply, who is with us?

Who will scream for the voiceless?

Who will fight?

Till Our Eyes Bleed And Our Throats Dry Up

We Will Not Look Away, We Will Scream
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)

(Dead Chin Children After Failed Attempt To Flee Burma)

As the world neglects the minorities of Myanmar the old Junta continues to deprive many ethnic groups in Burma of their basic human rights. From the Chin to the Karen to the Rohingya the use of forced slave labor, rape camps, and starvation are killing countless minorities every day in the still barbarically brutal regime in Rangoon. Religion has played its part in the butchering of Rohingya (Muslims) and the oppression of the Chin (Christians). But race is the main factor. 

The majority of what the Junta calls "Burmese" are Buddhist. They all come from differing ethnic groups and smaller communities. Yet during the brutal rule of communist style leaders and Junta power these groups fused as one. The most important thing to this new ruling class is that the minorities "know their place" in Myanmar's new "democratic" society.

For the Chin, nearly 80-90% Christian, the new Burma is odd in the fact that Myanmar recognizes the Chin people in the fact that they named one of the seven ethnic states in Burma the "Chin State". Like the Arakan, a people who are accepted by the Junta as "Burmese", the Chin were apparently given a place in Burmese society. Yet the old Junta continues to force the Chin into slavery to the state as they use rape to keep the Chin in line. Unjust taxation mixed with random denials to property rights makes it nearly impossible for Chin to make a self-reliant life for themselves within Myanmar. Thus the Chin are among the hordes of refugees that annually take to the borders of Myanmar and attempt to flee the ruthless regime once willingly called the Junta. 

Meanwhile the Rohingya are trapped on the border with Bangladesh, a fact that Myanmar exploits by calling the Rohingya "Bengali invaders", with no place to turn. Myanmar now has turned to the method of "forced famine" to starve out the Rohingya who have been forced out of their homes. Many of the starving Rohingya can be found in refugee camps throughout the Rakhine state. These camps are being blockaded so that food and water can not make it inside. Thus creating a famine within the camps while food flows freely just outside the camps. 

(Rohinga Child Starved To Death By "Forced Famine")

In addition to forced starvation the Rohingya face common diseases that could be prevented if the Burmese government was not also withholding basic medications from the encamped Rohingya minority. This allows for malaria to spread throughout a camp without warning. The people trapped inside have no access to medications that are often cheap or free when provided by humanitarian groups. However the Junta has made certain that children and women in these camps are restricted in access or forbidden access all together from help from the outside world. 

No matter how we look at this. No matter how we try to rationalize this. This is genocide. 

(Rohingya Boy Suffering From Malaria)

When a government attempts to restrict the population growth or drastically reduce it they are engaging in ethnic cleansing. When a government is attempting to kill off a portion or the entirety of an ethnic group they are engaged in genocide. The attempts of the Junta in Burma to bring about a "democratic" society in Burma is not to be praised by people like Barack Obama. This is not an attempt to spread "hope" to an oppressed people in a newly opened up frontier of Asia. This is genocide. 

It has been the battle cry of Alder's Ledge that we might take upon the suffering of others as our own affliction. It is our purpose in life that we might live their pain so that even in the darkest hour they might not be left alone and persecuted by the most evil aspects of humanity. In doing so we can bear witness to the anguish of those who have suffered so that the world may not deny their pain or at worst their very existence.

Our voices will continue to be raised till our throats can suffer no longer... till blood trickles from our vocal cords. Our eyes will forever be transfixed upon the darkest chapters of man so that we might shine a light into the abyss. This is our battle cry. This is our mission. 

As 2013 lay before us it is our goal to make our voices so loud that every soul around us knows the pain of the Rohingya. We will keep their suffering at the forefront of our daily lives. As long as there are children and women lingering in death's chains we will fight. As long as there are Rohingya men being dragged off to their deaths at the hands of barbarians we will cry out. We will bear witness. 

Today, Alder's Ledge, makes only one demand of those of you who are reading this. We ask that you take to your Twitter, your Facebook, and any other social media you have to start sharing these post. We ask that you become a screamer. 

A screamer is a person who witnesses genocide and refuses to remain silent. A screamer uses the one weapon our G-d gave to all men and women... his or her voice. In the modern era a screamer takes to social media to effect change in a world where we are all linked by media. A screamer, most of all, forgets his own misfortune and takes up the suffering of others as his own. This is what drives a screamer to act... to scream. 

It is time that we all scream as one. It is time to fight.

Sometimes We Are All Nothing But Fleas

Trapped By Our Own Limitations
(Part of the Battle Cry series)

During an experiment on the behavior of animals a scientist once found that the common flea could be tricked into living its miserable life starving to death. Keep in mind that the common flea is as persistent a pest that even two fleas left untreated can reproduce into thousands of fleas withing weeks. With any source of food the flea can live on with the hope of finding a suitable meal. In this aspect the flea is driven by food more than anything else. Food is what keeps the little fleas hopping.

The experiment was simple really. It was so simple that it almost doesn't seem real. But it worked, and it worked so well that all the fleas died while food was just on the other side of the glass.

Placing a dozen fleas in a glass jar the scientist shut the lid and watched the fleas hop like crazy. For some time after shutting the lid the scientist could hear the constant pop of the bugs hitting the tin lid. Pop, pop, pop... the little fleas would not stop till they were free. Pop, pop, pop... or so it would seem.

All at once, as if in unison the fleas stopped. Somewhat surprised, the scientist looked inside to see if the bugs had all died. For it seemed odd that the ever persistent flea would ever stop trying to escape. And yet the scientist was in for a treat.

Hopping just below the level of the lid the fleas continued to jump. Like sad clowns performing the role nature had cast for them, the fleas jumped with no hope of ever being free again. Yet despite the realization that they could not be free the fleas jumped straight up and down. Tiring themselves out without reward.

Taking the lid off, the scientist fully expected his little pest to jump to freedom. A gust of fresh air pacified the fleas for a moment. It almost seemed as though they were thinking about what had just happened. It was almost as though they could sense that their little world had dramatically changed.

So what happened next? Was the scientist just inviting these little pest to infest his work station?

One by one the fleas hopped up and down once again. Without the lid the fleas could easily jump to freedom. Without the lid their prison was now unlocked. The barrier that had prevented their escape was clearly gone. And once again their chance to find food was readily made available to the little pests. So what happened now that the lid was gone?

Not one flea jumped any higher than they had before the lid was removed. Instead the fleas continued to jump up and down in the apparent safety of their jar. It appeared now that the little pests had learned to accept the limitations the lid had imposed upon them. It appeared that even without the presence of the lid the fleas would remain within its confines.

In many ways we as a society have become like the fleas of this study. In many aspects of our lives we have come to accept the limitations imposed upon us by obstacles that either do or do not exist. Some of these "lids" in our lives are very real indeed. For example we know that law keeps us from doing things we might otherwise want to do. Other "lids" however only exist in our minds.

For months now I have asked for those who read this blog to step out of their comfort zone... or jar, if you will. And yet time and time again I am presented with the question "what can I really do?" The question is presented in many ways. It is asked with a sense of defeat before the person asking it ever really begins to fight. It is asked with the idea that our lives are lived within the confines others impose upon us. And yet when we stop to think about it these limitations are more often than not brought upon us by our own fear.

The flea fears hitting their little bodies against the tin lid overhead. This is what keeps them locked inside the jar even when the lid is gone. For us the fear that limits us can arise from many things. When it comes to Alder's Ledge it seems that the fear that stops many from sharing these post arises from the fear of breaking with conformity.

Despite our modern notion of the beauty of the individual our society still prizes above most other qualities the ability to fit in to the crowd. Sure, sharing these post can make you look big hearted, but it also makes you appear far to serious.... perhaps preaching. And with the frequency of these post pushing the share button could even make you appear annoying on FaceBook, Twitter, or any other social media site.

This is where stepping outside the comfort of your jar comes in. This is where the sense of morality that keeps people reading these posts should trump the fear of stepping on a soapbox. But it seems far to many of us are still stuck in our jars.

As the Hanuka continues and Christmas approaches I would like to take this opportunity again to ask Alder's Ledge's readers to step outside their jars. It is a custom for many to give to charity during this season. And for most the act of giving these donations is an act meant to be done in silence. Yet we here at Alder's Ledge would like to invite our readers to share on their social media sites and with their friends the fact that you have donated. And in doing this we would ask that you invite them to do the same.

Alder's Ledge has decided to give a gift to World Vision. This is a charity that is helping Syrian refugees and Congolese refugees as genocide ravages their homelands. You can find the links for this below.

In closing we would like to ask all who read this to take time this holiday season to step out of your comfort zone and help those in need. Take a stand with Alder's Ledge and help those who are suffering most during this holiday season.



World Vision Emergency Relief

Syria
http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?section=10339&item=2035030

Congo
http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?section=10339&item=2449385

Video For the Congo Relief Effort