A Letter to myself: John Kamara

Ryk Goddard
Our little mini-series, Letter to Myself, we invite significant Tasmanians to write a letter to their future self or their past self and then share it with us. If you haven't come across John, he's worked a lot with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, got on a lot of boards in and around Tasmania and getting people to understand issues around inclusion, belonging and togetherness. This is a much more personal reflection. So did you choose to write to your past or your future self?

John Kamara
I choose to write to my past. As an 18-year-old young man arriving in Tasmania, that's really time for me to reflect in November when I arrived about two decades ago.

Ryk Goddard
So this month is the anniversary. How interesting. So if you're a Scorpio as a Tasmanian. So John, the floor is yours. Take it away.

John Kamara
Dear Sima, I know that as an 18-year-old young man arriving in a strange country, you are extremely traumatised and very confused. It has not always been that way. When you were younger, your life was full of fun and you had a deep spiritual connection to your home country. You had strong bonds to family and you loved the bush. You were immersed in nature. Your house was built from mud with palm leaves on top. Your parents were local chiefs, elders within the community. At night, you sat in the courtyard with your mother and grandmother who tell you stories of how to live and how to live and work together as a family unit. You sit down with your sisters on the floor to learn. As you sit, you see yourself running, running fast for safety. You leave behind your culture, values, people and animals. You seek refuge in a different home country and you find hope in refuge. Suddenly, you are in a strange island. The island is beautiful and looks like heaven from afar and looks even better when you are on it. It feels different on your dark skin and it is very cold within. It echoes in your ears that you are a black man and you are different and there is a long journey ahead. You see the gum leaves in the island that is part of the ancient land whose traditional owners you acknowledge as you work hard to settle on the island and contribute respectfully, creatively and collaboratively. Memories of your recent past began to surface. You see yourself in two worlds. The absence and frailty of your mother in the woods make you feel helpless. When help is afar, you soon begin to see opportunities and allies. The opportunity to start a new life produces many feelings of hope and gratitude but also of sadness and anxiety. You are faced with a world you knew nothing about. Everything about daily living has to be relearned. The smells, sounds, foods, music, housing, language and laws. Your struggle for survival suddenly involves a whole new dimension that is no longer based solely on escaping but involves the different and complex challenges of learning the island way. The strength of love of family, your faith and music will carry you through. You will have educational growth which will help you achieve many dreams. To marry and live beyond poverty. To own a home. To give your own children a greater educational experience and to be able to help others in other parts of the world. You will search for justice and the struggle against hurtful systemic practices that are holding you and your community back. Your future is just beginning. Your profile is significant and your journey will champion change and conversation. You will use the goodwill to offer suggestions, possible solutions, ideas, brainstorming, and using that goodwill to consider the way forward to work together to better integrate new humans into the island so everyone can contribute, prosper and grow together, not apart. The human experience of suffering is not isolated. Suffering will be part of your story. However, there are many gifts to our worldly existence that offer us a way forward. Use this letter to reflect on the important aspect of your journey. This time in your life is significant and the best is yet to come. Yours faithfully, John Kamara, 40 years old.

Ryk Goddard
John Kamara there, a letter to his former self. John, thinking back to that 18-year-old, it seems so significant that you grew up, your family were leaders.

John Kamara
Yes, yes. My parents were chiefs and elders and so I had that background of role model of leaders. But the past and the trauma experience of war, so at that time, just landed in Launceston, as I said, in November, there was so much going through my head and that reflection of leaving all that behind and just standing in a new and different land. So, yeah, that was a significant moment for me. And so reflecting back to that, it's such an important part of my journey.

Ryk Goddard
Had you not had to flee, would you have ended up then having to fight? Would you have ended up yourself as a chief and a leader?

John Kamara
Well, yes, if I hadn't flee, I would have ended up, take up my duty as the only male child in my family. So I would have stepped into the chief tenancy or the role of the chief from my dad. Perhaps, Rick, you're right, when I was captured by the rebels, perhaps I may have, I may also have fought in the war, but I was captured, but as God could have it, I was escaped and I was in, yeah, I didn't fight. So that was a good thing that happens to me.