On the Loneliness and Dissonance of Being a Survivor of the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi
| Author | Noam Schimmel |
| DOI | 10.1177/2516606920960386 |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
On the Loneliness and
Dissonance of Being a
Survivor of the
Rwandan Genocide
Against the Tutsi
Noam Schimmel1
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
(Solitude, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
Journal of Victimology
and Victim Justice
3(2) 262–273, 2020
2020 National Law
Universit y Delhi
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/2516606920960386
journals.sagepub.com/home/vvj
1 International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Corresponding author:
Noam Schimmel, International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
E-mail: noam@gwu.edu
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