Ummera, Ummera-sha
The Interview: Passionate humanitarian ‘I know what genocide looks like‘
SARAH HAMPSON From Monday’s Globe and Mail April 28, 2008 at 4:09 AM EDT
In conversation, however, it’s as if Dr. Orbinski is in doctor mode, tending to the task at hand – putting out his message about the need for involvement – rather than focusing on himself.
His cure for the PTSD he suffered was therapy but also engagement in political and humanitarian issues. “In contemporary Western culture and, most particularly, in North American culture, there’s a deep tendency to medicalize what are, in fact, political and existential questions,” he says. “Which is not to say that there aren’t medical dimensions to the traumatic experience. … But the real question is what do you do with what you now know, and for me, the choice was very clear: that I will do everything I can to confront a political system that allows for a genocide to take place.”
His passionate declaration that positive action is his choice is a tacit acknowledgment of its alternative, of which he is also acutely aware. “There’s always the other side – [the world is] a terrible place, but it’s a beautiful place,” he offers at one point.
Dr. Orbinsky, Triage, Nobel Speech
