By Dr Bassey Emmanuel
The WHO Briefing in Geneva – A rifle is replaced by a laser pointer. But the war follows him.
Geneva, Switzerland — WHO Headquarters. 72 Hours After the Prize
Pascal adjusted his tie. It felt like a tourniquet around his neck.
He immediately recalled his last night in Sudan when someone knocked on his room door and when he went to open the door, he saw no one just to realized that it was the force of the wind that was hitting on the door like a human being knocking. He smiled at his naivety.
Here, he was no longer in No. 4 Dress no blue beret nor rank slide. Just a dark Nigerian suit, white shirt, and the gold laurel medal pinned on his chest. In his hand was a remote clicker.
On the screen behind him was boldly written: “Poetry as Therapy in War Zones: Field Notes from Darfur” by Major Dr Pascal Vincent, Nigerian Army Medical Corps.
The room was full. Doctors in lab coats, Psychologists in glasses, Diplomats in earpieces. No rifles, no dust and no scourging sun to burn the soul of the boots.
The air smelled like coffee and carpet cleaner.
Too clean, Pascal thought. “No one bleeds here”_
The WHO Director for Mental Health introduced Pascal.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please help me to welcome, the soldier who taught the world that a scar can be a poem to salvage the soul”
Polite applause.
Pascal clicked to his first slide. A photo. Not of him but of Fatima, the 9-year-old girl from El Geneina. One arm in a sling, the other holding the crayon drawing she gave him: a stick-figure soldier under a blue helmet, holding a giant red heart.
He didn’t read his notes.
“Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen”, he said. Two weeks ago, I was doing triage in Darfur. Red meant dying, black meant gone. Today, I am here to talk about therapy.
He paused. Letting the silence work.
“In my world, therapy is not a couch. It is a boy asking you, ‘Why did you not let me die?’ while you were stitching my stomach closed”
It is a soldier lying lifeless due to a gunshot wound with blood gushing out of the wound like spring water with no hope in sight and getting a sudden medical help from a source he never expected.
He clicked the next slide. A photo of his notebook, blood-smudged, pages filled with verses.
“I started writing because I couldn’t sleep. The children’s screams were louder than the gunfire. So, I wrote them down. I gave the screams back to God as poems. And something happened”.
Clicked again. A photo of 12 Sudanese boys sitting in a circle outside the UN clinic, each holding paper and pencil.
“I told them: write what you saw. Some wrote fire, some wrote mother. Others wrote nothing. Then one boy wrote: “The blue hat man gave me my blood back. So, I will give my words and conscience”
Pascal looked at the audience. “That” he said, tapping his chest, is therapy. Not mine. But theirs. Poetry didn’t save me, It saved them. I was just the pen.
For 40 minutes, he spoke. No jargon, no statistics. Just stories. The Ambush at El Fasher, the scar, the boy who called him ‘enemy’ then ‘brother’.
When he finished, no one stood. Not at first.
Then an old Swiss psychiatrist in the front row white hair, UN badge from 1994 Rwanda stood slowly. He wiped his wet eyes.
“Major” he said, voice shaking, “in 1994, I treated soldiers who could not speak after what they saw. If we had given them poems instead of pills… maybe…” He didn’t finish…The room stood in applause and cheers!
That Night — Nigerian Mission, Geneva
Pascal ate jollof rice for the first time in months. The Nigerian Ambassador’s wife cooked it herself.
“My son”, the Ambassador said, “Geneva has fondue. But I see you only touched the jollof. You miss home?”
Pascal smiled. “Sir, I miss MRE, peanut butter, more than I miss fondue. At least with MRE, you know you are alive due to its good tastes”
The whole table laughed. For a moment, he wasn’t Major Vincent, the Military Personnel, the Prestige winner, he was just Pascal from Nigeria.
His phone buzzed. Sule Video call from Abuja by 2 AM.
You no dey sleep? Pascal asked.
Sule grinned, holding up a newspaper. DAILY TRUST: front page: NIGERIAN MAJOR STUNS World Health Organisation: ‘POETRY SAVED MY PATIENTS’.
“Guy, you don change level oo, Sule said. Mama called. She said she saw you on NTA. She cried with tears of joy and said, ‘My son went to war and came back with grammar”
Pascal laughed.
“How is the Flag? Sule asked, quietly.
Pascal touched his medal. “The Flag is flying, Sule, Higher than ever. But…”_ He looked out of the window at the Swiss Alps. Clean. Peaceful. “…the war isn’t over. It just changed uniform.”
Some Weeks Later — Last Day of TDY.
A signal waited on his UN email.
From: AHQ MS.
To: Maj Dr P. Vincent.
TDY Complete. Report to DHQ Abuja NLT 15 Aug. New Posting: Directorate of Psychological Operations. Task: Build ‘Narrative Warfare Unit’. You are authorized to recruit. Signed: COAS.
Psychological Operations? Narrative Warfare Unit?
Pascal closed his laptop. Looked at the Alps one last time. Looked at his notebook. Opened to a new page and wrote:
Geneva gave me a medal. Nigeria is giving me a mission.
The poem won the world.
The soldier is to write the war plan.
The narrative is truly changing through me.
He packed his suit, his medal, his Bible, and his notebook.
Outside, the Nigerian flag and the UN flag still flew at the WHO HQ.
But in his heart, one flag flew higher.
A knock on the door, who is it…
To be continued…
Context note:
TDY – Temporary Duty
MRE – Meal Ready to Eat
– Digital Embassy…
So interesting.
Great story