Mounting dangers are forcing humanitarian workers to rethink the way they deliver relief
By KEVIN SPURGAITIS

As the Sri Lankan military cornered the separatist Tamil Tigers along the country’s northern coast, ending a quarter-century civil war, more than 1,000 civilians — many with amputations or chest wounds — were holed up inside the region’s remaining hospital in Puthukkudiyiruppu. During 16 hours of cluster bombing on and around the facility, more than 50 people were killed — a toll that included patients, their relatives and at least one health aide. Overwhelmed doctors were reduced to handing out gauze and bandages to the seriously wounded — and leaving dead bodies entirely unattended.

The converging hostilities in May also resulted in the bombing death of Red Cross worker Mayuran Sivagurunathan and his mother, and prevented a Red Cross ferry off the coast from delivering food aid and evacuating the wounded, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the non-partisan organization that assists victims of war and armed violence, as well as its participants. As one Red Cross employee expressed at the time, it was an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe.”

As global emergencies mount at head-spinning speed, aid groups are increasingly caught in the crossfire. Last year was the most dangerous year on record for aid workers, and 2009 isn’t looking much better. According to the Overseas Development Institute, a British think tank on international humanitarian issues, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed, seriously injured and kidnapped in 2008 — the highest toll this past decade. The number of deaths among aid workers even exceeded that of UN peacekeepers. The reasons for the increase are as varied and complicated as the situations themselves, but it would seem that humanitarian aid just isn’t sacrosanct any more. As a result, relief organizations, some faith-based, are rethinking how they deliver it.

“There’s always a certain amount of danger and a dire risk of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Bernard Barrett, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross. “But in recent years, we’ve seen a sharp increase in the numbers of casualties among our ranks. We continue to emphasize our neutrality. We do not make public pronouncements, pointing the figure at one side or the other. And yet, we’re facing more and more these hostilities.”

It’s now been 150 years since the adoption of the Geneva Conventions — what began as merchant Henry Dunant’s appeal for fallen soldiers in the war-ravaged plain of Normandia, north of Italia. The occasion, however, is marked with barely the raising of a glass. Enshrined to protect the sick, wounded and shipwrecked during wartime, the document evolved in 1949 and again in 1977 to guarantee the protection of humanitarian workers in conflicts. These protections include the right of aid workers to be treated humanely, to be free from violence to life and person, hostage taking, humiliating or degrading treatment, and imprisonment. But events of the last 12 months suggest mounting disregard for the Conventions — and the lives and efforts of aid workers.

In Sudan’s Darfur region alone, 11 aid workers have been killed and 189 abducted in the past 12 months. In March, insurgents kidnapped four Médecins Sans Frontières employees — including Canadian nurse Laura Archer — then released them three days later. MSF would not comment on the situation out of respect for the victims and their families. But in a statement after her release, Archer said the following: “. . . I’m thrilled to be home safe, though my main concern is not about myself nor my colleagues but about the people left in Darfur. . . . I hope that we can all put our attention and energy on to the people of the region — on to the beneficiaries — and I hope that the implications from this kidnapping are not affecting the community that we treat.”

Also in March, a Sudanese relief worker with the Canadian-based Fellowship for African Relief (FAR) was killed in the western Darfur town of Kongo Haraza. Adam Khatir, 39, was shot by two gunmen in the courtyard of his home. The bandits wanted a satellite phone belonging to Khatir, who had been working in his home village for the last five years, building up local agriculture through seed donations. That same month, the Sudanese government expelled 13 major aid groups after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The region, meanwhile, continued to be wracked by famine and oppression, as well as large-scale outbreaks of tuberculosis, cholera and malaria.

Last winter, relations between Israel and humanitarian organizations grew tense during that government’s 13-day offensive in the Palestinian-occupied Gaza Strip. With the stated aim of stopping Hamas’ rocket attacks on southern Israel and arms smuggling in Gaza, Israel bombarded bases belonging to the leading Palestinian organization, as well as houses, churches, schools and medical facilities, including the Shaja’ih Family Healthcare Centre, funded by Canadian taxpayers through the Canadian International Development Agency. In all, 13 Israelis and nearly 1,500 Palestinians — including some 900 civilians — were killed during the offensive, according Reuters. Another 5,000 Palestinians were injured. But not all the casualties were combatants and civilians. During the two-week blitz, a Red Cross convoy came under Israeli fire at the Netzarim crossing, which left one driver wounded. CARE International employee Mohammed Ibrahim Samouni, a Palestinian father of six, was also killed while distributing food and medical supplies to hospitals, families and feeding centres. His son was critically injured.

But nowhere have workers’ woes been more frustratingly illustrated than in Iraq, where aid organizations have struggled to gain a meaningful foothold since the US-led invasion of 2003. At the height of the Iraq War, 22 members of a UN aid agency — including UN mission chief Sergio Vieira de Mello — were killed in the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters. After that, the killing and kidnapping of aid workers only worsened, just as they have in Afghanistan. With 72 abducted and at least 23 killed in militant attacks, 2008 was unquestionably the deadliest year for aid agencies in the country since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban. Large and vulnerable swaths of the country — up to 50 percent — is now inaccessible to major humanitarian activities, according to the UN.

One of the biggest dangers facing aid workers is the perception that they’re taking sides. Kevin McCort, CARE Canada’s president and CEO, says, “Assaults on aid workers aren’t exactly random; it’s not about workers being caught up in a given circumstance. . . . Despite of our best efforts to keep our aid impartial and out of power struggles, sometimes warring parties go ahead and define our work by their own politics.”

He continues: “More and more, there’s a willingness by fighting forces to expand their tactics to aid workers. We’re no longer seen as external to the fight. Often times, the best way to take over a piece of land is to drive people out of it, and so, anyone delivering humanitarian assistance and enabling people to stay put is merely obstructing that objective, in some perspectives.”

The Red Cross’s Bernard Barrett says neutrality has long been his organization’s core principle, yet its historical red and white emblem — emblazoned on all T-shirts, tent canopies and vehicles — is too often disregarded. “We invest a lot of time with all the different groups involved in a conflict, whether they be government sources, community organizations, armed forces or even those who may be considered terrorists. We always remind folks of who we are and what we’re doing in order to get security guarantees. . . . But when you’re looking at a given conflict, you’re looking at a situation in which emotions and opinions become polarized. There’s always going to suspicions as to why we’re helping the other guy, and why we’re giving medicine and food to civilians on the other side. It’s frustrating.”

Wariness on the part of some governments also puts aid workers at risk. Gary Kenny, The United Church of Canada’s program co-ordinator for Southern Africa and Emergency Response, says, “Zimbabwe, especially, has been very suspicious of any western intervention or involvement. There’s a conception that NGO members are all spies, trying to undermine African sovereignty. So they watch local aid organizations — those connected to western countries — very carefully. They expel them if they deem it necessary. This is driven not only by one-dimensional or superficial military agendas; it’s born out of post-colonial thinking and an utter sense of desperation. Naturally, [the hostility] in some African countries runs pretty deep.”

Some militaries, including Canada’s, have taken up humanitarian action. On the surface, it’s a laudable effort, but it’s putting aid workers in jeopardy. For example, in Iraq, U.S. soldiers for a time dressed in T-shirts and concealed their weapons in order to distribute food and equipment to local populations. It was a blatant effort to win Iraqi hearts and minds, aid groups say. Exasperating relief workers further, the former U.S. administration went as far as dubbing American NGOs as “force multipliers” for the coalition army — a description that made humanitarian aid appear as an instrument of foreign policy and nothing more.

“(The co-opting of humanitarian aid) has undermined the ability of ours and other humanitarian organizations to address the critical needs of civilian populations,” says John Nduna, the director of Action by Churches Together International, the agency through which United Church does most of its relief work worldwide. In Iraq, ACT has assisted many of the 2.8 million displaced persons, distributed food and hygiene items to thousands of families, and in the most remote and poor areas of the country it has built 25 shelters for highly vulnerable families. “When humanitarian action is used for political or military ends, it only further blurs the lines between military personnel and relief workers. Insurgent groups wanting to strike back at military targets will then strike back at anyone Western-looking. And it’s easier to target an international aid agency; we’re the ones without guns and bombs.”

In light of the increasing risks to relief workers, aid agencies have embarked on a period of self-reflection. There’s no panacea. The situations are as wide-ranging as they are complex. However, one of the solutions, says Nduna, is for the aid sector to come up with new security guidelines and policies for workers. “We’ve had to shift our thinking dramatically in how we prepare our members, so that they can operate safely in hostile environments and continuously provide the assistance that’s so desperately needed. Also, we now exchange information about threats and risks with other organizations more than we ever did before.

While poverty and a lack of opportunity is a problem in war-torn regions, anti-western sentiment remains a major obstacle. The United Church’s Gary Kenny says good public relations is desperately needed moving forward. “You can make some inroads into countries by creating a different impression of the value and need of humanitarian aid. An exceedingly important goal is the employment of local populations at the grassroots level — the basis on which the United Church works. We’re more interested in strengthening the capacity of the people and organizations in which we’re in partnership instead of deploying expatriate personnel.”

Around the world, 96 percent of CARE International’s staff members are from the countries where they work. “It’s about working with local governments, community leaders and religious leaders and being as transparent and accountable as we can,” says McCort. “It’s incumbent on us to demonstrate that we’re not in any country to push an agenda other than ending global poverty.”

Small-time banditry is both a fact of life in many developing countries and a threat that needs to be addressed. Aid groups are taking extra measures to protect themselves: using padlocked gates and surveillance cameras, as well as security staff. Mark Simmons, FAR’s director in Sudan, says showing up in bullet proof flack jackets and helmets — accompanied by military escorts — would only build distance between workers and local populations. For the most part, organizations such FAR are adopting an “invisible” approach, keeping a low profile as they support the work of local partners.

With guarded optimism, foreign aid agencies have quietly redeployed expatriate workers to Iraq following a drop in violence in the country to four-year lows. In an effort stop military forces from co-opting humanitarian aid, many non-governmental organizations are strongly reinforcing their independence by moving their operations away from political and military ones — even toward more rural areas, where they can serve more vulnerable populations in relative peace.

Gone are the days when international aid organizations operated with widely perceived neutrality. But Barrett urges all those who support international aid agencies to keep hoping and to focus on their successes. “In spite of the hijackings and killings of the agencies’ workers, even as the world is pushed to the tipping point, we remain operational,” he says. “We can’t naively think that we’re going to be able to do everything for everyone. We just have to constantly remind ourselves what our specific role is — what we can realistically accomplish. And when in doubt of a particular situation, we have to remember to say ‘no’ rather than put ourselves — and, of course, the long-term mission of our organizations — in danger.”

Originally published in The United Church Observer, June 2009

Could two-tier health care today lead to greater ills tomorrow?
By KEVIN SPURGAITIS

In the early morning hours last July, Cathy Cormier felt the worst abdominal pain of her life — the result of a large gallstone lodged in her common bile duct. In timely fashion, she received a diagnosis and medical treatment at the Halifax Infirmary site of the Capital District Health Authority. But the real problem began when Cormier, who is a nurse herself, needed something that is in short supply in Canadian hospitals these days: an infirmary bed. For two days, Cormier’s was a gurney pushed against the check-in desk of the emergency ward, where according to the Globe and Mail, she and the others were expected to rest until more hospital beds opened up. “Nobody pays attention to you once you are in the hall,” Cormier, 50, sharply told the newspaper upon her release from the hospital. “You are completely on your own.”

In a more shocking case, a homeless man and double amputee died in September after sitting 34 hours in a Winnipeg emergency room. Brian Sinclair’s death was the cause a preventable bladder and abdominal infection, the Winnipeg Free Press reported. All it would have taken to save the 45-year-old’s life was a simple change of his catheter and, of course, antibiotics. But the staff at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre hospital was unable to treat him and, by the time his body was found in the waiting room, it was already stiff from rigor mortis.

The queues for health care across the country have been a common, alarming sight. Access to family doctors and emergency services has worsened over the years partly due to shortages of doctors and space. As a result, Canadians’ faith in a publicly funded health-care system — best known as medicare —has been rudely shaken, leading some to tout a mixed public-private system.

Boosters of this two-tier system, which already exists due to the upspring of specialty clinics, say that increased competition from the private sector would be a cure-all to wait times and would force the public system to be more efficient. It’s the kind of talk that troubles medicare advocates, who view private, for-profit clinics as a threat to the Canadian health system itself. They argue that the outright privatization of health services would actually draw many of the best doctors out of the public system and drive up the wages of medical professionals. They insist it’s not telling of a Just Society that’s supposed to treat sick people equally. But above all else, they say that the current system is already on the mend — so why even try to dismantle it?

Every year, Canadians make 14 million visits to emergency departments, according to Statistics Canada. They frequently call on their family doctors too. In Pollara’s 10th annual Health Care in Canada study, the most comprehensive survey of Canadians’ attitudes on medicare, only 57 percent of respondents recently said that they were receiving quality health care. More than two-thirds agreed that the health-care system needs major repairs or a complete overhaul. However, the national poll also revealed Canadians’ deep conflict about the role of the private sector in health care.

Like it or not, there are now 89 private, for-profit clinics doing surgery, MRIs and CT scans across the country, particularly in British Columbia and Quebec. These “boutique” physician clinics operate in the face of the Canada Health Act (CHA), which ensures universal coverage for medically necessary hospital and physician services, and prohibits private, for-profit health care practices.

Conservative think tanks, such as the Fraser Institute, clearly like the idea. The organization has dismissed the current system as a “single-payer health insurance monopoly” — one that doesn’t cover many advanced medical treatments. It argues that people should be free to buy private health insurance, as they do in countries such as Sweden and Australia.

In 2005, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), the country’s main lobby group for physicians, also adopted a motion supporting access to private-sector health services and private medical insurance in circumstances where patients cannot obtain timely access to care through the single-payer system. CMA’s new president, Dr. Robert Ouellet, has prescribed a mixed public and private health-care system. He told the Globe and Mail last summer that “Canadians must wake up to the key role private health care can play in relieving the country’s ailing public system.”

Ouellet, who runs several private radiology clinics in Quebec, argues that the Canadian health-care costs have quadrupled in the last 20 years; the country’s doctor-to-patient ratio has plummeted; and by 2011, the number of Canadians over 80 will have jumped by 43 percent. In the face of a shortage of operating rooms, he questions the banning of surgeons, who provide 90 percent of their services in a hospital, from performing five to 10 percent of their surgeries in a private clinic.

Retired United Church minister Rev. Bill Jay, who is The United Church of Canada’s health expert, acknowledges that two-tier health care is already here but strongly urges “the need to carefully manage it.”

“Look, everyone can see the inefficiencies of the public system; we’ve all been caught in the aggravation of wait times,” says Jay, who between 2000 and 2008, carried out the church’s health-care advocacy through the Canadian Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Health Care Network, which he co-founded. “But the moment people start paying private premiums, they’re going to want to be exempted from paying for public health services. When doctors, nurses and technicians are poached by private clinics, more health-care practitioners will follow. It could have a siphoning effect.”

To boosters of health-care privatization, Jay puts its bluntly: “Look, you’re likely to scream for a social safety net when your parents begin to have health issues related to aging and they need expensive treatments for cancer and osteoporosis, or when, despite your own physical fitness, some unexpected thing like cancer befalls you.”

The United Church Moderator Rt. Rev. David Giuliano, who has spent the last couple of years undergoing cancer treatment, says “the more we move toward endorsing [private] care, it seems to increase the likelihood that those at the bottom end of the care system will get sub-standard treatment.”

It reminds Giuliano of the separate but equal schools for African Americans in the United States. “I don’t think anyone will tell you that those schools were funded in the same way Anglo-Saxon schools were,” he says. “I can’t imagine the Canadian health-care system won’t go in the same route if we insist that people with their pockets full of money can buy their way out of the system that is intended to serve everybody.”

He continues: “There’s no basis for an argument that rich people should be treated better than poor people in Christianity. From a theological starting point, those who are wealthy and have plenty of resources have a special call to those who don’t. True, we no longer live in a culture where that’s the basis of any argument, but as a church, we need to move out of that reality and lend our voice to the national conversation about health care.”

It’s been more than six years since former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow spoke out on Canada’s health care with the release of a wide-reaching report. His 47 recommendations — which included reorganizing family doctors into teams, computerizing health records and developing a national pharmacare program — were heralded as a blueprint for the 21st century. But up until now, little has been done to act on the report, critics say. Even Romanow, himself, has questioned what his 18-month, $15-million commission has accomplished. He told the Toronto Star that the CHA is “almost becoming a dead letter of the law.”

A major concern now is the “enforceability of the Canada Health Act,” according to Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto. “The law is essentially a floor, not a ceiling,” Deber says. “It says medically necessary services have to be paid for publicly, but it says nothing about how those services need to be delivered.”

She continues: “Your doctor does not work for the government. Your doctor is a small business entrepreneur who only bills the government. . . . When we’re talking about increased privatization of health care, I have doubts about a model that is based on the assumption that people are going to altruistic enough. Think about it, if I’m a venture capitalist in the field of medicine and I have this situation in which people are willing to buy their way to the front of the queue, why would I try to lower the number of people on my wait list?”

While the debate over Canada’ health-care system has carried on, the Conservatives have continued to implement the previous Liberal government’s 10-year $41.3 billion federal-provincial plan to strengthen health care. The federal government’s 2007 budget offered more than $600 million to provinces and territories to encourage them to implement patient wait times guarantees by 2010.

The Health Council of Canada (HCC), created by the 2003 First Ministers’ Accord on Health Care Renewal, has been closely monitoring the country’s progress in health-care reform. HCC interim chief John Abbott says “a number of accords, undoubtedly, are leading to some great things and there are reasons to celebrate.” In October, the council also endorsed the Conference Board of Canada’s report on Canada’s health performance, which gave the country a “B” ranking, placing the country 10th out of 16 countries in health performance. “Sustainability is now the goal to which we believe all of our government stakeholders aspire,” Abbott says. “And it is one that all Canadians will have to work collaboratively to achieve.”

United Church health expert Rev. Bill Jay agrees that much is now being done to reduce wait times for heart and cancer patients, as well as those needing hip and joint surgery, cataract operations or diagnostic tests. Jay continues to represent the church on the board of the Canadian Health Coalition, which aims to safeguard the legacy of the late Tommy Douglas, the Scottish-born Baptist minister who as leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and premier of Saskatchewan introduced universal public health care to Canada.

“[Today’s medicare] still fulfills the vision of its founders: that it would be there when we need it, irrespective of our ability to pay,” he says. “It’s still performing exceedingly well in terms providing necessary medical treatment across the country. . . . Whether you are paying no taxes as a person with a disability or a CEO of a prosperous firm, you have an equal chance of getting prompt treatment.”

But Jay admits that there is plenty of room for improvement, and that much more can be done to accommodate patients such as Cathy Cormier and Brian Sinclair.

“The prescription for Canada’s ailing health care is to fairly allocate existing resources to make sure that the CHA — and the public system as we know it — do not erode through double-dipping,” he says. “This really is an issue that affects all of us and not just the near-do-wells. It’s like the old adage from the Book of Corinthians, ‘If one member suffers, all members suffer together.’”

Originally published in The United Church Observer, February 2009

Bruce Cockburn’s musical career spans 40 years and 26 albums. But his quest for deeper meaning is lifelong.
By KEVIN SPURGAITIS

Bruce Cockburn undercuts his trademark folksiness with a subtle militant edge.

He still sports his signature round-shaped spectacles, the gemstone-encrusted wristband from Peru, among other curios. But these days, Cockburn also flaunts black lace-up boots, cargo pants and a camouflage T-shirt, as well as a pair of gold-studded skull-and-crossbones earrings.

By way of his disposition, the iconic singer-songwriter appears as many things to many people: a deep-hearted mystic, a wayward spirit, a Christian rocker, a strident political activist. To right wing evangelicals, he is a “double agent of the devil.” To the United Church’s Queen’s Theological College in Kingston, Ont., his ability to “reach across the secular-religious divide” is worthy of an honorary doctorate in divinity.

However others may see him, Cockburn, at 63, manages to stay politically and culturally ahead of the curve. His 26 albums — a rare blend of progressive and melodic resonances — add up to an exploration of what it means to be alive, to throw off the shackles of expectations, to traverse the world, to lead an exceptional life. It’s also a brooding and revelatory journey, marked by unflinching observations about human cruelty and survival through faith. Cleary, he’s come a long way since recording his first album almost 40 years ago, but as Cockburn will tell you, he still has a way to go.

It all started for him in Ottawa, Ont., with early stop-offs at Westboro United Church, where the organist helped nurture a budding artistic talent. “Truthfully, when I was old enough to complain about having to wear gray flannels on Sunday, I stopped attending services altogether,” Cockburn admits. But his attraction to the spiritual side of life didn’t end. As he matured, he began to get at it through different avenues, namely Beat writings and Buddhism.

And, for a time, the occult. “In the 1960s, there were a lot of pot-smoking witches around,” he says rather rhapsodically. “I flirted with (black magic) and psychedelic drugs to a degree, but I never got involved in trying to cast spells like other people I knew. . . . They were mostly posers or spiritual seekers, like me, who were trying anything but the orthodoxy that was around us.”

By the mid-1970s, Cockburn had drifted back to Christianity. “It didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t like a bolt from the blue,” he recalls. His religious experiences felt more like little pokes and whispers.

Cockburn’s early work is full of holistic imagery and biblical metaphors. His references to Christianity include the Holy Grail imagery of 20th-century Christian poet Charles Williams and the ideas of liberation theologian Harvey Cox. The spiritual side of his songwriting won him enthusiastic followers among progressive Christians here and in the U.S. Magazines, such as the Christian, social justice journal Sojourners, have long acknowledged the way his activism connects with music audiences. His storytelling has been described as “giving voice to the hearts and consciences of those who care about the fate of their planet and fellow human beings.”

Just don’t call Cockburn a “Christian singer.” Unlike overtly Christian performers, his songs then and now are more mystical than evangelical.

Says Cockburn: “I had slight qualms about the Christian label because I’m not sure it ever applied to me. Not in the conventional sense anyway. Praise musicians use the musical genres of folk, rock, punk — whatever — as propaganda. These particular musicians are supposed to be embarking on the greatest adventure available to people, and yet their music doesn’t express any adventure at all. They’re not explorers.”

Still, his discography is a testament to how his faith has informed his worldview. Often you don’t need to look any further than his albums titles to discern a Christian sensibility: Salt, Sun and Time (1974), Joy Will Find a Way (1975), Nothing but a Burning Light (1991) and The Charity of Night (1996). But it was 1979 when Cockburn made a critical splash in the U.S. with the release of the album Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws. Considered a landmark in acoustic-based pop, it featured intricate, hearty lyrics and guitar work. Wondering Where the Lions Are, the first single from that album, made the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in June 1980.

To Cockburn’s surprise, his 1984 protest song about Nicaragua’s U.S.-backed contra war, If I Had a Rocket Launcher, received more mainstream radio play than any Cockburn song to date, but led many Christian fans in the U.S. to renounce him. Undeterred, he followed up with Call It Democracy, as good a manifesto against globalization as rock music has ever produced. “See the loaded eyes of the children trying to make the best of it the way kids do,” he sings. “One day, you’re going to rise from your habitual feast to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast they call the revolution.”

His songwriting continues to come down hard on American foreign policy, assailing it as “utterly toxic” and responsible for many of the world’s ills, from wars to environmental degradation. In the polemic This is Baghdad, from the 2006 album Life Short Call Now, Cockburn laments: Everything’s broken in the birthplace of law /As Generation Two tries on his tragic flaw /America’s might under desert sun /I saw her frightened eyes behind the muzzle of her gun /uranium dust and the smell of decay sewage in the street /where the kids run and play.

“I’m going to fall back on my own clichés here,” Cockburn says with a rueful smile. “There is a satanic grip on the world. There has been overwhelming death and destruction. If anyone has anything to offer, now is the time to get up and offer it.”

Justice-minded people in church pews will not only find a kindred spirit in his songwriting, but also in the causes he embraces, such as the worldwide effort to ban landmines, peace initiatives in Mozambique and Cambodia, protection of the Amazon rainforest and global food security.

“Bruce has been very generous with his own time and spirit,” says Bernie Finkelstein, Cockburn’s longtime manager. “But he will often talk about how inactive he feels. He’s very hard on himself that way. He has a greater deal of admiration for those who work with NGOs.”

Finkelstein describes Cockburn as an acetate prophet — a modern-day Jeremiah. “This is a guy who wrote If A Tree Falls more than 20 years ago, before most people got onto environmentalism. . . . He just writes about the world he sees instead of trying to compose the perfect pop song.”

Maybe not perfect, but his acoustic-based singles have been highly regarded nevertheless. In March 2001, Cockburn was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and the following year was named an officer of the Order of Canada. He still tours but more recently the venues are less auspicious, such as Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Ala. and Tumbledown Farm Barn in Brookfield, N.H. This past June, he performed in a benefit concert for jailed Native activist Bob Lovelace at Sydenham United in Kingston, Ont., where he currently lives. Cockburn also recently joined Senator Romeo Dallaire, the retired Canadian general who commanded the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, for an evening of song and spoken word in Victoria to support Child Soldiers No More.

Says Finkelstein, “Bruce lives everywhere in the world — in his own mind — although he remains every bit Canadian.”

Cockburn distrusts labels, but if there’s an epithet he can live with, that’s it. “(Being Canadian) actually means something to me. I feel I’m a part of this landscape and it’s a part of me. And if my songs are paid any attention at all — in that light — that’s a good thing.”

“Churchgoer” certainly doesn’t stick, yet Cockburn remains very much a spiritual seeker. “If you go out there shining with the light of God and brimming with love, it will be noticed,” he told the 2007 graduating class at Queen’s Theological College. “A door will be opened for the Spirit to walk through. Whether that Spirit gets discussed in Christian terms or not is not really material. It’s being awake to its presence that counts.”

Leaning awkwardly on a metal folding chair inside Finkelstein’s downtown Toronto office, Cockburn muses on the future. “The quest goes on,” he says with a measure of assuredness and grace. “If I’m to be honest, I really don’t know where my journey is going to lead me, but I do feel it’s going somewhere good.”

Originally published in the United Church Observer, November 2008