“This one goes to Emma McCune, Angel to the rescue one afternoon” — Emmanuel Jal from his 2008 song titled “Emma”
It’s estimated that 10,000 child soldiers took part in the Sudanese civil war in during the 1980s. Emmanuel Jal was one of them. Now in his mid-30s, he’s made a career sharing his journey through a unique mix of hip-hop music and storytelling. One chapter is about Emma McCune, a young British aid worker who adopted him. McCune hasn’t seen Jal’s rise to fame because she died more than 25 years ago. But that she continues to guide his life is proof that angels do exist.
Jal has been bringing his act to schools throughout the U.S. and Canada for the past several years. And week after next, he’ll be in Juneau performing in our high schools. After that, he’ll be doing a public performance at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center.
A decade ago, Jal came to America looking for help to end the Darfur genocide being carried out by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He spoke to members of Congress but learned the Bush administration was turning a blind eye to al-Bashir’s atrocities because he had been cooperating with them on the war on terror.
That’s when Jal realized governments never solve anything until the people rise up and demand it. So he redirected his energy in hopes of touching the hearts of ordinary citizens through his story and music.
I first learned about Jal when a friend sent me a link to the YouTube video of his song titled “We Want Peace.” I’m not a fan of hip-hop or rap music. But this song was something different. It’s upbeat. The chorus is a soothing harmony which calls “on the whole wide world” to help him “scream and shout” for peace. And it ended with cameo appearances by Nobel Peace Prize winners Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan.
The song became the kickoff to Jal’s We Want Peace Campaign. Its goal is “to raise awareness on the fundamental principles of justice, equality and freedom for all.” But it wasn’t until I arranged an interview with him for a radio show last fall that I realized he’s so much more than a musical peace activist.
Just before we spoke, Jal had toured Canada with Australian singer-songwriter Xavier Rudd to raise money for his Gua Africa foundation. It’s dedicated to promoting peace through education. He believes it’s the key to taming the violence that took his mother’s life and cost him most of his childhood. Along with awarding academic sponsorships to war survivors and refugees, it helps to construct classrooms, purchase schoolbooks and fund teacher salaries.
In a different way, Jal is walking the same path as McCune. She fought tirelessly against the wars in the Sudan and campaigned to end the practice of employing child soldiers. Eventually she recused more than 150 from that bondage.
Jal wasn’t one of them. McCune found him after he had escaped the soldiers’ camp with a few hundred other young boys and wandered the countryside for months. Most of them died during that tortuous ordeal.
“What would I be, if Emma didn’t recuse me,” Jal asks in his song. He answers the question with these possibilities.
“I would have probably died from starvation
Or some other wretched disease
I would have grown up with no education
Just another refugee.”
But Jal is alive to tell his story because McCune “cared” and “dared.” She smuggled him out of the Sudan to Kenya so he could have the chance of getting a good education.
“Angels sometimes appear in the guise of humans,” best-selling author Thomas Moore tells us in his book The Soul’s Religion. And he says musicians can only produce certain work through the meditation of angels. “The artist’s muse is an angel by another name,” he says. “Whether you allow its presence or not, it will be there, but if you don’t allow it, it may not be friendly.”
Jal’s angel is definitely friendly. She’s guided him to a successful singer/songwriter career with five albums to his credit. There’s a full length documentary about his life. And he appeared with Reese Witherspoon in the Hollywood Film “The Good Lie.”
But fame and fortune isn’t what drives Jal. “After you make all the money you can buy everything you want,” he told me last fall. “But life becomes disgusting when you don’t have a purpose.” He described that as “unconditional giving, self-sacrifice, to a greater cause.” He hopes by using his music in that way he’ll be an angel someday. And he sings, “If I am I wanna be like Emma McCune.”
• Rich Moniak is a retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.
