It’s with nice unhappiness that we announce the dying of Virginia Luling, Survival volunteer 1969-1989, Africa Case Officer 1989-2004, a ‘nice soldier of human rights’.
Obituary by Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry
‘Bourgeois Anglo-American’ was how Virginia described herself in a sometimes self-effacing method. It couldn’t be much less revealing a few lady whose life was characterised by a deep internationalism, altruism, self-sacrifice, and ego-less humility.
As a PhD pupil in anthropology, Virginia was one of many very first individuals to grow to be concerned with Survival after its launch in 1969. For ten years, she loyally ran the Surrey Native Group, modestly describing her fundraising as ‘largely organising jumble gross sales’. Having already given us a few years of voluntary work – six of them enhancing our publication – Virginia steadily moved onto the workers, lastly accepting a place as Africa Case Officer in the direction of the tip of the Nineteen Eighties. Till she retired in 2004, her years had been peppered with area journeys, all the time carried out with fortitude and gusto, invariably on the thinnest of shoestrings, utilizing the most affordable potential native transport and lodging (or none!). It was Virginia who undertook the primary Survival go to to the Botswana Bushmen, later to outline a lot of our work within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s. Her first evening within the Kalahari was spent sleeping soundly below the celebrities subsequent to the damaged automobile leaving her Bushmen companions huddled inside, out of attain of marauding lions!
Ogiek tribespeople in Kenya say they are going to perpetually bear in mind her for her function in constructing the community of human rights activists that might ultimately grow to be the Ogiek Welfare Council. Within the phrases of their tribute to her on her retirement, ‘Your contribution to our success is immeasurable.’
Virginia can be credited for gathering among the best quotes about Survival from a tribal particular person wherever: a tribesman from Tanzania advised her, referring to our new emblem, ‘Each time I see these massive fingers, I really feel glad.’
A visit to Ethiopia within the Nineteen Eighties to analyze allegations of a large-scale authorities programme of compelled resettlement would have yielded few outcomes for these with much less resolve and ingenuity, however Virginia noticed by her authorities screens and printed a number of damning reviews which introduced the scandal to the world’s consideration.
It’s for her work within the Horn of Africa that she is maybe finest recognized exterior Survival. Her fieldwork in Afgooye, Somalia, and Ethiopia’s Oromo area at first of her profession sparked a lifelong affiliation with the realm, whose peoples and conflicts had been all the time along with her. Virginia was secretary of the Anglo-Somali Society, and – as an knowledgeable on clan provenance in Southern Somalia and a Somali-speaker – she supplied knowledgeable testimony and reviews for lots of of asylum circumstances. She was additionally closely concerned with the Oromo Reduction Affiliation for many years, and supported Oromo refugee youngsters in Kenya to go to highschool.
In addition to the dedication and dedication Virginia confirmed in the direction of tribal peoples, she nonetheless discovered time for different pursuits. Rising up with a novelist mom, Sylvia Luling (née Thompson), and an artist father, Virginia had many literary connections, and was herself a superb author. In addition to her thesis, ‘Colonial and post-colonial influences on a southern Somali group’, she had many works printed, together with a collection of youngsters’s books (Surviving Peoples) and dozens of papers and essays on Somalia. Her first diploma was in English language and literature, and, having studied below JRR Tolkien, she was energetic within the Tolkien Society. Her paper for the centenary convention, ‘An Anthropologist in Center-Earth’, analysed his works as a imaginative and prescient of an un-Westernised Europe and was characteristically witty.
Virginia was not all the time fairly as trendy and forward of her time as she was in her appreciation of Center-Earth, as she can be the primary to confess. When requested by a Bushman for her opinions on the O.J. Simpson trial she needed to enquire as to who he was; and on listening to in a gathering that Survival was utilizing a ‘fulfilment home’ (the place catalogue items are packed and despatched to supporters), she exclaimed, ‘I don’t know what a fulfilment home is, however it sounds fantastic!’
Her uncanny means to seem to nod off in significantly boring conferences, after which abruptly awake and interject instantly and completely appropriately, was the envy of us all (significantly extra so than was her motley pooch ‘Stubbs’ who, having grown so decrepit with age that he couldn’t be left at residence, was lastly compelled to accompany Virginia to the workplace to, probably, his personal dismay, and ours as properly).
I’ve lengthy maintained that Virginia is the one particular person in Survival’s first 44 years to whom the organisation is really indebted, and I’m grateful to have had the prospect lastly to inform her so, and to say my goodbyes simply earlier than she left London for the final time. She was totally selfless, and unwavering in her dedication to tribal peoples within the face of adversity. Sure Asian traditions outline the sort of particular person as ‘bodhisattva’. For sure, Virginia would have been astonished on the epithet, and never acknowledged it for one second. However she was – and it was definitely a privilege and an honour to know her.
A gaggle of Oromo buddies drove England’s size in a employed minibus to go to her shortly earlier than she died. Imbued with a quiet grit and willpower, Virginia confronted her last sickness with the identical braveness, dignity and fortitude that she confronted gun-toting Somali warlords, African dictatorships and Kalahari lions.
Survival has given her title to a rolling internship place to encourage younger campaigners to comply with in her big footsteps. She is not going to be forgotten.
Survival workers and committee members ship their deepest condolences to her household.
A number of tributes from the sector
It was not a straightforward job altogether to have fought so bravely to revive confidence to the a lot oppressed Ogiek in late 90s throughout the period of dictatorship.
We will dearly miss her as our mentor … who by no means left any stone unturned within the pursuit of human rights. Could almighty God relaxation her soul in everlasting peace. We will dwell perpetually to recollect her.
Joseph Sang, Ogiek
I want convey our heartfelt condolences for the nice soldier of human rights. Ogiek peoples will all the time bear in mind her due to her humility and as a fighter for Indigenous peoples.
Could the almighty God save her soul.
Daniel Kobei, Ogiek
I’m sorry to listen to about Virginia and ship condolences from the Bushman of the CKGR. We’re in mourning along with her household.
Jumanda Gakelebone, Bushman
We’ve heard of the passing of Virginia Luling. This can be a nice loss to African Indigenous peoples, the human rights group, little doubt to all of you who labored along with her at Survival, and her household.
Please settle for our most profound condolences.
Nigel Crawhall, Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee
Virginia Luling Internship
You may donate on-line to the Virginia Luling Internship
