What is your take on this article? Do you have hope toward a better world? Are you working toward it? What are you doing? If not, why not?
_________________________________________________________________________
Fortunately, a bubble can only burst once. Or can it? I blew up a balloon for my son, Noah River. It was long and stringy, the type a balloon artist would use to create the wheels of an inflated car. We played balloon volleyball with it, tossing it about and watching as it bounced off cabinets, eventually landing on the point of a fork. Then boom! It burst.
I picked it up to see if the shredded balloon might be salvaged. A little boy wanted the balloon to be awake again. Eventually, I succeeded in creating another balloon, albeit a smaller one with shreds of rubber hanging off of it.
Noah and I tossed it about again, hoping for a repeat of its former agility and liveliness. But alas! The new balloon flew, bounced and then quickly torpedoed downward rolling awkwardly and tiredly along the floor looking to forgo its responsibilities as a balloon.
Soon enough, it burst again – for a second time. Noah was again disappointed.
After the Holocaust, a depression took hold of the Jewish People as it did much of the world. Six million of our people were murdered, homosexuals were executed, the physically handicapped, the Roma, Soviets, Poles and German underground fighters were beaten and slaughtered. Millions were dead. Many unmarked graves, ugly holes in the cold floor of our earth, welcomed these poor spirits.
Humankind was devastated. With the death of so many, our bubble of hope exploded wildly, and oxygen of grief splattered all over the world.
Soon though, it inflated again – our hope bubble did – and humankind uttered, “Never again,” allowing for a positive transformation and an invigorated belief in the possibility of civility and peace. Something inside of us understood we had to stymie the activities of the wicked – the Hamans – and we could no longer let murder en masse happen.
Then came Mao Zedong and the 50 million murdered in China. Then came Pol Pot in Cambodia and 1.7 million murdered. Then Menghistu in Ethiopia and a million dead. Then Joseph Savimbi in Angola, Idi Amin in Uganda and Charles Taylor in Liberia. Then the Balkans. Then Rwanda. Then the Iran/Iraq war. Then the Congo. Then Darfur.
Burst!
Darfur. Fracture, rupture… bust!
Explode.
Never again – words.
With all the activism, monies and helicopters committed to the well-being of Darfur’s men, women and children, Esther never made it into Achashverosh’s court. Darfur is lost. “Never again” is in shambles. What happened?
Jan Pronk, the former head of the United Nations mission in Sudan, said the country had realized it could “get away with anything.” That’s what happened.
Sudan, like Al Capone in the roaring ’20s, and like Iran today, knew it could do what it wanted, when it wanted. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan laughed at petitions, UN resolutions and words like “unacceptable,” “genocide,” “must stop” – just like Pol Pot of Cambodia who couldn’t care about protesters. We, the people, were letting them feast on blood, and they ate heartily.
Refill that balloon.
The only way to stop the next genocide – and there will be another – is for all good people and all “good governments” to fight the enemy hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye, brain-to-brain, and not simply rely on embassy marches.
Like Mordechai and Esther, we need to grab Haman, tie him down forever – and always and recognize evil where it stands and courageously counter it.
How tragic that a balloon can burst twice. Yet with all this bursting, we’ll blow it up again – because humankind craves hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment