remembering well

Do you know who this is? I'm afraid most of my audience will have no idea, although there are some hints in the photo, which I found on a website dedicated to remembering him. This is the man most of us recognize only in orange coveralls, kneeling next to his murderer. That is the image we have seen and still see every time the news covers the horrors of ISIL. I wish that would stop. I wish we'd remember photos of the real Jim.

James Foley was a remarkable journalist and brave human being. Most of his work was behind the camera, so he wasn't very much in the picture. He deserves better than for all of us to remember him only the way he looked in his final moments, after being broken and dehumanized. He was a man who cared about the stories he told and the people he met. People in war zones and terror-struck times of their lives. He died because he had the courage to go where most of us would rather watch from far off (at a distance of preferably about half a globe!).

Source: http://freejamesfoley.org/

Amnesty

I remember being 15 and passing through the airport at Washington D.C. I saw a coloured man being taken away by border police. Handcuffed, carried by his hands and feet, struggling, shouting: “I am not a criminal!”

I believed him instantly. He may have been carrying drugs or arms. I don’t know. It is likely that his ‘crime’ had been passing through the airport as an illegal immigrant.

I was reminded of this incident by the campaign slogan of Amnesty International right now in Holland. It translates to: “I am deeply ashamed”…and I feel embarrassed as I did at 15. I like to think we are more humane in Europe. I like to think we all remember that we are only lucky to have been born free and safe.

I read the story of Sita Tumba and her brother Hans (a Dutch name as his father had moved to Holland by the time that Hans was born). They come from a country where her mother was taken by rebels from Rwanda. I have read about the Democratic Republic of Congo. ‘Democratic republic’ sounds lovely, but there are many villages where every woman knows exactly what it’s like to be raped.

Do we welcome those who have fled from war torn situations? Do we tell them they are safe now? No, we put them in cells where they are reminded that no one has ever respected them as a person. They are body-searched, turned upside down to make sure they do not harm themselves physically as we are about to once again harm their souls. Their lives are put on a hold as we try to determine whether they would continue breathing if they were to be sent back to their traumatic beginnings.

the devil came on horseback

400,000 dead, women raped and branded outside their camps, men killed or castrated or burnt in their villages, children traumatized and orphaned.

This is life in Darfur. This is death in Darfur. It’s hard to tell the difference.

I happened to be in Holland to see “Tot zover Darfur” (“Darfur thus far”), which included a series of documentaries and interviews on the subject of this region in Sudan.

Brian Steidle was an American Marine who became an eyewitness the the genocide in Darfur. He thought America would come to the rescue within a week of his photo’s reaching the West. But nothing happened. He resigned and thought of other ways to rouse awareness. Now we can see his pictures in the movie “The devil came on horseback”. This title refers to the Janjaweed, the government-trained militias which are bringing about a holocaust in Darfur. The name means “devil on a horse, with a gun”.

Meanwhile China is pouring oilmoney into Sudan, helping the government to finance the killing of the non-Arab Darfuri. And we are happily going to celebrate the Summer Olympics of 2008 in Beijing?! They say the Olympics have nothing to do with politics, so it doesn’t make a difference.

Our banks are investing their money in Chinese oil companies and other dubious firms. Have a look on www.bankgeheimen.be to see what your bank’s investing in. I found my bank there and I didn’t like it. Even if only part of this is true, each of us is playing some part in financing activities that violate human rights.

That makes us all guilty, but you don’t need to know about it if you don’t want to.

This isn’t meant to be a sentimental entry to make you feel guilty. I write this merely because I know that I am guilty...guilty first of all of being apathatic. You may have no responsibility until you see, but you must look!

Perhaps one crisis in this world will then catch your eye and perhaps you will act. You will surely feel like a drop in the ocean (yes, I’m still with this drop), but the other drop you touch will be grateful to have company.

And the reason that this makes a difference, I believe, is that God created the ocean.