The Price of Ignoring the World…
The longest week, almost ever, is over.
It was a great week, just long, culminating in an 18 hour work day filled with events, meeting, amazing programs and dinner. First world problem, right? Having a great day at work, surrounded by people you love and respect.
The whole world isn’t made up of people who care about the needs of others. That was one of the first sad truths I learned as a kid. It’s made up of wonderful people, but interspersed with all of that wonderful are people who are filled with hate – filled with fear. Their entire lives are made up of moments when they could easily do the right thing, but choose to do the most horrific, most life-altering things. They are filled with opportunities to be a good citizen, a father, mother, friend, and neighbor. Instead, they commit violence against anyone who is different – anyone not willing to hide who they are – anyone unafraid to be in a minority.
If, as an adult, you are unaware of what is happening in Uganda, now is the time to stop what you are doing – put aside everything else for just a few minutes and ask yourself how a nation that has experienced freedom can oppose the very basics to people they feel are inferior, namely those who identify as, or are accused of being, homosexual.
The trouble with most of the world, including the United States, is that we look at others with disdain without recognizing that we have the ability to impact every part of this world and that when we choose to turn a blind eye – and that’s what ignoring what we hear or read about is – turning a blind eye – that we are guilty of being everything we say we are against.
Freedom, then – freedom, now:
http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/uganda-and-south-africa-history-of-freedom-compared/
For the past few years, U.S. news outlets have hinted at, or outright reported on, extreme violence against gays and gay-rights supporters in Uganda. On February 25th, a newspaper in Uganda, the ‘Red Pepper’ publicly listed the names of 400 people the newspaper accused of being gay. Earlier in the week, Ugandan president Yoweri Musevini signed a bill outlawing homosexuality, placing a life sentence in prison on anyone accused of ‘repeat’ homosexuality. The bill also requires people to publicly denounce gays.
This, only a couple of months after a man, reported to be gay, was burned alive in front of witnesses, including small children.
Don’t think you have the right to be outraged? You do? Don’t think you have the power to stop this? As a major donor nation to Uganda, part of our ability to make an impact is to demand that any financial assistance to the country is tied to increased education for those who use violence as a way of control and protection to those who most need it.
We like to reference ourselves as a Christian nation – I can’t imagine anyone believes that Christians turn away when anyone is attacked, brutalized and murdered. That seems to be the opposite of Christianity – reducing us to what we say we hate in the world: people who are apathetic.
This story is about homosexuality today. Tomorrow it might be about age, or gender or class. That’s the way hatred works. It doesn’t have boundaries, only steps to getting to the next thing someone is against.
We can all look around the world and across history to see that this story has a beginning – more than likely we chose to ignore it. It has an end, but we still have the ability to change that.
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