Bella Online
May 1 2005
Sandy Mullins
BellaOnline’s Baha’i Editor
What if….
What if the children of the world were born without prejudice? They
are! That is an upcoming ad that will be played all over the U.S. by
the American Baha’is.
We sat today and watched a movie that I must admit brought me to
tears and anger. `Sometimes in April’. What we do to each other in
the name of God, righteousness or any other reason can sometimes be
just plan wrong. I imagined myself of either side of the Rwandans, I
imagined myself a mother, a young girl, I imagined myself as a
Baha’i. Would I have the strength and courage to hide out victims?
I must say, it brought me to tears my heart ached and my throat held
back screams. This movie brought so clear the strife that went on in
Rwanda for one of the darkest periods in world history. I was one of
the many people that knew only a little of what happened back in
1994. You hear of political strife, you hear of governments being
overthrown, but you can never imagine what the people of Rwanda went
through.
I remember a young man that I had the pleasure of knowing shortly
after this period. He and I both worked at the same place. I will
leave the names of the place and his due to know I understand just a
little of what he must have been hiding. I knew that he was a refuge
and he would never share anything of his homeland. I also knew that
as a Baha’i the look of refuges who were fleeing persecution for
religion or just being the wrong nationality.
By day 100, over an estimated 800,000 people were killed, in an
effort to eradicate their existence. Genocide is and can be a very
brutal word that we have to eliminate from humanities vocabulary.
Whether it was in America with the Native Americans, in Europe back
in the period of WW2 of Jews, in Armenia 90 years ago, Ethiopia,
Sudan, Cambodia, China, Aborigines in Australia, Hiroshima, Slovenia
Yugoslavia, deportation of 478,000 Checkens and Ingushis from Soviet
Caucasus, Guatemala, Columbia, Brazil, and Iraq were just a few of
the genocides that have been a part of the world’s dark history.
You are sitting there reading this and wonder what can I do? Well, my
answer is this first become more aware of how you think about things.
Do you know the true history of an event in history or just the way
it has been whitewashed? Do you have any prejudices, whether it is
bold or just a small misunderstanding of the group as a whole? Do you
stand up when an injustice happens or leave it to somebody else to
take care of? Or do you take a stand?
No, we as one person can’t save the world, but by joining together
and taking a stand for injustice whether it is in your corner of the
universe or around the world we can! Sometimes, the little things
make the difference and sometimes it’s the big thing. So I ask you,
what can you do today? Me it was bringing the movie `Sometimes in
April’ and a few of humanities darker moments to your eyes. Tomorrow
who knows . . .