Raising a voice for simple decency
This post is not about art. It is not about writing. Today I want to talk about standing up for decency and simple human kindness.
I am not an activist. My voice is not nearly powerful enough and my thoughts turn into a bundle of tangled streams of consciousness when I get emotional about things. I have the deepest respect for those who risk their lives and reputations by standing up for causes, but I have never felt able to join them. All I have been able to do is give what I can where I can and try to share the far more eloquent voices of others.
But I find myself needing to say something now. I am angry. I am so very very angry that so many of us are choosing to continue to remain silent about the injustices that are going on in the world. It's not that I don't understand why people stay silent. I do understand. It is so much easier to dissociate from things that make us feel uncomfortable. The internet allows us to find information about everything under the sun and can connect people like never before, but it also gives us the option of opting out. What we often fail to acknowledge is that opting out is a privilege. Staying quiet is a luxury.
The bullies of geopolitics are winning. Our governments are letting us down. War rages on on multiple fronts. All across the world children are dying. Innocent people are dying. Our hearts should all be breaking. I know mine is. But, I repeat, I understand why people choose not to look. Unless the problem is in our backyard, it's so easy to turn a blind eye.
When I was a kid I was taught to treat others as I would wish to be treated. I was taught to turn the other cheek if someone said something I didn't like. I was raised to believe that all humans were equal. I believed that all people on the planet were raised the same way. Then I came face to face with apartheid in South Africa. It was very confusing at four years old to be told in Sunday school that all people are equal in the eyes of the creator, but Sipho is not allowed to come to church with you because he is black. I didn't want to go to Sunday school after that. Sipho was my friend. We played together everyday. If the church wouldn't let him in then I didn't want to be there either.
As I grew older I learned more and more about religions and ideologies and their double standards. The more I learned the more I realised that the narratives taught in history books and spread about through media and entertainment never really dealt in facts and that 'truth’ is a matter of perspective; a very Eurocentric perspective. Despite this, I have still felt an inadequacy in being able to stand up for what was clearly an injustice. Sure, I have attended the odd demonstration, if it is conveniently within walking distance, and I sign the petitions and donate to the charities. But all of that can be done from the comfort of my couch. I can click a few buttons and then go and make a cup of tea.
It is not lost on me that this post is pretty much the same thing. I am sitting in my warm house in my prosperous country of residence whose history has a number of dark spots and whose government is ‘busy with elections so let's not talk about Gaza right now’. I do not have a large following. My influence is scant at best. But if at least one person reads this and raises a voice too, then that will be one more.
As the philosopher John Stuart Mill stated in 1867, “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
We need to stop letting the bullies silence us. We need to stand up and say STOP.