INEXPLICABLE FREEDOM: RIDING ON THE SACRIFICIAL SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

I am quite conscious of my thoughts.  That would not be news to some people who know me well.  I think this is probably the reason why I decided from a young age that I would be a teetotaler – because it was important to me that I always maintain cognizance of my thoughts, and consciousness of my environment.  Something is different now, however.  If thoughts are ever categorized in layers, I am now much more conscious of those layers and the categories into which my thoughts fall.  As a cautionary note, this is not to be taken as an introduction to, or an invitation to engage in an exploration or speculations about the workings of my mind.  Believe me, such an effort would be tantamount to a royal waste of time.  Indeed, it would be akin to the proverbial chasing of shadows.

As I have been thinking and writing lately about love, hate and my relationship with God, I have also found myself wondering why I am a free man.  Why, for example, am I not in prison when through much of my life I have lived in violation of behaviors and rules that were considered normative at various points in my lifetime?  Why am I not being persecuted for anything when so many people in the same world in which I live are being persecuted and even killed for their religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and/or political affiliation?  Why am I even alive when so many die even before they get to experience life to its optimal extent?  I am content with the fact that I may never know the answers to these and similar questions.  I am also sufficiently self-aware that the reason why I am not in prison or even under arrest is not because I am perfect or because I am a better man than most who have faced persecution and/or are either in prison or dead.  Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Fela Kuti, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali had records of arrest in their lifetimes but each of them left imprints of an oversized life that was magnified by the fact that he, like all in that group, rose to take up a cause greater than himself.  Even among the living, we know of men and women like Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (to name a few) - all individuals who experienced arrests as they stood up against powerful forces and fought for social justice. 

There are many reasons why I could be arrested, imprisoned or dead - but I am not.  In a world in which being black in a racially heterogeneous society can be the impetus for an arrest or even death, I am guilty of the “offence” of being black.  Yet, I am a free man.  At the same time, it is impossible to wipe off my memory the images of people like me being chased by dogs and beaten by the police; or of Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders getting arrested, humiliated and in many cases killed just so that people like me could be where I am today.  In a world in which many people still regard interracial marriages as the wrong thing to do, and where many churches still refuse to marry interracial couples or do so grudgingly, I cannot forget the persecution and struggle of Mr. and Mrs. Loving whose plight was taken up by Robert F. Kennedy, leading the United States Supreme Court to legalize interracial marriages in 1967.  That was not a very long time ago.  Thanks to that important piece of history, interracial couples in the United States no longer live under the threat of legal arrest and/or prosecution.  Any honest Christian knows that many portions of the Bible support slavery but there is widespread agreement that abolishing slavery in our society was the right thing to do.  Yet, I am concerned that so many of us use the same Bible now to condemn others who do not do exactly what we do – just in the same way that the Bible was used to justify slavery and opposition to interracial marriages.  Perhaps I should wonder how many people of my faith ever ask themselves how we came about this Bible that we read and believe in.  How many know that many people were killed between the 12^th and 16^th Centuries just for trying to translate the Bible before the first translation of the Bible was authorized?  Now, there are myriad translations of the Bible and I am free to read any of my choice without fear of persecution, arrest or imprisonment.  Yet, in this same world, people are being persecuted daily for their religion, and even members of the same family or community persecute one another because they are members of different denominations of the same religion.  

When any of us uses the Holy Book of our religion as a cudgel to whip others who we disagree with because we have determined that they are sinners, we become present-day persecutors and deny both the humanity of our brothers and sisters and the existence and power of grace.  When we do that, we actually suggest by our deeds that others are unworthy of love, liberty or even life because we are perfect and they are not like us.  No human has the authority to assume the mantle of authority and judgment, which belongs in the exclusive domain of the Almighty.  No man has the authority to be judge, jury and executioner over a fellow man.  Everyone of us who now lives in freedom owes his/her life and freedom to many giants who fought, suffered and/or died to make us free.  Our job is to use their gift to make others free and the best way to do that is not through conflict and hatred but by turning our societies into communities of love and peace.  We are not truly free until we stand against the implicit and explicit suppression of those who may not look like us, love like us or worship like us.  I am conscious of the fact that my freedom is a product of the work of others who fought and died that I might have freedom.  They did so without even knowing me, my religion or my race.  I am therefore propelled by a desire keep running the race that I run in the hope that one day when my time in this body is fully spent, it will be said of me that I also fought the good fight.  To all who currently face persecution for any reason, I say this: If history is anything to go by, please remain strong and hopeful.  It will get better.

THE ABSENCE OF JUSTICE - BY PAUL INYANG

 Paul Inyang, MD. USA

Years ago on a cold winter afternoon, in the great city of Washington DC, I was stopped by a police officer who happened to be white. He ordered me out of my “hoopty” (a ragged old car). I stepped out of the car but it was so cold and I felt like warming my hands—so I attempted to put them in my coat pockets. It was almost a fatal mistake—by the grace of God my life was spared because I responded quickly to the click of the gun. I certainly would have been a statistic. In one... instant life would have changed for me. What upset me most was that my offence was simply backing into the road, which in itself is dangerous but nowhere near being shot. I and many people of color have encountered these scenarios many times. There are colloquial phrases for this, such as “driving while black” (if I am right). Watch out if you are in a decent car—black folks are not supposed to drive those things.

Of course, one cannot compare this to recent incidents especially the one we have just witnessed that ended with the loss of the life of a young man, who was simply driving. His major offence and possibly the only one that ended his life--was being black. The pundits will over-analyze the situation, with a multiplicity of explanations. The defense will be the same—that the officer felt his life was threatened, despite evidence to the contrary—thank God for the courageous act of video-taping by his lady. Not much has changed—has it? People of color and young black males are being killed in the greatest nation this world has ever known—unjustly. There will be great hoopla and the beat will go on.

One of the greatest signs of youthfulness, is healthy defiance. It happens in every community but is handled differently in the black communities. The outcomes are surely different, as demonstrated in many available videos. Although, we must teach our youth how to respond and act appropriately in these instances but why the selective prosecution of our children? If a crime was committed, is there no wait time for the courts to reach some conclusion with due process? Their lives are simply snuffed out like animals. Why are incidents like these, which as we have all seen did not involve any defiant act, treated so differently in our communities? Why have they become so rampant? What has changed? As a people of conscience, how can we accept this outcome as the norm? Notice the nonchalance of the officers who are simply standing around watching this ugly incident transpire. Where were the paramedics? There was no urgency in responding to the wounding and eventual death of this young man.

We cannot allow this to go on anymore. The lives of our children are at stake. This is totally unacceptable—we must all join the quest for justice not only for this family but for our own very children. Please help—get involved!

ICONIC ELIE WIESEL: A LIFE OF CHARACTER AND GRACE COMES TO AN END

Elie Wiesel, 1928-2016

Once in a while, I am reminded of some words that I wrote in my private journal in February 1984.  "I am not given to finding heroes in men", I had written, "because no sooner had you made a hero of a man than he disappoint you with his negative ways of which it is hardly possible be proud".  That was consistent with the principle by which I had lived for much of my conscious life until that point, and definitely since then.  I have never had a strong longing to meet a famous person because I am less interested in associating with any man's fame than I am in the stories of their humanity and charity. Mr. Elie Wiesel had fame but it was his humanity that made him famous.  I could have wished to meet him and I would most definitely have loved to sit and hear him tell some of the stories of his life.  But I knew some things about his life because he gave so much of himself.                                             

Sometime in the early nineties, I came across the following words written and spoken by Elie Wiesel: “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them”. Inspired, I cut the quote out of the New York Times, laminated and kept it in a permanent place in my home while I kept a copy in my office.  To this day, the cut-out quote remains in my home and office to remind me constantly of   the spirit and grace of a man who endured pain and still loved, and of my responsibility to always remember and remind others of the forces of love and hate that reside in the human mind, as well as the potentially destructive power of arrogance that lies within the human spirit.  For many years to come, I would refer to Mr. Wiesel's words in various lectures that I would give within and outside the United States.  

A Holocaust survivor, Mr. Wiesel chose love over hate, humility over arrogance, peace over war, forgiveness over grudge, and embrace over rejection.  He was a Nobel Peace Prize winner who understood the value of that honor but never rested on his laurels.  So he woke up everyday showing us by his words and deeds that he had a continuing responsibility to make this a better world, and to help us all to be more loving in our dealings with others.  He stood against all forms of discrimination and worked hard to ensure that people were defined as human rather than by their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.  

While introducing President Obama in a ceremony at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Buchenwald, Germany on June 5, 2009, Mr. Wiesel said: "Mr. President, I have high hopes for you.  Be able, be compelled to change the world into a better place where people will stop waging war. Every war is absurd and meaningless.  We need a world where people will stop hating one another, where people hate the otherness of the other rather than respect it..."  At the age of 87, Mr. Wiesel died today without seeing that world, but he left the rest of us who continue to live after him to work with as much zest as we can muster to stamp out hate in our world.  Now I wish I had met him before he died.  I wish I had the opportunity to assure him that I am doing my part in the fight against hate and injustice.  I wish I could have told him that I would fight that fight until I breathe my last breath.  I loved him without knowing him personally and now I thank him posthumously for sharing his life's story in his quest to make this a better world in which humanity can be saved from itself.  I thank God for blessing this world with Elie Wiesel, knowing as I do that he was a rare gift to an ungrateful amnesic world that has so far learned very little, if anything, from the consequences of wickedness.

Today and always, Mr. Wiesel, rest in perfect peace.  Your work is done.  May your rest be eternally beautiful.