The Long, Arduous Trek To Social Justice

Recently, I stumbled on my first-ever published work, South Africa’s Bondage Ties Us All.  Written and published in a local newspaper in 1989, I argued in that short article that none of us was truly free for as long as South African Blacks remained subjected to the bondage of apartheid. 

When I wrote that article, South Africa was paramount in my mind.  I had become increasingly bothered by the fact that leaders of countries were paying lip service to the concept of freedom as they promoted that idea around the world while actively helping the South African government to sustain its apartheid policy.  I was also angered by the fact that some preachers of my faith were boldly saying on Christian television that South Africa's apartheid regime was God's will and that black South Africans were the cause of their own oppression.  In retrospect, I feel that in my disappointment and intense desire for change in South Africa, I did not look beyond the plight of black people in South Africa to consider the potential that so many in our world would still be subjected to so many forms of social injustice long after Blacks in South Africa became free.  However, I recall that I looked sufficiently far back in history and knew enough about oppressed groups to be able to say in that article that it would only be a question of time before the black people of South Africa became free because oppression in that form was hardly sustainable in an increasingly connected world. 

Well, South African Blacks did become free but injustice continues to survive in increasingly diverse forms around the world.  Also, its varied complexion and multiplicity of forms now make it more difficult to hope for a world devoid of injustice.  That would be a world in which we all recognize that we are not truly free when some of our brothers and sisters are in chains; a world in which some among us do not have to prove themselves to be accepted just because of their pigmentation; a world in which people who possess the same credentials and perform comparable tasks are remunerated equally despite their gender; a world in which people are not judged and condemned because of who they love; a world in which people's freedom of movement is not curtailed just because of what they look like; a world in which people are not profiled for punishment just because they do not come from the dominant socioeconomic class or culture; a world in which we accept our responsibility to care for the sick among us rather than subject that responsibility to heartless political debates; a world in which all are truly equal in the application of law just as we all are in the eyes of God.  Simply, that is the world that we need but it is not the world that we have – and the chances that we will ever have such a world are increasingly diminishing by the day.  We should never claim to live in a just society (or world) if any among us remains a victim of social injustice. 

       

I am inclined to believe that our world will get better because more and more of us will embrace and work for social justice.  Yet, even if I had a crystal ball, I would still consider it foolhardy to make such a pronouncement.  Instead, here is what I can say for sure: The trek toward social justice is long, difficult and sometimes a hopeless journey but there is no guarantee that the destination can ever be reached.  I believe, however, that we can make this a more just world if each of us plays his/her part.  It would require that we join our hearts and hands, raise our voices on behalf of the voiceless, march against injustice on behalf of ourselves and those who cannot march on their own behalf, and lift those in our midst who need a helping hand.  If we give hope to the hopeless, help to the helpless, water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, empower the powerless and not only talk but live the gospel of social justice, then we make it possible for ourselves and those who come after us to hope for a world in which we can convincingly say and believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King did, that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.  

The Ghosts of Our Fathers

As a young man, I thought that the idea that our actions out-lived us and were capable of potentially impacting the people and society that we left behind was uniquely African.  Then I read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at age 14 and knew instantly that the words of Mark Antony's speech at Caeser’s funeral might never leave me.  To this day, I see images of Mark Antony standing before the audience and expressing as follows:

Friends, Romans, countrymen

Lend me your ears

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 

The evil that men do lives after them; 

The good is oft interred with their bones;  

So let it be with Caesar.

Certainly, the meaning of these words continue to play out daily in the lives of men and women, as good deeds are often forgotten in man's insatiable appetite to glorify self and praise his/her benefactor for today's gifts while wasting no time to verbally assault the name of the same benefactor for tomorrow's inability to provide.  To me. however, Mark Antony's words on that fateful day were, and remain a lesson that the idea of life's continuation beyond death is not uniquely African.  Had I not learned this lesson at that age, I would have had to learn it at my father's funeral service many years later when the preacher declared: "Venerable Archdeacon Jonathan Oni Eseleh lived a life of righteousness and will forever be an example for all of us.  He lived his life helping others and serving His maker with humility and grace".  Then, echoing Ezekiel 18 verse 2, the preacher continued; "Therefore, it will never be said of his children that "...The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge".  Here in a religion older than Julius Caeser was an acknowledgment of the potential impact of our actions on our children even long after we are gone. Well, I was not expecting any more of this lesson when I chose to become a psychotherapist.  So, needless to say that I was pleasantly surprised to learn as a graduate student, that solidly grounded in research and practice knowledge was a very sound articulation of the position of multi-generational processes in human development, behavior, treatment and wellness.

If we take the time to look very closely around the world, we can see the impact of the works of our fathers on the societies that they left behind.  Leaders and citizens of successful societies always maintain a consciousness of history and do their best to stay close to the foundations and guiding principles laid by their founding fathers.  They are grateful for the sacrifices of those who came before them and lead as if they are guided by the ghosts of those fathers to maintain a sense of responsibility and diligence to the paths paved by history.  In such societies, individuals and groups anchor their sense of pride on an identity carved and projected by their understanding and belief in a living history that was built and preserved by selfless visionaries who understood that they were called to a purpose greater than themselves.  An immoral and distasteful leader may arise at some point in the life course of such a society but then another leader soon comes who rights the course toward history's trajectory as envisioned by the fathers long gone

In unsuccessful and struggling societies, on the other hand, history is destroyed rather than preserved, shunned rather than embraced, and relegated rather than elevated.  Also, the role of culture and tradition is in some cases disregarded in favor of what is thought to be modern, however alien.  In such societies, the young have no knowledge of the depth of their society's history because those who should teach them have abandoned their roles.  In their quest either for survival or fame, those who ought to protect and pass along the memories of service and respectability that their societies' fathers represented embark on the dangerous course of ignoring the ghosts of their fathers.  Yet, the evidence is all around us that individuals and societies that ignore history wander aimlessly, often blind to the fact that others can see through the hollowness of their momentary trappings of success.  

As individuals, most of us know the circumstances of our societies and are aware of how far we have veered from or stayed close to the lessons of history as crafted and delivered to us by our fathers. When we succeed in suppressing our consciences, ignore the ghosts of our fathers and act as if we gained no knowledge from the lessons of history, we fail in our responsibility to make the world a better place for our own descendants.  This is a very bad thing.   

The Collapse Of Common Sense

I was only about 13 years old when one of my teachers, an old man who had been a politician in his prior life, wondered aloud if open-book examinations had any value.  “There will always be people who can never find the answers to questions asked, even if you help them open the book to the page where the answers are.  Common sense", he said, "is not common".  If it were, everyone would have it but not everyone does.  At the time, the comment seemed like nothing more than a gibe at the types of students that can often be found in classrooms in every society: those students who not strongly endowed academically; those who stay up at night and fall asleep in the classroom during the day; and those for whom education does not rise beyond a secondary priority.  To a young religious mind, the comment also felt to me like hyperbole because I was convinced that everyone was endowed with common sense, which simply means the ability to exercise sound judgment.

If I could turn back the clock and be 13 again, I would pray to God for courage to be able to request my teacher to meet privately with me in a society where teachers were considered so powerful that even the meekest of them radiated what felt like an intimidating presence.  With my request for courage granted, I would ask my teacher to expand on his comment about common sense.  I would ask him to educate me about the role of common sense in building and sustaining a society and people.  I would ask him how one would know that common sense was lacking in anyone or any environment.  Finally, I would ask if he had a crystal ball into which he could look and tell me what would become of a society and world in the event of a widespread collapse of common sense.     

Well, none of that matters now.  I am probably now around the age where my teacher was when I was 13.  To the extent that age confers the privilege of, and opportunity for the kind of wisdom that lived experiences make possible, I am now in a vantage position from which I can see the world in ways that I could not at age 13.  Now, I see a world in which people vote against their own self-interest; a world in which the down-trodden applaud, celebrate, defend and protect their oppressors; and a world in which people who have never themselves fought (and will never personally fight) beat the drums for war while those who have everything (including their lives) to lose dance to the drumbeat at the command of so-called leaders who will not miss a meal in mourning when the battle is joined.  I see a world in which pastors would rather purchase private jets on the backs of indigent members of their congregations while the latter still follow them as if their salvation rests on man.  I see a world in which pastors build and claim to own universities where they set the cost of attendance so high that the church members whose money built the universities cannot afford to send their children there.  Yet, those members continue to attend those churches and continue to give money to the men and women who tell them tales that make them empty their pockets.  I see a world in which religious adherents allow themselves to be turned into suicide bombers while the leaders who send them to perpetrate such hate against others and themselves continue to live, sometimes in the lap of luxury.  I see a world in which historically exalted offices have been debased by the corrupt, arrogant and selfish instincts of individuals whose supporters shamelessly continue to applaud, make excuses and blame others for every irresponsible behavior that common sense would otherwise prevail on them to condemn.  I see a world where too many things no longer make sense.

We have become a world in which what common sense once prescribed as right is now considered a loser because too many of us have foreclosed on conscience and outsourced our common sense either to the highest bidders or to sweet talkers with no records of accomplishment beyond personal gain.   We have become a world that cherishes the easy way out instead of the right way out.  Common sense requires that we love rather than hate, that we collaborate rather than obstruct, that we tell the truth rather than intentionally mislead others who depend on us to be reasonable.  Common sense requires that we do the work that is needed to make our world a better place rather than retard the progress that had been made by others.  It requires that we stand for what is right rather than applaud evil perpetrated from high and low places, and that we look out for our neighbors even if we may not like them.  Common sense lays the foundation on which communities and nations are built.  A society, country or world in which common sense is doomed is one that is destined for ignominious failure.  We may not be there yet but the clock is ticking and we each have a responsibility to play our part in righting the course and averting the complete collapse of common sense in our lives, our communities and our world.