I went wading yesterday on the beach at White Rock. Found myself thinking about Mike Brown, the teenager who was shot in
Ferguson Missouri, shot by police like Ezell Ford, the 25 year old boy in Los Angeles. Racial strife in this day and age is so hard to understand.
And I feel the same about religious wars.
Who’d have thought in the 21st century we’d be having
religious wars the same as in the 12th?
The level of intolerance in our world is
surely in some aspects at an all time high, and in others, it seems we have an amazing level of global understanding.
Take for instance Craig Kielburger who founded the Free the
Children foundation when he was just a child of twelve himself. He has worked tirelessly to aid children who
are abused and locked in poverty, and equally to understand the economics
behind child slave labour and why and how it continues to operate in certain
countries.
His approach is educated and
intelligent, not dogmatic.
There is hate in the world, and there is beneficence. Would it help to concentrate on the
good? On the examples of tolerance and
understanding, of fairness and kindness?
Or would that just be pulling the wool over our eyes?
If you've read my book, "Unforgiving, Memoir of an Asperger Teen" you know that I am aware of the need for people to see
the reality of an abusive situation.
So knowing that people of colour are still
discriminated against, often violently, in some parts of our world is vital to
getting people to work to correct the problem.
Often I
think that police abuse of first nations people is covered up in our own
country, in Canada—in Prince George and Winnipeg to name just two areas where the problem
seems to be deeply rooted and ongoing.
Is there anything one person can do to help the
situation? What comes to mind are the
words of Mother Teresa.
Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be
kind.
mf
