Words are not enough part II

Famine is not a natural disaster -- it is caused by political decisions. Gaza is already in a medical crisis due to bombed hospitals and blocked supply chains, it's already in a humanitarian crisis from relentless bombing turning entire cities into rubble and now it is in crisis due to starvation. Famine.

I saw the outline of the synagogue in Heidelberg (destroyed on Krystallnacht) today, and I walked past gold blocks on the sidewalk marking the homes of Jewish people who perished in the Nazi era. What are these memorials doing if not urging us not to stand idly by as atrocities happen again to a group that has been dehumanized?

Mr Carney and Ms Anand, I wrote you the letter below back in May when you came out with a joint statement opposing Israel's military operations in Gaza.

It is long past time to stand up and do something about it.

The Hague Group has already done so. The Western nations no longer have any claim to moral high ground on international law.

What world powers -- including the government of Canada -- are allowing to happen in Gaza will be judged as harshly by history as we currently judge the Nazi era. Whatever forces of higher judgment exist in the universe are marking us down as failures for what is going on in Gaza.

Ms Anand said we cannot allow "the use of food as a political tool". So don't. Words are not enough.

You must enforce a total and complete arms embargo on Israel. This horror of atrocities has gone on too long already. You must act to stop it.

Comments

My favourite nativity scene

“There’s no accounting for taste.” That’s my dad’s favourite way of explaining personal tastes that are incomprehensible to him, like living downtown, and riding bike in winter. The inexplicable factors which determine an individual’s likes or dislikes are probably the only way I can explain why my favourite nativity scene contains a horribly caricatured black magus, a random adoring child attired – to my fancy – like a Roma person, an old shepherd carrying some sort of blunderbuss. And a haloed holy family with an 18-month-old baby Jesus. This is the "Christmas Manger Set – the Christmas story in beautiful cut-out scenes and life-like figures." See how the 1940s-era family admires the realistic flourishes, like raw wood beams and straw protruding from the edge of the roofline; the rough, broken wood of the stalls; the tasselled camels; the richly dressed magi; the woolly sheep; the Bethlehemites on the path in the background, ostensibly out to get water, judging...

Upside down economics of Jesus: household action and global change

--Presented at a CAWG event in Altona -- In Living More with Less , Doris Janzen Longacre shares a story about envelopes from Marie Moyer, a missionary in India, who was studying Hindi with Panditji. Marie writes: “From his philosophic mind, which probed the meaning of events and circumstances, I learned more than Hindi.” Just before her teacher’s arrival one day before Christmas, she’d received and opened a pile of Christmas cards and discarded the envelopes as he walked in the room. She writes: “He sat down soberly and studied the situation, then he solemnly scolded me: ‘the reverberation of this wasteful act will be felt around the world’.” Marie was stunned. “What do you mean?” she asked him. “Those envelopes,” he said, pointing to the wastebasket. “You could write on the inside of them.” “Chagrined”, Marie apologized and rescued the envelopes with the help of Panditji, who “caressed each one” as he pulled it out of the garbage. This forever changed Marie’s relationship to p...

Broken people...

After reflecting with one coworker on how often churches in all their forms really mess up and hurt a whole bunch of people in the process -- and how "we gotta do better" -- I stumbled into another conversation with a coworker which highlighted our brokenness, and I suddenly realized what was wrong with my take in the first. I wanted the church to be better at fixing our mistakes, or better yet, at not making them in the first place. But maybe this "fix-it" attitude is partly the reason we keep blowing it again and again! My friend recollected an experience when a church community was in a terrible place: compounded mistakes, hurts, and frustrations had blown up, spewing pain all over all parties. (I'm sure anyone with a long history in the church can think of one, if not several, such occasions in their past.) A new Christian who observed all these goings on responded in an unexpected way. Instead of "you people are a bunch of screw-ups! How could this pos...

kar0ling

Search This Blog