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Hatred Stings
Today we are reeling from yesterday's act of hatred, a stinging act of irrational venom that took the life of security guard, Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns when a lone gunman shot at the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Headlines from the Washington Post read, "At Monument of Sorrow, Burst of Violence." Perhaps it's the last place any of us expected to hear gunfire. It is unjust and ironic and perhaps the ultimate denial of the Holocaust to shoot at something that history cannot and will not erase.
As our prayers go out to Officer Johns' family and friends, we need to take a moment to contemplate what it means when a place that "stores" sacred and anguished memories of Jewish history is attacked.
We cannot simply feel a moment of sadness and move on, as if this is yet another example of what happens when guns get into the wrong hands.
Julian Tuwim, (1894-1953), a Polish experimental poet, wrote the above verses as part of his poem "A Prayer," translated by Wanda Dynowska. In 1939 after the Nazi occupation of Poland, Tuwim fled to Romania and then to France, Portugal, Brazil and the United States. He tried to return to Poland after the war but found he could not write poetry with freedom under a communist government. Tuwim wrote poems that combined disturbing themes, often of city life, with trivialities, and "The Prayer" is no exception. He continues his prayer to God articulated above to include many different types of suffering:
We are not sure what causes the trembling. Is it a meaningless job? Is it returning home to a bad marriage? Maybe, if we think about yesterday, it is also the anguish of those who will never return from work, those who were killed in the line of duty.
Tuwim throws all of these images together as subjects of prayer. And perhaps we can add one more.
May God give us the strength not to ignore hatred but to fight it with every fiber of our beings so that memory can live.
By
Erica Brown
|
June 11, 2009; 1:40 PM ET
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Posted by: hsnkhwj | June 11, 2009 2:38 PM
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Hatred comes from ignorance.
Ignorance of what constitutes a race. Ignorance of what makes our skin color and other phenotypic traits like facial structure, hair texture and color.
Ignorance of that religion and race are not the same thing.
Ignorance about culture, race, and religion, i.e. they are not the same things.
Ignorance about the fact that humans are fighting for their identities based upon religion, race, culture but forgetting about their Human identity.
Conclusion: Human Rights regardless of race, religion, ethnicity are most important. PEOPLES ARE DIFFERENT BUT THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS ARE THE SAME.