We had a great night. Team Mhlosheni had a spaghetti-feed / auction to raise funds and awareness for our journey. We had high spirits and fellowship and what was quite possibly Reed's shortest sermon ever. (Not that the length of the sermon makes this a "great" night, mind you! Simply unique.)
I came home and logged into our blog hoping to catch some of this. But as I looked over the news stories from Swaziland my heart crumpled and my cheer evaporated.
An article was published this last Wednesday in AllAfrica.com that staggers me. It challenges my imagination. It mocks me, and it asks me what I think I can possibly do to better the life of our family is Mhlosheni. It asks me what place my post-modern, forged-in-the-world's-richest-country sensibilities might have in a place so ripe with pain.
Before I give you the link, let me caution you that the story is very, very difficult to read. It is nothing less than horrendous. It recounts the finding of 80 unborn fetuses in the wilderness outside of Manzini. You can read the article here.
I linked to other articles and learned that the corpses were likely deposited by a person providing abortions in and around Manzini. With the ongoing drought and an economic crisis that has left 40% of the population unemployed, hundreds and hundreds of girls are being swallowed by a vast misery. The pressures of poverty, drought, and hunger are bit-by-bit taking away their humanity, forcing them into the worst kind of slavery.
This is already a culture that can be very hard on women. This is a land where, according to a recent survey, one in every three girls experiences some form of sexual abuse before turning eighteen, and where almost half of them (48.2%) have experienced some form of sexual violence before they turn 24.
The article describes what happens next: "Worsening economic and humanitarian conditions in the country have been blamed for the rising number of women resorting to sex work. The Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse has documented jobless women trading sexual favors for a meal as common practice." (Italics inserted.)
So I read this story tonight and I thought about my own daughters, and about the violence I have heard about in my own family's past, and I grew angry. And in my mind I went down the list of the people that must be condemned for this atrocity:
First, the men. I condemned every man who traded food for sex, and who denigrated a hungry human and dared to squash her God-given spirit.
I condemned in a small way the women, for not standing up to the injustice of their lives.
I condemned the performer of the abortions. I condemned the fathers for not protecting their daughters.
I condemned the Swazi culture for allowing such imbalances to exist. (Before the 2006 constitution was ratified women had the status of minors in Swaziland, and could not own property or open a bank account without the assistance of a husband or male relative.)
I condemned the politicians and the relief agencies and the do-gooders.
Just as I thought I might have run out of people to condemn, I realized that I was looking in the wrong place. It wasn't "those others" that should be condemned at all. It was us. It was we, the Christians of the world, the powerful, the wealthy, the just industrial giants.
Our condemnation comes from the fact that we always seem to look away. Our hearts are in the right place, and we understand the promise of the kingdom, but we look away nevertheless. We look away from Darfur, we look away from Rwanda. When drought and hatred and famine sweep the earth we shutter our windows and look away, afraid to get drawn into a struggle that's not ours.
I do it more than most. In fourth grade I was on my way home from school when I passed an alley in Chinatown. (I lived in San Francisco.) In this alley there was a kid I knew, being held against a dirty brick wall by two bigger kids and with blood running down his chin. The two bigger kids looked up at me, I looked away, and I went on. That kid never talked to me again, and I felt sick and shameful every time I saw him in school.
Many, many times since then I have ignored petty violence or an act of injustice. And every time I think of that alley.
So all my condemnation and infuriation only brought me back to one place: to me. Can I condemn anyone but me? I pay attention to the news from Swaziland and Darfur and Myanmar now, but where was my heart in all the years that I ignored those pages as unimportant to me and my life?
So I don't have any room for condemnation for anyone in the AllAfrica.com story. I only have compassion for their hurt, and hope for their healing.
And prayers that the 80 rest peacefully in the arms of our God, forever.
I came home and logged into our blog hoping to catch some of this. But as I looked over the news stories from Swaziland my heart crumpled and my cheer evaporated.
An article was published this last Wednesday in AllAfrica.com that staggers me. It challenges my imagination. It mocks me, and it asks me what I think I can possibly do to better the life of our family is Mhlosheni. It asks me what place my post-modern, forged-in-the-world's-richest-country sensibilities might have in a place so ripe with pain.
Before I give you the link, let me caution you that the story is very, very difficult to read. It is nothing less than horrendous. It recounts the finding of 80 unborn fetuses in the wilderness outside of Manzini. You can read the article here.
I linked to other articles and learned that the corpses were likely deposited by a person providing abortions in and around Manzini. With the ongoing drought and an economic crisis that has left 40% of the population unemployed, hundreds and hundreds of girls are being swallowed by a vast misery. The pressures of poverty, drought, and hunger are bit-by-bit taking away their humanity, forcing them into the worst kind of slavery.
This is already a culture that can be very hard on women. This is a land where, according to a recent survey, one in every three girls experiences some form of sexual abuse before turning eighteen, and where almost half of them (48.2%) have experienced some form of sexual violence before they turn 24.
The article describes what happens next: "Worsening economic and humanitarian conditions in the country have been blamed for the rising number of women resorting to sex work. The Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse has documented jobless women trading sexual favors for a meal as common practice." (Italics inserted.)
So I read this story tonight and I thought about my own daughters, and about the violence I have heard about in my own family's past, and I grew angry. And in my mind I went down the list of the people that must be condemned for this atrocity:
First, the men. I condemned every man who traded food for sex, and who denigrated a hungry human and dared to squash her God-given spirit.
I condemned in a small way the women, for not standing up to the injustice of their lives.
I condemned the performer of the abortions. I condemned the fathers for not protecting their daughters.
I condemned the Swazi culture for allowing such imbalances to exist. (Before the 2006 constitution was ratified women had the status of minors in Swaziland, and could not own property or open a bank account without the assistance of a husband or male relative.)
I condemned the politicians and the relief agencies and the do-gooders.
Just as I thought I might have run out of people to condemn, I realized that I was looking in the wrong place. It wasn't "those others" that should be condemned at all. It was us. It was we, the Christians of the world, the powerful, the wealthy, the just industrial giants.
Our condemnation comes from the fact that we always seem to look away. Our hearts are in the right place, and we understand the promise of the kingdom, but we look away nevertheless. We look away from Darfur, we look away from Rwanda. When drought and hatred and famine sweep the earth we shutter our windows and look away, afraid to get drawn into a struggle that's not ours.
I do it more than most. In fourth grade I was on my way home from school when I passed an alley in Chinatown. (I lived in San Francisco.) In this alley there was a kid I knew, being held against a dirty brick wall by two bigger kids and with blood running down his chin. The two bigger kids looked up at me, I looked away, and I went on. That kid never talked to me again, and I felt sick and shameful every time I saw him in school.
Many, many times since then I have ignored petty violence or an act of injustice. And every time I think of that alley.
So all my condemnation and infuriation only brought me back to one place: to me. Can I condemn anyone but me? I pay attention to the news from Swaziland and Darfur and Myanmar now, but where was my heart in all the years that I ignored those pages as unimportant to me and my life?
So I don't have any room for condemnation for anyone in the AllAfrica.com story. I only have compassion for their hurt, and hope for their healing.
And prayers that the 80 rest peacefully in the arms of our God, forever.
1 comment:
Thanks Michael, for keeping our efforts and our focus a little more 'real'. I really can't fathom what life must be like in Swaziland. This article really cuts deep. I don't know what else to say.
Beautiful words again. Thanks.
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