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Indifference to evil is the enemy of good, for indifference is the enemy of everything that exalts the honor of the human person. ~ Elie Wiesel

I sat in mute disbelief as the first live tweets of the verdicts from the Egyptian courtroom appeared in my feed. Three journalists – Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were sentenced to seven years  on trumped up charges of “falsifying news” and belonging to or assisting the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt. (Baher Mohammed received three more years  for apparently possessing a bullet shell). The convictions are seen as groundless and have been universally condemned  as an attack on freedom of expression.

In his post, “A Journalist’s Prayer” written on the first anniversary of 9/11 Gregory Favre reminds journalists of their purpose:

Let us remember to do our best to bring light where there is darkness, truth where there is falsity, joy where there is sadness.

As I read this prayer today, I thought that since it is journalists themselves who are now under attack and are being unjustly persecuted and prevented from doing their work, the charge given in the prayer is now meant for us to take up. It is now our turn to remember and not forget the grave miscarriage of justice that has been committed and to bring light and truth where there is falsity.

We in Canada, take our freedoms for granted, but human rights do not fall from heaven fully formed but are recognized only as individuals and societies advocate, struggle, and fight to have them accepted and respected. The following cartoon from the 19th century illustrates that freedom of expression has a long history of suppression by those in positions of power who fear their lies from being exposed by the light of truth.

PD – 1923
Caricature “the naughty children”, 1849. The inscriptions read: “Freedom of the press”, “freedom of petition”, “freedom of assembly”, “freedom of speech” and “freedom of association”.

My friends, let us not be indifferent to the plight of Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. It is all too easy to ignore it and dismiss it as “Egypt’s problem”. But we all belong to one human family. If we do not work to uphold human dignity and defend the human rights of others we have no basis to claim them for ourselves. Let us bring a measure of joy into their present sadness by helping to preserve the freedoms necessary for journalists to do the important work of bringing more truth into the world.
We can do this by supporting organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Committee to Protect Journalists. 

Do you know of other organizations in your region who are working to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right? Please share them in the comments section below and I will add them to the list.

Now, it is our job to remember

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On this Thanksgiving Day in Canada I ponder the question,”How can I justify sitting down with family and friends around a feast of plenty when women are being raped in refugee camps, when children are forced to be child soldiers, and the homeless on our own streets abandoned and demonized?” Is not such indulgence in the face of the overwhelming suffering and injustice in the world a callous turning away or “a fatalistic shrug of the shoulders“?

Of course, I am not the only one to struggle with the meaning of thanksgiving. Ann Voskamp provides an answer to my moral distress with her arresting insight:

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks. . . 

––from  A Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where you Are

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Photo credit: Al Jaugelis

I am also inspired by the embodied wisdom and witness of the African American Church who understand thanksgiving as “a tenacious hold on  the possibility of goodness and justice in spite of present circumstances.”

Here is an excerpt from the hauntingly beautiful poem, by Howard Thurman for whom thanksgiving was a sacrament–an expression of tenacious faith “in the face of death-dealing circumstances“.

 A Litany of Thanksgiving

Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving.
I begin with the simple things of my days:
Fresh air to breathe,
Cool water to drink,
The taste of food,
The protection of houses and clothes,
The comforts of home.
For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day!

I bring to mind all the warmth of humankind that I have known:
My mother’s arms,
The strength of my father
The playmates of my childhood,
The wonderful stories brought to me from the lives
Of many who talked of days gone by when fairies
And giants and all kinds of magic held sway;
The tears I have shed, the tears I have seen;
The excitement of laughter and the twinkle in the
Eye with its reminder that life is good.
For all these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

I pass before me the main springs of my heritage:
The fruits of labors of countless generations who lived before me,
Without whom my own life would have no meaning;
The seers who saw visions and dreamed dreams;
The prophets who sensed a truth greater than the mind could grasp
And whose words would only find fulfillment
In the years which they would never see;
The workers whose sweat has watered the trees,
The leaves of which are for the healing of the nations;
The pilgrims who set their sails for lands beyond all horizons,
Whose courage made paths into new worlds and far off places;
The saviors whose blood was shed with a recklessness that only a dream
Could inspire and God could command.
For all this I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

I linger over the meaning of my own life and the commitment
To which I give the loyalty of my heart and mind:
The little purposes in which I have shared my loves,
My desires, my gifts;
The restlessness which bottoms all I do with its stark insistence
That I have never done my best, I have never dared
To reach for the highest;

The big hope that never quite deserts me, that I and my kind
Will study war no more, that love and tenderness and all the
inner graces of Almighty affection will cover the life of the
children of God as the waters cover the sea.

All these and more than mind can think and heart can feel,
I make as my sacrament of Thanksgiving to Thee,
Our Father, in humbleness of mind and simplicity of heart.

 

A Sacrament of Thanksgiving

On this Thanksgiving Day in Canada I ponder the question,”How can I justify sitting down with family and friends around a feast of plenty when women are being raped in refugee camps, when children are forced to be child soldiers, and the homeless …

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