I really recommend to all that you go to thehubbellpew.com and click on the comments that Tom sent. He frames the issues wonderfully.
Yesterday millions marched in Paris in a visible act of reconciliation, or was it? I don’t in any way want to take away from the brave and wonderful march of solidarity, so please don’t consider my question as being negative, but more to promote thought, understanding, and discussion.
Most of us celebrate diversity in many different ways. We travel to far away lands to learn about different cultures, we eat different foods, we study different religions and cultures, we mingle with different ethnic groups and people of multiple races, all in different degrees. But to reconcile we must live a life of inclusion, understanding, and bring those with whom we differ and disagree into our community. That is more difficult, if downright close to impossible in extreme cases.
I remember in the movie Gandhi the following dialogue:
Nahari: I’m going to Hell! I killed a child! I smashed his head against a wall.
Gandhi: Why?
Nahari: Because they killed my son! The Muslims killed my son!
[indicates boy’s height]
Gandhi: I know a way out of Hell. Find a child, a child whose mother and father have been killed and raise him as your own.
[indicates same height]
Gandhi: Only be sure that he is a Muslim and that you raise him as one.
To me that was an example of Gandhi inviting Nahari to engage in reconciliation, of bringing someone into a community as part of a journey toward reconciliation. Difficult, yes! But not impossible. Remember how we began this — “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”
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