Mothers' Day in the United States of America was proclaimed a National Holiday long ago, by one of our presidents. I am guessing it was in honor of his own Mom--that he had "the power to do something" to proclaim a life of devotion and respect. Of course, it was also to allow the rest of the nation to do the same--regardless of the true nature of their relationships. So it came to be in my time. But this Mothers' Day is different, even as these days we are living through are "different". This time is more raw and more global. How can any of us sit down to a celebration of the mother/child bond and not think of those three hundred daughters, captured in Nigeria, presumed pawns in an unending cycle of poverty and war? How can any of us celebrate with presents and cakes, flowers and chocolates, while the fate of those young women (and the fate of their parents and siblings who are also "kidnapped") splatters the global newslines? (Nor should we...)
In thinking of these children, lost, and these mothers in mourning, how not to link them with eons of others--perhaps not so publically sought, but nonetheless still disappeared "pawns"? (My mind goes back to Central and South America, when I was a student; then leaps to the international slave trade in women and children; then back to this hemisphere and the female victims in the border towns and deserts of Mexico; back to ancient slave routes and genocides all over the globe, where mothers have mourned the losses of their children.) Before Nigeria, how many millions on the continent of Africa, gone silently through AIDS, through drought, through war and starvation?
Whatever the current horror, we must not forget our spattered past. We must not let a recent tragedy blind us to the history we drag behind us. We must work BECAUSE we haven't worked enough, before. We must protest now because we haven't protested enough, in the past. We must demand governments across the planet take notice and work together to find these lost children, these potential mothers, bringing them back home, intact, where they deserve to grow up and grow strong--because we have left too many to die in silence, without witnesses, alone. (Or worse, in the arms of parents who felt abandoned and who could do nothing.)
Use the tools you have for this end, I personally implore you. Whether it be a letter or an instagram or a tweet to Congress; to the Senate; the President; the United Nations Secretary General or just to a friend. Before you go to bed, tonight, speak about these lost Nigerian women. Meditate on what we can do to take action in some way, personally. Pray for them and their mothers. Pray for all of us.
Perhaps, this time, we may begin to change what we see.
In thinking of these children, lost, and these mothers in mourning, how not to link them with eons of others--perhaps not so publically sought, but nonetheless still disappeared "pawns"? (My mind goes back to Central and South America, when I was a student; then leaps to the international slave trade in women and children; then back to this hemisphere and the female victims in the border towns and deserts of Mexico; back to ancient slave routes and genocides all over the globe, where mothers have mourned the losses of their children.) Before Nigeria, how many millions on the continent of Africa, gone silently through AIDS, through drought, through war and starvation?
Whatever the current horror, we must not forget our spattered past. We must not let a recent tragedy blind us to the history we drag behind us. We must work BECAUSE we haven't worked enough, before. We must protest now because we haven't protested enough, in the past. We must demand governments across the planet take notice and work together to find these lost children, these potential mothers, bringing them back home, intact, where they deserve to grow up and grow strong--because we have left too many to die in silence, without witnesses, alone. (Or worse, in the arms of parents who felt abandoned and who could do nothing.)
Use the tools you have for this end, I personally implore you. Whether it be a letter or an instagram or a tweet to Congress; to the Senate; the President; the United Nations Secretary General or just to a friend. Before you go to bed, tonight, speak about these lost Nigerian women. Meditate on what we can do to take action in some way, personally. Pray for them and their mothers. Pray for all of us.
Perhaps, this time, we may begin to change what we see.
No comments:
Post a Comment