Missing Anyone?
“We need the women of the world to come looking for us, we need that hope that someone would come looking for us when we’re missing.”
The room was silent. It was one week after 9-11, and along with 10, 000 other women who had gathered at the Global Celebration for Women in Houston, I watched this video clip of an Afghan woman pleading with the women of the world to take action. At that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: Had I truly gone looking for these women when they were missing? Or did I read, listen and forget?
Although the Taliban came into power in 1996, it took tragedy on American soil five years later for the world to wake up to the suffering of women in Afghanistan.
While political oppression in Afghanistan has now lessened, the suffering of Afghan women offers an important lesson: Who else is missing in the world today?
Young girls who roll beedies all day in the back streets of India? Girls sold into prostitution, working in brothels all over the world? What about those chained to the secrets of domestic violence and abuse? Or the millions of men, women and children affected and infected by AIDS?
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We are the light of the whole world. It is our spiritual destiny to shine and shed light in dark places. But in order to shine light, we have to be awake to the darkness, and go there.
As global citizens, we need all our eyes to see, all our ears to hear, all our voices to be heard, all our hands to work, and all our feet to “dance upon injustice.”
Although I am becoming more aware of the tragedy and suffering in our world, I still struggle to live it out in my daily reality, especially when life in Canada seems so far removed from it.
In his book, Good News about Injustice, Gary Haugen, president of International Justice Mission, shows that my struggle isn’t unique. He writes, “I have certainly felt that dreamlike separation from reality when I have returned from these hellish places around the world. In no time at all it begins to feel as if the nightmare I came from in Rwanda or the Philippines or South Africa has taken place not in another country but on another planet. Back home, it simply does not feel real anymore.”
Growing up in South Africa, I lived blindly for many years. I know now that it’s not our geographical position that determines our awareness of injustice – but rather the condition of our hearts and our willingness to see the world as it is.
Sometimes the realities of injustice can be overwhelming. We ask ourselves, “Where should I start? What difference can I make?”
I am reminded of the story of a simple woman in India who understood the power of her light. She didn’t have an education, but after enrolling in a training program for health workers, she soon began teaching others. When she received an invitation to a major international conference for health specialists in Washington, D.C., the humble woman approached the podium with confidence.
“As I look at all of you,” she said, “I compare you to this beautiful chandelier that hangs from the ceiling of this hall. You, like the chandelier, are bright, beautiful and expensive. But you are so important and knowledgeable that you are unapproachable for many – just like this chandelier is out of our reach. We can only look at it and marvel at its beauty. We cannot get close to it. We cannot touch it. But when I think of myself, I think of the little oil lamps that we use at night in my village to see our way in the dark. It is not expensive and it is not beautiful. But it is useful and practical. I see myself like that little lamp because I can take my lamp – my knowledge – and light the lamps of others. A single lamp sheds only a little light, but many of them together can create a great light.”
What kind of light are you? A chandelier or a lamp? A 60-watt bulb or a spotlight?
Rock star Bono of U2 is a floodlight. He’s using every ounce of his wattage to shine light on injustice. Says Bono of AIDS: “You didn’t start it. But you can end it. We need your help.”
It’s time to know our power, find those missing in the dark and shine.
