I’m going to step out of my usual semi-objective role this week to share some personal insights I had during the Day of Reckoning. Let me begin at the end. By Saturday evening, after the events were over, I found myself sitting next to the bell tower with my head in my hands. It was all I could do simply not to shout profanities of frustration every fifteen minutes, hoping that maybe my words would be drowned out by the bells.
Here’s why.
In the morning I participated in WalkSUDAN, a fundraising event to commemorate the thousands of Sudanese refugees who walked to relief camps in Kenya and Ethiopia to escape a murderous government. As our group walked from NDSU to Concordia, I talked with some of the Lost Boys, survivors of the months-long trek riddled with disease, starvation, and dehydration. They told me of how they had to sell their clothes for food, and how they had to move on even while their friends dropped like flies. And in the midst of listening to these horrendous stories, I learned about the Lost Boys’ dream to build the first library in Southern Sudan.
In the afternoon I watched Invisible Children, a documentary about the child victims of the war in northern Uganda. I learned about the kids who have been abducted and indoctrinated into the ranks of the Lord’s Resistance Army. I saw the crayon pictures they drew, the guns and knives and blood. The scenes of their families’ deaths etched into their minds, unable to think of anything else. I listened to a little boy weep about the murder of his brother. And I listened to a plea for us never to forget what is happening there.
But here’s the eerie thing: nobody seems to care. At any given event for the Day of Reckoning, only a few dozen people were in attendance. A few dozen on a campus of over 2,800 students! Something is very wrong here. The vast majority of Cobbers kept their eyes and ears firmly shut while the Day of Reckoning called for social responsibility and accountability for one’s actions. Frankly, it creeps me out. At a school where practically everybody knows the mission statement, the status quo remains utterly thoughtless and uninformed.
Any socially-minded individual at Concordia should be pissed off. We live in an inherently unjust world; any semblance of justice only exists due to the dogged determination of someone to put it there. Without that, we get the Lost Boys. We get child soldiers. We get starving grandmothers and stillborn babies. We get the injustices that will always exist until someone decides that enough is enough. Mom and Dad aren’t here to do this for you. It’s time to grow up and take responsibility for the pockets of injustice that apathy has created.
Published: October 9, 2008 Updated: 10/09/08 10:10 AM
Source: http://www.livewiredj.net/concordian/pacercms/article.php?id=490
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