Justice and Equity are twin Guardians that watch over Humanity  
~Baha'ullah~

 

“Justice and equity are twin guardians that watch over men”

(Baha’u’llah:  Epistle to the Son of the Wolf    Pages 12-13)

 

Sixty-five million refugees roam this earth, but it is us here, in our homes, that are most lost. We have lost our empathy, our fairness, our compassion. We have lost our sympathy, our love, our awareness. We huddle in suburban apathy, more programmed than the gadgets that consume us. We tag, tweet, share, and compete. We work, consume, produce, and complain. So, absorbed are we in surviving our urban enslavement, we have become numb. We strive and struggle for more, more money, more activities, and deprive ourselves of time. We rely on our gadgets for connection and believe them a substitute to community and even familial interaction. Like hamsters we scurry, too harried to stop. In our frantic quest for an elusive security, our exertions are misguided and scattered, and we have lost our way.

Tonight, as you and I snuggle into our warm feather quilts, sixty-five million others will not. Tonight, as you and I prepare our evening meal in suburban comfort, sixty-five million others cannot. Tonight, after we tuck our precious little bundles to bed, and contentedly lounge in front of our flickering screens, sixty-five million others will not. Tonight, as you and I ensure our children have love, safety, and comfort, thirty million refugee children will not. Many will squat in tents lined with frost, denied the solace of a parent’s embrace. They will pass their childhood from camp to camp, from place to place. Tonight, as we snuggle, lounge, and text, thirty million children will experience molestation, hunger, and fear. Tonight, thirty million displaced innocent souls, will be innocent no more.

One day soon, these thirty million children, and their children, will become the future generations, generations of broken, bitter adults, hardened and uncompromising. Men and women of a new era, an era where inequity will yield fruit, a fruit as fetid and bitter, as the seed from which it sprouted. Nations that once snuggled and lounged, will cower in fear. In the absence of justice and equity, festering pain must find an outlet or silently implode. Either way, we shall all feel its destructive force.

 

Beyond media, beyond facts, beyond statistics, there are sixty-five million stories waiting to be heard. One for each refugee roaming our globe today. Sixty-five million stories waiting on the guardians of justice and equity. Sixty-five million stories waiting for dispensation of fair judgement. Sixty-five million, each with a story, a story that has yet to be heard.

Can you, and I, abandon our doonas and distractions, can we look up for but an instant to see what is going on? Will we have courage enough to abandon our suburban bubbles and venture out? Will the twins of justice and equity ever be upheld? If you are like me, and want a better world for the coming generations, then together we must venture out and be a mirror of the justice and equity that are the birthright of every human being.

As Sixty-five million refugees roam, those of us lucky enough to have a home, can become beacons of light, guiding the lost and displaced to soft welcoming shores. As we lounge, tweet, or snuggle, we must spare a thought for those who brave insurmountable odds without sustenance, help, or shelter. We can think of thirty-three million children, vulnerable, defenceless, fallible, who will sleep and wake up in conditions that no human being should have to endure. These children are not just Syrian, Eritreans, Somalian, Afghani or Iraqi, these children are human children. Human children, with souls and hearts, and little precious hands and feet. Like every other human baby and child, they have the right to be cared for, protected. It is every person’s duty to protect the vulnerable, more so, when they are young and unable to defend themselves. It is our sacred duty to ensure every innocent child is spared the brutality, inequity, and abuse, that the power mongers of our world inflict.

If you do not know where to start, see the basic guide below. Remember to keep it simple and take note that no action is fruitless, no matter how small. Share with your family, community, and friends. Raise awareness, volunteer time if you can, if not, donate some money. Mostly, just talk and talk, and share, let your awareness spread to others so that together we may create a brighter, safer future for all. Importantly, remember the words of the philanthropist Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing”.

Today, humanity is at a crossroads, the choices we make socially, personally, economically, and environmentally, will secure the health and wellbeing of our planet, or not. At no other juncture in history has our pro activity, on both the personal, and communal level, been so pertinent for the well-being of earth and everyone on it.

 

 

“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”

~ Pauline R. Kezer ~

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