by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
“No single person can liberate a country. You can only liberate a country if you act as a collective.” (Nelson Mandela)
I was driving to Port of Spain on Saturday morning (February 11), when I heard the news on the radio about the gruesome murder of 15-year-old Abiela Adams, a student of the Signal Hill Secondary School in Tobago, who was discovered in a pile of garbage in Courland with her throat slit.
The radio host echoed my sentiments when he said: “You mean this is where we reach? We don’t value life in T&T, so we just kill people and throw them on the rubbish heap?” This was the fourth murder Tobago has recorded this year – the same for the whole of 2016.
As my eyes welled up with tears, I pulled on the hard-shoulder and wept. I thought of the short verse in the Gospel of John 11:35: Jesus wept. The Jews said when they saw Jesus weeping for Lazarus who had died: See how much he loved him! Jesus must be weeping for us and for His creation in T&T/the world, when He sees how violent the people whom He created and whom He loves so much have become.
At the time of writing this article, the murder rate is 65. Now is the time to join the movement for Non-Violence that was launched recently (call 298-8827, email info@nonviolencett.org or visit www.nonviolencett.org ).
As one of the organisers, Mikkel Trestrail, Companions of the Transfigured Christ and CCSJ’s former Parish Link Coordinator said: “We are working to make this a multi-religious initiative since violence affects everyone.”
Two major events planned are: 40 hours of prayer from 6 p.m. on Friday, March 3 followed by 40 days of action.
Listen to interview.
CCSJ embraces this initiative and urges all people of goodwill to come on board. Read Pope Francis’ Message for the 50th World Day of Peace 2017: “Non-violence: a Style of Politics for Peace,” and his Lenten Message is: “The word is a gift. Other persons are a gift.” Remember his words in his Peace Message: “I pray that the image and likeness of God in each person will enable us to acknowledge one another as sacred gifts endowed with immense dignity…Violence is not the cure for our broken world…Violence profanes the name of God…If violence has its source in the human heart, then it is fundamental that non-violence be practiced before all else within families…The politics of non-violence have to begin in the home and then spread to the entire human family.”
The Holy Father has acknowledged that: “In our complex and violent world, it is truly a formidable undertaking to work for peace by living the practice of non-violence!” Yet we must make “every effort to build peace through active and creative non-violence”. Every response, “however modest, helps to build a world free of violence, the first step towards justice and peace”.
Tomorrow (February 20) is World Day of Social Justice. Active non-violence must be underpinned by new ways of seeing, thinking and acting in the face of injustice, for indeed, there can be no peace without justice.
Young Abiela is the third or fourth female in T&T to have had her throat slit recently. It is hardly likely that the males responsible for these dastardly acts were born violent. The causes of crime are many and varied. Therefore, we need a multi-faceted, multi-pronged/multi-dimensional approach if we are rid ourselves of this hydra-headed monster and create safe, peaceful communities.
Inter alia, we are challenged to help build strong families; to devise new strategies to socialise our young men and women; to address exclusion, inequality and inequity in society; to demonstrate concern for “those in need, the sick, the excluded and marginalized, the imprisoned and the unemployed…and all forms of slavery and torture. Every such response, however modest, helps to build a world free of violence…” (Pope Francis).
As Pope Francis says, to be true followers of Jesus, we must embrace his teaching about non-violence. And if you are seeking ways to practise non-violence, see the following links from the Campaign for Non-violence, Kansas State University.https://www.k-state.edu/nonviolence/Season/64ways.html and from a Season for Non-violence: http://www.agnt.org/64-days .
As this initiative states: “We learn to practise non-violence one step at a time, one choice at a time, one day at a time. Through our daily non-violent choices and actions, the noble and courageous spirit within each of us expresses itself as the skills, wisdom and character of a nonviolent human being. This is how each, in our own way, move the world in a direction of peace.”
Now is the time for each of us to take responsibility to move our people in the direction of peace.
