BY SHARON MARTIN
It’s a hard world when kindness is an act of civil disobedience.
The people of Syria are suffering mightily because Bashar al-Assad believes his position as their leader is worth more than their lives. Those who can are fleeing the death and destruction, even if they aren’t wanted in free countries.
The president of Hungary is afraid that the refugees will dilute his country’s Christian faith. Sir, if you can refuse to come to the aid of the suffering, your Christian faith is as thin as water already.
Immigrants were rounded up and barricaded last week, but they took up their own cause and began the 100-mile trek to the Austrian border. The good people of Hungary met them along the road with food, water, baby strollers, even their own shoes.
I have almost no faith in elected officials anymore. Most of them serve their own interest. A handful are like that baby in the famous photograph, crying alone in the bombed out station.
But there is hope. I believe in the good people of this world who do the right thing regardless of their poor leadership.
In my own school is a teacher whose son is bringing home a new son of his own, a 15-year-old boy from Ethiopia. The young man has aged out of the childcare system, and the teacher’s son said, “I couldn’t just let him be put out on the streets, could I?”
Good people. They do what’s right even when it isn’t easy.
FDR said that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. Pundits and politicians will keep you afraid for their own ends. They won’t tell you what you need to know. Instead, they wander off to their memorized lines and stories when someone asks them a serious question, their answer no answer at all.
The future of this country and of the free world rests with real people who refuse to be gulled by the moneylenders and the bought-and-paid-for fools. If it isn’t kind, it isn’t right.
It’s time to quit believing the trumped-up news. It’s time to quit being afraid. It may be necessary to do what is uncomfortable, including opening our doors to the refugees of this world.
– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
