Death in the Sudan – My Soapbox

I listen to NPR most days at work.  Just now I heard that two men working down in the Sudan were killed.  These men were removing mines so that the UN Feed the World Program (or some such name) can safely carry food and medicine to people in need.  They were murdered in an ambush by the people they were trying to help.

This has me thinking.

People die every day.  Life isn’t fair.  God works in mysterious ways.  These cliches are supposed to bring comfort when things happen that we don’t understand.  It would be nice if things made sense, and if life was fair, but since it’s not, at least we can say that out loud, know it to be a universal truth, and go on.

It’s hard though.  Sometimes life hands you a bitter, bitter pill.  This particular pill isn’t so bitter for me – I don’t know these people who died, I probably won’t think of them again after today.  But in some country somewhere, their brides, or mothers, or best friends, or whoever, are pouring tears, and wondering why, and feeling white hot anger for these ungrateful men who murdered the brave hands that were trying to feed them.

And in the Sudan, some hungry people are wondering what happened, where their help is, why they are still hungry. 

And in some home down there in Africa, there are a band of people congratulating each other, or feeling guilt, or eating their lunch without a thought of their recent act of murder.  They are the ones I think of the most.  Denouncing terrorism and murderous human behavior is easy, natural, and right.  Trying to humanize a terrorist or murderer, and then figure out WHY they do what they do is much harder.  But I think it’s the latter that is the key to ending terrorism – finding the source of their hatred, or murderous anger, or careless malevolence, and seeing how to end that.  Try to put yourself in their shoes, and figure out what it would take to turn you into a murderer.  What would you kill for?  There’s a line for everybody.  The circumstances of people’s lives and upbringing determine where that line is drawn.  I grew up well fed, warm, and loved – my line is pretty far off.  If my childhood had been characterized by hunger and violence, it would probably have yielded a very different adult than the one writing this blog.  There are children in the world right now who will grow up to be murderers, bombers, war-mongers, unless their lives change radically and immediately.

So now, in my small life, in my small way, what can I do to “re-draw the lines” for these children and keep them from becoming a murderer?  How can I make them abandon violence and try more constructive avenues for change?  Throw money at aid agencies?  Answer crisis hotlines? 

How about go down to the Sudan and try to clear roads of mines so hungry people can eat?

And again, we’re back to the "why."  You dedicate your life to changing the world for the better, you get killed because of it.  Was it worth the sacrifice?  Did you make a difference?

I think of pacifists Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and decide, after all – yes.  But I’ll still say a prayer for two men in the Sudan whose names will never be so famous, but whose sacrifice was no less powerful or worthwhile.  I hope any who read this will do the same.