Societies have always struggled with fear. Do we have enough? Then our greed and xenophobic fears kick in: 'I want more, those people are different than me'. The fear and ignorance leads society to the worst place we can go - killing our own species.
Writers, artists, whistle blowers and others have been yelling ''Wake-up" for as long as there has been oppression. We can't just sit back and 'thank our lucky stars' we were born in the right place. It's our obligation to fight ignorance whenever we see it or feel it.
This video is one of my favorite cries against oppression whether as a child in school or when you grow up and become an oppressor in your own way. We're all oppressed and we're all oppressors. But we can pay attention to our own ignorance and break the cycle.
In this Guardian article on French oppression of migrants in Calais, "Isarullah, 21, a former student, showed knife scars on his stomach and chest, saying violence had made him leave his village outside Kabul. He had been sleeping in and around the park for a month.
"The conditions here are a nightmare," he said. "I had a blanket, it was stolen. I sleep in my clothes, under bridges, under buildings, moving from night to night. We've got nothing to eat except a bit of bread we get as hand-outs. If we see food, we fall on it like animals, we're so hungry. I can't go back to Afghanistan, it's too dangerous. We're afraid of the French police. There's a whole generation of young Afghans here who just want papers and a chance to work, but it seems more and more hopeless."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/22/afghans-camps-calais-police
Do we close our borders to those who need help? Do we close our eyes and ears too? The problem is we can't close our hearts.
