Saturday, July 21, 2007

What my Sister knew

When I was a kid, the family took a trip to Disneyland and my Sister annoyed me for weeks afterward singing "It's a Small World After All."

She got Her musical ammo from a ride there in which little mannequins dressed like people from all over the world sang that song and danced.

Tonight I attended the 75th birthday party of a family friend who lives out here, all done in a German theme, as that is his favorite country from all the ones that he has visited.

My belly is full of saurbraten, schnitzel and red cabbage; my head still full of the feisty dance music. Maybe I will learn some German this week.

And I am thinking it truly is a small world after all and it is a damned shame that we spend so much time hating each other, brandishing weapons, building walls.

I, an American, should be able to walk the streets of Tehran without fear and buy a bag of dates from a market stall. I should be able to feel the cold breeze whip against my jacket in Pyongyang and invite a new friend there to come visit me in my east coast home sometime.

Shiite, Sunni, Orthodox Christian, Jew, agnostic, Bushman, Pakistani, Australian, Han Chinese, black, white, brown, male, female -- we are all part of the human family. Disease and poverty should be the only enemy we have left to face, not each other.

8 comments:

Amar Mandair said...

Absolutely right, we shouldn't be fighting against each other but rather helping each other and just getting along like good neighbors. Sick thing is that most of the groups fighting today are fighting using religion as a weapon, a religion that also teaches tolerance but that is one aspect which is widely ignored.

Eastcoastdweller said...

But it's not just about fighting but about oppression and international enmity, and religion is not always at the core of it.

North Korea is a horrible place where religion is banned and if there is a hell somewhere in the universe, Kim Jong Il will spend a long time frying in it when he finally draws his last mortal breath.

The ETA terrorists in Basque country are battling for a homeland that has nothing to do with religion, if I understand things correctly.

Amar Mandair said...

Don't misunderstand me ecd, I didn't say all fighting is based on religion, my point was just really about tolerance.

Eastcoastdweller said...

I know. I saw the "most" in Your post.

The Empress is always right. I'd be no decent minion at all, just a human bug deserving of being firmly squashed under Her shoes, if I ever forgot that cardinal principal of the universe.

People fight over things that matter to them, and religion is what has mattered most to the majority of people in history.

More recently, people have fought over political "isms," just as savagely. And in some neighborhoods, they kill each other over sneakers.

Amar Mandair said...

But then how do you suppose we show people what really matters and what doesn't? Really, there are those who have so much focused attention on things that are not relevant to them, things that would not affect their own life paths. The oppression, the dictatorship, the hatred...how does it stop?

Rebecca said...

would were but true.

And how it stops is with one person at at time. Cliche, though it might be, the journey of a thousand miles begins but with a single step.

Amar Mandair said...

I agree, let's keep walking.

Eastcoastdweller said...

And let us walk together. And stop only to enjoy a meal, to rest our feet or to take in the view. Or perhaps to attend to, umm, nature's necessities.