A time comes when silence is betrayal

I write this because my conscious leaves me no other choice. We are deeply in need of a new wave beyond the darkness that seems so close around.  Over the past 2 years I have spoken from the burnings of my own heart. Many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. Indeed their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

Children wonder into the towns. I see thousands of children, homeless, without cloths running in packs in the streets like animals. I see the children degraded as they beg for food. I see the children selling their siblings, soliciting for their mothers. We have destroyed the two most cherished institutions – the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops.

We have supported the enemies of the peasants. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. Now there is little left to build on. Peasants may well wonder if we plan to build their future on such grounds as these? As we blame them on such thoughts, we must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise, these too are our brothers!

What do they think of our condoning of violence? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of aggression? How can they trust us when now we charge them violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely must see that what we supported pressed them into their violence. Surely we must see that our own plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. They are surely right to wonder. They question our goals and they deny the reality from which they feel excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant.

Here is a true meaning and value of compassion and non-violence when it helps us to see the other’s point of view. To hear his questions. To know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view, we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition and if we are mature, we may learn and grow in profit.

While I have tried in the last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless, to understand the argument of those who are called enemies as it occurs to me that we are adding cynicism to the process of death. But they must know after a short period that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.  The more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure as we create a hell for the poor. Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now.

I speak as a Child of God and brother to the suffering poor. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home. I speak as citizen of the world, for the world as it stands alas at the path we have taken. The great initiate is mine. The initiative must be yours.

The situation now demands our maturity that we may not be able to achieve. We should admit that we have been wrong. The situation is one in which we must be ready, to turn sharply from our present ways.