"I'm a Human Being"

Every city in the world has its share of the urban homeless. Like many people, I am sometimes guilty of assuming that all urban homelessness is self-inflicted. "They just don’t want to work", "He must be on drugs", "She should go find a shelter."

In this gut-wrenching video, Ronald Davis, a homeless man in Chicago, forces us to rethink our assumptions about the homeless. He says: “It's really humiliating to be shaking a cup 24 hours a day, and people just look at you're like some kind of little bum,” Davis goes on to tell stories of how passers-by call him a bum and yell at him to "get a job." He also tells of his struggles to get a job and leave the streets.

"I'm not a bum," Davis says, "I'm a human being."

Come to think of it, if Jesus lived in any urban city today, he would be labelled a bum. He was itinerant, had no visible means of livelihood and relied on the charity and good will of others. He also had "no place to lay his head."

Luke 9:58: "And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

Lesson: We must strive to be less judgement of others and see the above all else, our collective humanity.

"I'm a Human Being"

4/28/2013 11:16:00 PM human rights, reflections, world

Knowledge Mobilization: Enriching our Comunities

Academics are constantly being asked to produce knowledge that enrich their communities and serve the greater common good. Lately, in Canada, the preferred term for this is "Knowledge Mobilization." There have been varied and sometime conflicting interpretations of what exactly this means. In this workshop, we hope to raise critical questions about the meaning and practice of "knowledge mobilization" as defined by scholars, practitioners and funding agencies. Join us. Registration required.

Knowledge Mobilization: Enriching our Comunities

4/26/2013 01:30:00 PM education

Letter to a Christian friend on the subject of Gay Marriage

I sent the letter below to a good friend who I have known since childhood. He is one of the most decent people I know. A morally upright and devout Christian, a hard-working professional and a devoted father and husband, he has been an inspiration to me and many others over the years.

Lately however, I have been concerned, even disturbed, by some of his tweeter rants and Facebook postings on the subject of gays and gay marriage. Yesterday, I felt compelled to send him the message below:

Dear xxxxxx

I have followed your comments on gays and gay marriage on twitter and Facebook. They have not taken the usually measured tone that I have come to expect of you. I understand that as a Christian, you have a right to express the values of your faith. I feel that need too. However, we must do so with caution, tolerance and sensitivity.

The line between homophobia and professing one's faith can be a thin one. The language I hear today from you is eerily similar to the language of a bygone era. As a friend with whom I share the Christian faith, I feel compelled to send you the quote below as a reminder of the need for us to tread cautiously. The more things change, it seems, the more they remain the same:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races show that he did not intend for the races to mix."  -- Judge Leon Bazile, an “upright Christian” judge in a judgement upholding Virginia’s segregation law against interracial marriage in the case of Loving v. Virginia (United States, 1959).

History has not been kind to those who spoke like this. Let's learn from the judgement of history.

Your friend,

Bonny

Letter to a Christian friend on the subject of Gay Marriage

4/23/2013 09:31:00 PM human rights, reflections

Quote of the Week

"A peace of no choice must be approached with the same determination and creativity as one approaches a war of no choice." 
- David Grossman as quoted by President Barack Obama in a speech on the Palestinian Israeli conflict in Jerusalem 2013

Quote of the Week

3/23/2013 05:16:00 PM reflections, war and peace

In Solidarity with the Women of the World

March 7 is the international women's day. It is gratifying to see that there is growing global awareness of this day and the value of women in every society. The crucial role of women to societal well-being is even more evident in our age of conflict, social upheaval and economic uncertainties.

In conflict situations, compromise and peace is more likely to be achieved when women are at the negotiating table. There are several anecdotal evidence of this but my favorite one comes from Sudan.

During the tense and difficult negotiations between Sudanese leaders in 2011 over where to draw the border separating the north and the proposed state of Southern Sudan, negotiations stalled suddenly. The dispute was over which country would control a particular river at the proposed border. Negotiators on both sides considered the river so important that neither side was willing to bulge.

Negotiations stalled until one woman, among the male-dominated negotiating parties, reminded her colleagues that the disputed river dried up several years ago. There was, in fact, no river. How could she be sure of this, other negotiators asked. The woman responded that she lived in that region and had fetched water from that river for several years before it dried up. Apparently, the men had never had cause to visit the river that they now so desperately wanted to claim. It was subsequently confirmed that the maps were incorrect and the women’s account was true. Negotiations resumed and consensus was achieved. That is the power of a woman’s insight.

On this International women’s day, I salute the courage, fortitude and wisdom of women around the world – mothers, daughters, wives and sisters.

We live in an age of transformation where women are poised to take leadership roles in every sector of our globalizing world. Societies that devalue and repress their women do so at their own peril!

In Solidarity with the Women of the World

3/08/2013 12:08:00 PM human rights, Tributes, war and peace, world

Human Rights and Global Justice

http://philosophyandculture.org/seminar1303MCigneski.html

I join two of my colleagues to discuss issues of human rights and global Justice in the "Crossing Boarders Series" of the Society for Philosophy and Culture.

Human Rights and Global Justice

2/20/2013 01:09:00 PM education, human rights

From Libya to Mali: Triumphs and Consequences

When the Gaddafi regime in Libya collapsed in 2011 following a mass uprising and civil war, the international community welcomed the ousting of a tyrannical dictator. But even in the euphoria of the moment, some observers of the region urged caution.  I wrote in a article in The Mark at the time:

“An even more disturbing concern – which has received very little attention in the media – is the impact that the Libyan crisis could have on the rest of Africa. During his 40 years in power, Gaddafi has thrown his influence and money across the continent to prop up or bring down governments. He has done this more than any other African leader. His fingerprints can be found on armed conflict from Chad to Sudan to the Central African Republic. He has also cultivated a loyal band of mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa that he now uses to terrorize his own people.”

The broader fallouts of the Libyan civil war and the collapse of the Gaddafi regime are now becoming evident. The insurgency gathering pace in Mali has been exacerbated by an influx of arms from the 2011 Libyan civil war. Among the Islamist rebel groups sweeping south from northern Mali is the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) led by Malian Tuareg who, while in exile in Libya, fought  alongside Gaddafi’s forces. Once the Gaddafi regime collapsed, some of these well trained and battle-hardened militants retreated south to Mali.

The international community led by France is now scrambling to do what should have been done much earlier – engage effectively to strengthen security and reconstruction in post-Gaddafi’s Libya. It is estimated that only about a quarter of the surface-to-air missiles accounted for before the conflict in Libya could be accounted for afterwards. It is almost inevitable that some are now Mali being used by the Islamist rebels.

This is the tragedy of how the international community has addressed conflicts in this region – false steps, missteps, too little too late. The circle simply continues. There is simply no political will to act until security situations get totally out of hand; then there is a scramble for a Band-Aid solution. Peace is not actively cultivated. We must learn to wage peace as vigorously as we wage war. It would have much taken less of the international military efforts now being put into pushing back the Islamist insurgents in Mali to enforce security and promote reconstruction in Libya. It reminds me of the old adage - a stitch in time saves nine.

*******************************
Also published in The Mark

From Libya to Mali: Triumphs and Consequences

1/18/2013 12:04:00 AM politics, war and peace

Happy New Year 2013

Wishing all of God's children and men and women of goodwill everywhere a happy, healthy and fulfilling 2013. One of my New Year resolutions is to update my blog more regularly. Yes, this has been my resolution the past 5 years but this time I really mean it ... ;)

A new year wish in the words of the American novelist Edward Abbey in a tribute to a friend from his classic Desert Solitaire :

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you -- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”

This music video Skrillex & Damian Marley (Make It Bun Dem) was one of my favourites for the year for two reasons. First, it brings together two unlikely music genres - reggae dub and electro music in a tribute to cross-cultural dialogue. Secondly, it pays homage to aboriginal culture, something we don’t often see in popular culture. The rain dance is always an enthralling spectacle. Enjoy!

Happy New Year 2013

12/31/2012 10:10:00 PM media, reflections

Idle No More: In Solidarity with Indigenous People's Rights

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
- Dante

Idle No More: In Solidarity with Indigenous People's Rights

12/24/2012 09:33:00 PM human rights, politics, reflections

The Honor Code

I attended a Catholic High School. It was a small boy’s college founded by Irish Priests in the heart of Africa. Like most Catholic Schools of the time, my teachers did not ‘spare the rod.’ Discipline was almost martial. Looking back, there is much that those well-intentioned and dedicated teachers could have done better. But one thing they did exceptionally well was inculcating the values of honor and integrity. I recently had cause to mingle with my “old boys”, as we call our Alumni, and we reminisced about the ‘’Honor Code.” I thought I should share it. It still rings true….

The Honor Code

11/03/2012 08:11:00 PM education, reflections