#Steemgigs: Learn to make the hard choices in life ||| LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOUR
The commandment to "Love your neighbor" had no exceptions...
You know, of course, that your neighbor is more than someone who lives next door to you. He or she is someone who will come to help you out when you have been beaten and thrown into the ditch of life. Or someone you have absolutely nothing in common with at all.
Today, while trying to select a channel to watch in my decoder, I stumbled on a channel that showed a programme where Dr. Masiyiwa was invited to speak.
On climbing the podium, he said that he has had the privilege in his life (for which he's eternally grateful to The Father of Light) to speak before world leaders and in panels with famous people. And yet for him this was probably the greatest opportunity.
The entire national leadership of Kenya was there, including the President and his deputy, along with cabinet ministers, judges, legislators, and members of the opposition. Religious leaders -- Christians, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish -- were also there.
Kenya was in mourning following a deadly terrorist attack at Garissa University which left 147 innocent students dead and 79 others injured. It was horrific.
While speaking, he said that he had listened to speaker after speaker recount what they did, and how they were feeling, and that it was clear that Kenyans of all religions, political backgrounds, tribes, race, gender were standing as one in rejection of extremism and intolerance.
He read the Bible verse about the Good Samaritan, and shared some of his research on who the Samaritan people were, and why they were generally despised by the majority population:
They were people of a different race, tribe, and religion.
There was a history of animosity between the communities that dated back hundreds of years.
As he left the stage after the speech, a group of religious leaders representing Christians and Muslims was waiting in the lobby. They hugged me tearfully.
The Message:
The “Good Samaritan” could turn out to be your Muslim neighbor, your Christian neighbor, the Jewish guy, the white guy, the black guy, the Arab guy, or even the guy from a tribe that once murdered or persecuted your people. You might not even approve of his or her way of life.
We must reject and fight intolerance, whether it be racism, tribalism, religious bigotry, anti-Semitism, xenophobia or extremism of any kind.
If we want to unleash the full potential of this great continent, we have to pull down the borders. We have to be good neighbors to those who are different from us. I will never forget the day one of my neighbour's children cried about being mocked by a teacher for believing in Jesus Christ. The parents had to sit her down and tell her that her teacher was guilty of “religious bigotry and intolerance,” even though that teacher did not consider himself religious.
We must be respectful of the dignity and rights of others to believe, or not to believe (as the case may be).
Now the African continent is a giant waiting to be awakened, but first we must kick the elephant out of the room! (If you don't know the expression, look it up!)
The elephant is intolerance. One of the worst forms of intolerance is from men who cannot accept that women have the same rights as men in everything.
The elephant is the injustice where you cannot live with your neighbor. No matter what our fathers and mothers may have told us that happened in the past, it is in the past.
The elephant is also the silence of those who can speak up for mutual respect, love and integrity... yet choose not to.
To be continued. . .
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