Blood Diamond - Who is responsible
I saw the movie 'Blood Diamond' on Monday in 6 Degrees at Satyam, the seats were so damn comfortable thanks to the new COO at Satyam and the bunch of frivolous Chennaites who are willing pay unrealistically high prices for a tad bit more of comfort and titillation. A recurrence of a French revolution in India will leave all of this class of people guillotined, but then our capitalist ‘driven’ society would come to their own rescue either by wooing the revolutionists to join their ranks or by undermining their power using money.
My cousin and I were sitting in the plush seats munching our hot-dogs watching the atrocities of drugged brainwashed kids handling AK47 gunning down whole villages, a sliver screen depiction of what is actually taking place a few thousand miles form us.
I was reminded of Hegel's statement that history is a 'slaughter bench'. We have developed a selective amnesia by allowing ourselves to be seduced by the comforts we live in so that we can easily forget the dark side of life where the innocent and the marginalized are treated like scum - beaten, butchered, raped and tortured.
As I was riding my bike home along the empty roads of Chennai, as I'd been to the 10 o'clock show, the question that kept recurring to me again and again was 'who is responsible for all this?' Or in other words how am I responsible for these unfortunate people who are victimized for no mistake of theirs. I could say ‘No I could do nothing about it, I cannot be responsible for it. I am not my brother’s keeper’. After all that happens almost half the globe across, there is no obligation that I ought to be responsible for the oppressed ones there.
But I am responsible for what happens in Houston (my client head office is in Houston, Texas) which is the twice as much distant. If I can be responsible for what happens in America by what rationale can I justify that I am not responsible for what happens in Africa, we say we live in a global village but we really don’t act like we live in one except when it provides an opportunity for us to go to US or to Europe.
Had the British missionaries not considered themselves responsible for what Indians were then, I wouldn't be as blessed in Christ as I am now. Someone somewhere unrelated considered himself responsible. Had Ida Scudder not taken it upon herself to build a hospital in Vellore, South India would still be 25 years behind the world in medicine.
Our Lord Himself took responsibility for our sins and He took it upon Himself to pay its penalty. He took responsibility to see to it that we wouldn't have to pay our due debt. Aren't we supposed to imitate Him? But here I live in a cozy comfortable world praying, reading Bible, going to church, being a part of youth, reading philosophic books, pumping iron, playing with my dogs, riding my bike like a crazy maniac (at times) and enjoying my life. I don’t even act like I am responsible for my own self, let alone the brothers in the Dark Continent.
Why travel half the world across? There are so many homeless people in Chennai. There are so many people who are oppressed by financial backwardness and by class differences. Our pastor was speaking about last week in youth. They are people who are sidelined and neglected, I walk by them every day. I think I am actually walking over them choosing to look other side or thinking of some philosophic problem to be solved. The last time I thought of them was I think about two months back, I just ’thought’ about them. I did NOT do anything about it.
We need to remember that on the day of reckoning, it is not the number of hours you spent in worship sessions or youth meetings that count, even the miracles you have done in His name don’t count, much less all the lie we tell in His name in church, much less whether or not you speak in tongues or prophesy.
What counts is when a person was hungry, did I feed him? When he was naked, did I clothe him? When he was in prison, did I visit him? When none talked to him, did I talk to him? When everyone looked the other way, did I look into his ‘dry’ eyes and talk to him? When none was willing to touch him, did I let him know the ‘warmth’ of the human touch?
The irony of the whole thing is that in spite of knowing all this I am still doing nothing.
Ps: The good thing about this movie is that there isn’t even a single obscene scene in the movie which is quite commendable for any commercial movie these days which are liberal with nudity in the name of art and freedom of expression. In nudity whether done in the name of art or not the sacred is desecrated. A film which stands apart from the rest ought to be commended. The media is causing us to loose our inhibitions little by little if we aren’t conscious of it there we come a day when there isn’t a category called sin any more. Even now we see it in a lot of postmodern Christians.
My cousin and I were sitting in the plush seats munching our hot-dogs watching the atrocities of drugged brainwashed kids handling AK47 gunning down whole villages, a sliver screen depiction of what is actually taking place a few thousand miles form us.
I was reminded of Hegel's statement that history is a 'slaughter bench'. We have developed a selective amnesia by allowing ourselves to be seduced by the comforts we live in so that we can easily forget the dark side of life where the innocent and the marginalized are treated like scum - beaten, butchered, raped and tortured.
As I was riding my bike home along the empty roads of Chennai, as I'd been to the 10 o'clock show, the question that kept recurring to me again and again was 'who is responsible for all this?' Or in other words how am I responsible for these unfortunate people who are victimized for no mistake of theirs. I could say ‘No I could do nothing about it, I cannot be responsible for it. I am not my brother’s keeper’. After all that happens almost half the globe across, there is no obligation that I ought to be responsible for the oppressed ones there.
But I am responsible for what happens in Houston (my client head office is in Houston, Texas) which is the twice as much distant. If I can be responsible for what happens in America by what rationale can I justify that I am not responsible for what happens in Africa, we say we live in a global village but we really don’t act like we live in one except when it provides an opportunity for us to go to US or to Europe.
Had the British missionaries not considered themselves responsible for what Indians were then, I wouldn't be as blessed in Christ as I am now. Someone somewhere unrelated considered himself responsible. Had Ida Scudder not taken it upon herself to build a hospital in Vellore, South India would still be 25 years behind the world in medicine.
Our Lord Himself took responsibility for our sins and He took it upon Himself to pay its penalty. He took responsibility to see to it that we wouldn't have to pay our due debt. Aren't we supposed to imitate Him? But here I live in a cozy comfortable world praying, reading Bible, going to church, being a part of youth, reading philosophic books, pumping iron, playing with my dogs, riding my bike like a crazy maniac (at times) and enjoying my life. I don’t even act like I am responsible for my own self, let alone the brothers in the Dark Continent.
Why travel half the world across? There are so many homeless people in Chennai. There are so many people who are oppressed by financial backwardness and by class differences. Our pastor was speaking about last week in youth. They are people who are sidelined and neglected, I walk by them every day. I think I am actually walking over them choosing to look other side or thinking of some philosophic problem to be solved. The last time I thought of them was I think about two months back, I just ’thought’ about them. I did NOT do anything about it.
We need to remember that on the day of reckoning, it is not the number of hours you spent in worship sessions or youth meetings that count, even the miracles you have done in His name don’t count, much less all the lie we tell in His name in church, much less whether or not you speak in tongues or prophesy.
What counts is when a person was hungry, did I feed him? When he was naked, did I clothe him? When he was in prison, did I visit him? When none talked to him, did I talk to him? When everyone looked the other way, did I look into his ‘dry’ eyes and talk to him? When none was willing to touch him, did I let him know the ‘warmth’ of the human touch?
The irony of the whole thing is that in spite of knowing all this I am still doing nothing.
Ps: The good thing about this movie is that there isn’t even a single obscene scene in the movie which is quite commendable for any commercial movie these days which are liberal with nudity in the name of art and freedom of expression. In nudity whether done in the name of art or not the sacred is desecrated. A film which stands apart from the rest ought to be commended. The media is causing us to loose our inhibitions little by little if we aren’t conscious of it there we come a day when there isn’t a category called sin any more. Even now we see it in a lot of postmodern Christians.