How far is Tucson from Juba?

I have been truly touched by what happened in Tucson. To see violence like that in the United States is disappointing and frightening. It is strange to read this news while I am here, in a country whose political history has been full of violence and where the shooting of an elected leader would be nothing new. The American political system is very different from Sudan’s; there is a wide gap between a generally malicious public debate punctuated by vicious acts of violence and decades of the worst kinds of human rights abuses. There is a big, big, big difference. I get that. But then… I’m not sure that difference runs as deep as we would like to believe. Today, the political conversation in the United States incites hatred, just as it does here. The step from saying hateful things to doing hateful things is not so hard to make, and, in my opinion, more a question of habit than a state of the heart.

Jesus was not a politician, but he did know a thing or two about what humans are like and he said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.” The Apostle John states it even more plainly, saying, “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.”

Now, I don’t know if this gunman was a psycho motivated to his actions by politician’s violent words or if he was just a psycho who would have done what he did even if everyone in Washington was holding hands and singing kumbaya. Still, it seems like hypocrisy to me to see people who hate in their hearts and incite hatred among others express outrage and disbelief when someone acts in a manner consistent with their own words. What tree do they think is growing from the words they sow? And I say this to myself as much as to others, because I have also hated in my heart… I’m reminded of the same feeling I had in Rwanda when I would hear Westerners say again and again that they couldn’t imagine how humans could commit such violence against one another. No, I think we know all too well how it can happen, because it has already happened inside each of us. We choose what kind of world we create when we choose what we feel, what we think, and what we say. So what is inside my heart? Is my heart a little Tucson? Abeyi? Washington? Juba? Or is it the start of a new city?

Because President Obama is our leader (even to those who hate him), I’ll stop my preaching and let him give the benediction:

“Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.”

-Stephanie