On Paris, Beirut, & Burundi: Responding when the whole world hurts

BY: LUCY DUNCAN
PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 20, 2015

Topics:

• Acting in Faith
• Posts by Lucy
• Spiritual Foundations

Blue marble earth

Photo: NASA via Flickr CC / NASA

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere 

-Warsan Shire

Symptoms

• 128 or more killed in attacks in Paris in November
• 43 killed in suicide bombing in Beirut, Lebanon in November
• 7 killed in recent grenade attacks in Burundi as violence there escalates
• 47 killed in Kano & Yola, Nigeria in suicide bombing attacks this week
• 220,000 killed in the Syrian Civil War
• 6,000 Rohingya stranded at sea in May after fleeing Burma due to persecution
• 1051 people killed extra-judicially by police in the U.S. so far this year
• 325 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year
• 414,481 people deported by U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement in 2014
• 1419 people have been executed on death row in the U.S. since 1976
• 215-276 children have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, & Somalia from July-Nov, 2015
• 547 children killed in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014
• $3 billion/year is sent to Israel in military aid each year (& may grow to $4.5)
• 2.2 million people are currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons
• Nearly 60% of the US discretionary budget is spent on the military

Diagnosis

A system that perpetuates trauma, answering violence with more violence. A culture based on fear, which prioritizes the right to arms (for individuals and governments) and the oppression of the poor & disenfranchised over the care of children and community. The drum beats of war beat on. The cries for all (including teachers) to arm themselves increase. We have become numb and must fight our way out of the chains of a culture that is killing us and demands an inhumane price, our souls, for its perpetuation.

Remedy?

To breathe and grieve. To listen to those who suffer most. To resist the cries to answer violence with yet more violence. To withdraw support from those who profit from the war machine. To answer fear with love. To cry out, “stop” to all the wars happening now, cry “no” to the next war. To renounce extremism, racism and religious intolerance. To sing. To commit to reparations. To cook together and share food and land. To begin with healing ourselves, then help others to heal. To see ourselves in the face of another. To knock down borders and walls. To open our hearts and our homes. To seed and create another way to live.

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About the Author

Lucy Duncan

Lucy serves as Director of Friends Relations for AFSC. She has been a storyteller for 20 years and has worked with Quaker meetings on telling stories for racial justice and of spiritual experience. Before working for AFSC, she was Director of Communications at FGC, managed QuakerBooks of FGC, and owned and managed her own children's bookstore in Omaha, The Story Monkey. She attends Green Street Friends Meeting (PhYM) and lives with her son and partner in a Quaker cemetery.

http://www.afsc.org/friends/paris-beirut-burundi-responding-when-whole-world-hurts

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later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere

-Warsan Shire

In this Acting in Faith post Lucy Duncan considers the attacks on Paris, Beirut, and the violence elsewhere and considers a diagnosis and remedies.

On Paris, Beirut, & Burundi: Responding when the whole world hurts | AFSC @afsc_org

Remedy? To breathe and grieve. To listen to those who suffer most. To resist the cries to answer violence with yet more violence.

AFSC.ORG