In answer to a submission request for folk tales in the Indonesian newsgroup, I received a letter from a young man in college. He told me a tale of two ordinary people in his village, who worked hard to send their son to college overseas, until one day they were arrested and shot, outside their own home. The government claimed they were being shot as rebels..the young man knew better. You see, they were his parents...and they were from East Timor. He ended the letter with the following:
"They were my parents, and they did nothing their whole life except work for money to send me to university, and they were killed because of their nationality, not because they were rebels, they were East Timor people, and this is a story that will be told a thousand times more because it happened to so many people in my village and many more. And do you know what, nobody cares. Genocide exists in my country and no-one cares. Write that in your story books."
I had no words for him. How do you say "I'm sorry that my country is helping the people that shot your parents?" How do you say "I do care, and I am sure many people care." and make it mean something?
The letter haunted me. Seeker is not a political magazine, and I don't wish to make it one...but this letter was not just a political letter..it was the cry of one wounded person in the darkness to another, and as such, deserved an answer. How can I say that I hope Seeker will foster a better understanding between peoples, and ignore such a cry?
I did some research, and found that there were people who cared...people like those belonging to Amnesty International and Peace. I have included links to these organizations at the bottom of this letter, for those who would like more information. This made me feel a bit better, but it still wasn't enough that "other people" were doing something, and I was doing nothing. A little more searching, and I found a list of people to write to. I sent them the first half of this letter, along with the closing.."Please stop this, and make this a country I can be proud to live in again. Make this a country that cares." Not very eloquent, I know..but that is often the case in words that come from the heart. I have included the link to these people at the bottom of this letter also.
And to the young man who wrote...please don't lose faith in the ability of
the human heart to feel, to understand, and most of all, to care.
Denise Ruiz
Editor
I forwarded a copy of this letter to the young man in question and received a warm and sensitive reply of thanks, for remembering him and his people. He seemed to think that he owed me an apology for his original letter. I think differently, but I was grateful for the letter. It is a tribute to the human spirit that he can still show compassion for, and communicate rationally with, those he could justly think of as "the enemy." He told me that he had learned a valuable lesson. Well, so have I, and I thank him for his teaching of it.