"It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way."
These words, written in the mid-1800s by Charles Dickens in his novel "A Tale of Two Cities," depicted the scenario in France and England, the greater powers of the Western world, before and during the French Revolution, a period of bloodshed, as ideologies clashed and innocent people had to die.
And perhaps these words could be written of France and the Western world today.
Last week bloodshed once again took place in Paris -- this time on a scale unmatched since World War II -- as ideologies clashed and innocent people had to die.
Or did they?
The sound came like a thunder clap, shattering the serenity of the Friday evening. In a moment, everything changed. Many of those who had just been interacting with others now lay dead or dying, sprawled on the ground as bloody obstacles to the survivors who tried to escape this unanticipated hell no preacher or holy book had warned them of.
Blood stained the ground.
More than 120 people died.
ISIS claimed responsibility.
But the tragedy described above did not take place in Paris.
No, the tragedy described above took place outside of Baghdad on Friday, July 17, as a bomb ripped through a crowd gathered at the marketplace.
Thursday night 43 people were killed by a suicide bomber in Beirut, Lebanon.
In June ISIS killed 140 people in the Syrian village of Kobani.
Last December 150 women and girls were executed for refusing to marry ISIS fighters.
And the list goes on.
On Facebook, people from across the world voiced their support for the people of France by changing their profile picture to one depicting the French flag. On Twitter, the hashtag #prayforparis went viral.
It's an irony, this human condition we each inhabit, for we are confined by our ideologies. For example, two fans of opposing teams might argue to the point of blows, yet these two might unite together under the banner of a political party and insult another who adheres to a different line of political ideology. The human condition has trained us to constantly gauge and categorize others by our ideologies. Are they like us or are they different from us?
The mass of support shown for Paris has been incredible to witness, but it brings to light an even greater tragedy here in America: indifference. This indifference has allowed us to grow desensitized to the tragedies occurring in the rest of the world outside of the western world. They litter the news tickers on CNN, NBC and Fox, but they do not penetrate our hearts.
If the Western world is to rally under the cry of a united humanity, then it must do just that and put aside the indifference that we have maintained until now.
Why did we wait until the tragedy came to us to actually care? Will we continue to be desensitized to the tragedies occurring outside the Western world?
I ask these questions no more of others than I do of myself.
Having entered this brief conversation with a quote, I will leave it with a quote, this one coming from the artist Blueprint in his song "Perspective."
"Ten girls stabbed on the college campus.
Twenty school kids gunned down in Sandy Hook.
A black teenager is murdered over skin color.
It feel like the chaos is everywhere you look.
Thirty Afghans killed at a family wedding.
Sixty Iraqi killed tryin to vote.
A woman gets gang-raped out in India.
Five kids' lives get ended by a drone.
I don't care if you livin' in the high rise.
You're no different from a man in a hut.
Every single life is sacred in God's eyes.
You ain't worth more cause you got more stuff.
I don't care what the color of your skin is.
I don't care about your fortune and fame.
I just want for us to have more perspective
And understand that everybody's pain is the same.
Perspective. It's beautiful up here."
#PrayForParis
#PrayForBeirut
#PrayForAUnitedHumanity
