Mar 27, 2008 22:40
I’ve been really inspired this year by the courage of some of the people that I’ve stumbled across while reseaching term papers. Last semester I learned about a man named Duch. He was the head of Tuol Sleng, the most notorious prison and torture centre in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era (in which 1.7 million people died, in case you haven’t read about it). Thousands of people died terrible deaths there, including some children. Seven people survived. Years later, after the Vietnamese invaded and the Khmer Rouge fell and were scattered, Duch was on his own. He travelled incognito and somehow ended up under the teaching of an American-Cambodian pastor. (You have to understand, when the war broke out, all the missionaries left and all of the pastors were killed in the genocide but three, so the chance of him actually coming across a pastor is amazing). Duch didn’t tell the pastor who he was, but eventually gave his heart to the Lord. He began to work with development agencies to help rebuild the country he had once helped destroy. Eventually, it came out who he really was and he was aressted. Now, here’s the amazing part: as of a year or so ago, none of the perpetrators of the genocide had yet been arrested or punished for what they did. They all swore they’d had no idea what was going on, up and down. Duch, because of what he had come to believe, confessed fully to everything that he had done. So while the others go off scot-free, Duch will remain in prison. As is right, I mean, but the fact that he had the chance to get out and didn’t makes me really think he did reallt meet Jesus somewhere along the way, because that’s the kind of radical change Jesus makes in people.
The next group of people that I was very impressed with are las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo- Buenos Aires’ seat of government). Argentina had a terrible military dictatorship from 1976-1983. In the end, over 30 000 people were "disappeared"- snatched away in the night and never heard from again. They were tortured and tossed from helicopters into the sea. The government denied all knowledge of their very existence and blamed the disappearences on guerilla groups. Families were left to grieve and desperately wonder on their own. One band of mothers, however, refused to give up hope of seeing their sons and daughters again. They banded together and began to march each Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the seat of government. Their numbers swelled over the years of the dictaroship, and they kept on going ech Thursday even when some of their own began to disappear in the night. The saddest part about their story, though, is that they are still marching, every Thursday at 3:30. Most of them have never found out what happened to their children, and because of a set of impunity laws, the people responsible for the bloodbath were never charged with their crimes. Thankfully those laws have been struck down in just the past few years, so some justice may be done, but it is likely that they will never know.
These people are good examples of the kind of person I want to be. I want to do what’s right, even at incredible cost to myself. I want to stand for truth and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. I want to have courage like Duch and like those mothers who have faithfully marched for years. I want to stand for something real.