I was watching the UCD Channel, and...

Feb 10, 2006 23:03


I saw Rigoberta Menchu, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, speak at Mondavi, on "Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples." What an amazing woman! Full of spirit and dignity and a conscience of humanity.

She was so amazing that I actually got a piece of paper and a pen and took notes. hah!

Apparently, there were massacres in Guatemala; her parents and brother were tortured, burned, and thrown into mass graves. She worked and continues to work on exhuming these graves so that the dead can be properly laid to rest and the living can, for the lack of a better word, relax. She said (paraphrased) that people would ask her, "Why don't you forget what happened and move on?" and she would answer, "It's not a matter of my happiness. It's a matter of whether my brother is important to me or not. Because he is so important to me, I need to give him a dignified burial. I hope that we never forget what happened, and that we'll elect a president who will remember what happened."

She admitted that her work is "doloroso," painful. But she uses this pain to do good for others. She ended saying (in Spanish) "The problems are so enormous. And the data and statistics keep building up. But the challenge is to find solutions. That is why we all need to have a social mission."

Indeed. Like Ghandi said, we need to be the change that we wish to see in the world. How can you change?
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