BURMA/CHINA: Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls…

For six weeks, the world has come face to face with enormous loss of life, unimaginable human suffering and loss of livelihood. It has also stood witness to the cruelty of the ruling military junta in the Union of Myanmar, as administratively incompetent generals have withheld relief from their suffering subjects.

The devastating cyclone in Myanmar and the horrific earthquake in Sichuan province, China, have served as reminders to the whole of humanity of the fine demarcation line between life and death. They have also prompted a sense that the world is poorer for the huge losses that have occurred.

The generosity of the worldwide response indicates a consciousness that we are all somehow poorer for the lives that have been lost. However, past experience tells us that sustaining this consciousness can in indeed be a difficult challenge.

Few poetic lines survive the life spans of their authors and fewer still live on in the casual, everyday phrases of any language. However, the more than 400 years-old words of John Dunne survive in the English language to remind us that the death of one person leaves us all poorer: "Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

Members of the Focolare Movement in Hong Kong prayed on May 22 that we may all be imbued with an appreciation of the value of every human life and that with every death we are all somehow poorer. Along the same lines, the Japanese bishops have long argued that such appreciation for the life of each and every person is the only key that can open the door to peace, either within our own nations or internationally.

Last week, Hong Kong was reminded of another loss of life at the annual June 4 remembrance in Victoria Park. The 70,000 or so people who braved the threatening skies, clutched their candles and bowed three times in respect for those who died in the massacre that took place in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 19 years ago to the day.

They did not die before the force of nature, but one of a different kind. A power that did not recognise the value of what was being destroyed and still seems indifferent to the loss inflicted, not only upon immediate family and friends, but every person in the world.

Violence against another human being is always difficult to justify and armed violence against the defenceless would appear to be impossible. It is easy for us to ponder how anyone could give such an order or, in the way of the Myanmar generals, withhold vital supplies from the needy.

However, Jesus counselled us to look to the splinter in our own eye before the one in our neighbour’s, as it may well be a chip from the same tree; the same exaggerated sense that my needs are greater than another’s or my security is more important than another’s very life.

It can well be that same piece of wood that allows us to turn a blind eye to suffering, a deaf ear to the cry of the poor or to remain silent in the face of injustice.

As the bells in Myanmar and China toll for each one of us, let the deaths not be in vain. Let’s mourn with a commitment to promote and cherish all life.

[Sunday Examiner]