bring back our sons…a sad, frustrating and familiar plea

“Stop killing our children, bring back our children,”
Amrata Hamza mother of an abducted child, taken at the hands of the Islamic
Terrorist organization Boko Haram

(The mother of Muhammad Bello, one the students who was abducted by gunmen,
reacts in Kankara, Nigeria, on Monday. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters))

Well it appears that in these days of all-consuming news of all things election and or pandemic…
somehow I missed a most tragic story out of Nigeria.
It’s a story that actually took place nearly three weeks ago.

A deja vu sort of tale.
As I wrote a post 6 years ago about a very similar incident.

https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2014/05/09/bring-back-our-girls/

It seems that there has been another mass kidnapping of kids from a private boarding school
in Nigeria at the hands of the notorious Islamic group Boko Haram.

A massive group of armed gunmen stormed a school in the northern section of the country
and took over 600 boys as prisoner…or captives or whatever it is one calls the taking of
so many kids.
A mass kidnapping.

Here are excerpts from the story that I read on Fox…

A Nigerian woman whose only son is among the more than 330 boys still missing
after being kidnapped from their school in the northern Katsina state last week pleaded
for their return in a protest Tuesday,
as the jihadist rebel group Boko Haram reportedly claimed responsibility for the mass abduction.

Hundreds of gunmen with assault rifles on Friday surrounded the Government Science Secondary School (GSSS),
an all-boys boarding school in the town of Kankara,
firing at police before rounding up students and forcing them to march through the heavily
forested region in separated groups, witnesses have said.

The Daily Nigerian said Tuesday it received an audio message from Boko Haram
leader Abubakar Shekau saying that his group abducted the schoolboys because
Western education is against the tenets of Islam.

“Stop killing our children, bring back our children,”
Amrata Hamza, whose only son was abducted, told local broadcaster CLIQQ TV during a protest
organized Tuesday. “I don’t know the condition of my son.
I’m speechless.
I can’t talk, I have not drank water since I arrived in Kankara.
There is much sunlight, I know our children are thirsty,
they are hungry. Please help us bring back our children.”

The Nigerian government said a joint rescue operation was launched Saturday by state police,
air force, and army after the military engaged in gunfights with bandits after locating
their hideout in the Zango/Paula forest.
Many of the initial 600 male students taken from the school escaped their captors,
but more than 330 remained unaccounted for as of Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

This latest episode comes six years after Boko Haram kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls
from their dormitory at the Government Secondary School in Chibok in northeastern Borno State
in April 2014.
First Lady Michelle Obama spotlighted the issue at the time with the hashtag
#BringBackOurGirls.

About 100 of the girls are still missing.
Boko Haram said at the time that it wanted to stop women from attending schools.
The recent incident at the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara,
is the worst attack on a boys’ school since February 2014,
when 59 boys were killed during a Boko Haram attack on the Federal Government College
Buni Yadi in Yobe state.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/nigeria-boys-school-kidnapping-boko-haram

These are the types of stories that should outrage us as a global family but instead,
everyone is more focused on the election circus taking place in the US.
As well as whether or not it will be safe to take this hurried up and rushed vaccine
in order to stem the tide of a raging pandemic.

And what of the millions upon millions of dollars that have been poured into the elections–
elections on the national level as well as state level.
Money poured into campaingns by the likes of silcon valley, tech oligarchs,
leftist liberals…all the while children suffer, families suffer.
Suffering locally as well as globally.

Protecting children is, as adults, our responsibility.
It matters not that if it is at the local level of responsibility or
that of a global responsiblilty.
Children are our heart, soul and future.

No full term aboritions.
No abortions, period.
No sex trafficking.
No child prostituion.
No abuse.
No kidnapings.

Only our protection, love and guidence.

Let us pray for those boys as well as for their aching families.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones.
For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
Matthew 18:10

Freedom and slaves on the 4th

“You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve YOUR freedom.
I hope you will make a good use of it.”
John Adams

“Act as if every day were the last of your life, and each action the last you perform.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

We often give up our freedom because freedom means doing things for
ourselves, which is a great bother.
We stop working for ourselves and work for someone else who will take care of us.
We stop ruling ourselves because it is easier and even safer to have someone else rule us.
We stop thinking for ourselves because we find it simpler to have someone else think for us.
Then we wake up one morning and find that we are slaves to institutions that are
far out of our control.
Dale Ahlquist
from Knight of the Holy Ghost

I wonder if one day, in the not so near future, it won’t be considered, not only bad form,
but actually an unpardonable sin, to celebrate our own 4th of July—
that of the marking of the beginning of what was to become a great nation?

We seem to be on a hell-bent precarious and most dangerous path of self-righteous indignation
against what made us who we are today…be that a good making or now what many perceive to be
a bad making.

This week, the giant sporting goods maker, Nike has had to pull it’s new Betsy Ross sneaker–
before it even hit the shelves in anticipation of a patriotic 4th—
all because of a now-former football player who has deemed that our flag, our anthem,
and our very country is each a symbol of racism.

This coming from a young man who was raised by white parents in a life of middle-class privilege…
and yet he speaks knowingly of what it is that represents an oppressive past as if he
had lived that experience.

The city council in Charlottesville, Va has voted to no longer recognize the birthday of her
favorite son, Thomas Jefferson, due to his having owned slaves.
Lest we forget that he reportedly fell in love with one of those slaves…
and wrote of his desire to better the lives of enslaved people.

Statues have been removed, emblems taken down, mottos erased and pasts now painstakingly silenced…
all because people are imposing the 21st-century mindset on the mindset of those who lived
hundreds of years prior—those who lived the life they knew and not one of our modern hindsight.

Yet our goal is to expunge our past, at any and all cost- so help us…
(remember, we must not say ‘so help us God’ because that too is no longer acceptable)

Yet erased or not, our past will remain our past.
And the fact is that we are no longer those people.
We have become a better people…that is, until now.

Our current obsession seems to rest in a long ago and thankfully long abolished
use of human beings as free laborers at the hands of
both benevolent and cruel men.

The marketing of men and women bought and sold by other men and women.

Slavery sadly came as part of new world discoveries as old world ways depended on the
strong backs of men, both free and not free, to build a new world.

Slaves had been in the Carribean hundreds of years prior to the establishment of our colonies,
working on the sugarcane plantations for the Spanish.
The British, French and Dutch each soon followed suit.
As we know that Africans sold their kinsmen to both the white men of Europe as well as to the
brown men of the Middle East.

Slavery sadly was not, nor is it, something new.

Today we actually see a new form of slavery taking place…the market of human beings
for that of sex trafficking.

And so we must ask ourselves in this ongoing debate over reparations, are we willing to pay the
countless families, who have lost loved ones as sex slaves?
Those individuals who now must use their bodies in most profane ways at the
expense of others?

This as voices now demand that we pay the families of former black slaves.
Yet how do we determine who was slave and who was owner?

What of the Jews who escaped to the US following WWII?
Those who had either survived the death camps or simply the remaining families
who had lost loved ones, do we or does Germany owe them?
What of those who worked as slaves for the Nazi regime and those who simply were killed?
Should the Germans now pay the families of those who were lost in the gas chambers?

And what of the countless Russians in gulags…those from the days of Communist regimes?
What of the countless numbers of Chinese and Koreans who are imprisoned for
simply expressing free speech.

Who pays their families?

The list is endless.

And it is in the endlessness in which the absurdity is found.

As America begins to wade through the tit for tat of minutia…
fighting over what and who we once were while trying to rewrite it all…
we have actually lost who and what we are—and that is a people who overcome hardships
toil and sorrow while picking ourselves up and having moved forward…all
in order to build a better tomorrow.

Tragically we are now so busy attempting to erase our past, that we’ve forgotten
the very real future that needs us.

Patriotism was once part and parcel of calling oneself an American.
We grew from what was to what might be…

And yet it now appears we are desperately trying to fall backward as we now associate
patriotism with that of racism.
All of which simply makes us slaves to our past.

Yet in all of this, be we free man or slave… there is but one truth that remains…
that in Jesus Christ, the global family of Christian believers,
there is neither slave nor slave owner…
but only freedom for all men and women.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?
Those things result in death!
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God,
the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Romans 6:20-22

Suffer the little children. . .

For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
Genesis 18:19

“Safety and security don’t just happen, they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear.”
Nelson Mandela

(a self-portrait by my now grown son when he as a little boy / Julie Cook / 2015)

Over the past weekend, various news reports were extolling the overt covert Delta Force take down of one of the IS masterminds while in the same breath heralded the news that IS had captured Ramadi. . .
Obviously a many headed snake slitters in our midsts.
Cut off one head only to deal with another, and another, and another. . .
It seems like a small gain in an attempt to cripple a monster, while the monster takes another large stride without skipping a step. . .

(Medusa by Caravaggio / 1597/ The Uffizi Gallery / Florence, Italy )

60 Minutes aired a troubling story last evening—they seem to run a lot of troubling types of stories these days. . .Child Suicide Bombers reported by Lara Logan.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/child-suicide-bombers-lara-logan-60-minutes/

Ms Logan likened today’s suicide bombers as the modern day equivalent to the Japanese Kamikaze pilots from WWII, while noting the fact that a growing number of these misguided souls, suspected to be in the hundreds, are actually children.

And it is a horrific tactic that has been perfected by the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Children as young as 7 are recruited and trained in the sinister art of suicide bombing—as in being wired, going to or being taken to a specific location or “target” and proceeding to detonate oneself as a living bomb. And should the child, at the last minute, decide to change their mind, a “handler” who has taken the child to their target location can actually detonate the child themselves. Meaning an adult can push a button in order to blow up the child purposefully as if they were like a bug to be squashed under foot.

Ms Logan interviewed both a major general in the Pakistani army as well as a Taliban commander with ties to Al Qaeda. One man who is doing all he can do to stop the devastating practice while rescuing as many of the children as possible as the other man, who is hellbent on not only building the practice but advancing it—even to the point of wanting his own 5 year old son, who he claims is mentally ready to make jihad, to become one of the suicide bombers.

What 5 year old child is mentally ready for much of anything except for play???

Jihad, suicide bombs, Paradise, infidels, murder, death, blown to smithereens. . .
verses
Cartoons, super heroes, coloring, playing ball, running, skipping, laughing, loving. . .

I don’t know, is it just me. . .here we have, once again, another global issue of dire concern yet it is but a mere blip on the radar of the conscious world who would prefer to fill their time with the latest music award shows, stories of Johnny Depp’s illegally imported Yorkies into Australia, the latest news anchor or political pundit who didn’t exactly tell the truth, the bizarre fascination with the latest presidential candidates, the latest women to pop up pointing a finger at Bill Crosby, or the summer’s latest suspense psycho thriller showing up on television. . .anything but the real nitty gritty ugly side of humanity that needs to be addressed and stopped!!

Be it Al Qaeda, IS, Boko Haram, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Al-Shabaab. . .the list grows daily of “organizations” that recruit, kidnap and steal children in order to enlist them into the dirty work created by woefully misguided and evil adults.

This doesn’t even touch on the skyrocketing statistics of the human slave trafficking of young girls, and yes young boys as well, for purposes of an explosivly growing global prostitution epidemic.

Or what of the millions of children worldwide living in abysmal poverty who are forced into manual labor, working in outrageous conditions while carrying out deadly and dangerous jobs for little if any pay. . .

I would think, dare to assume, that most parents all over this globe love their children.
They find joy, pride, and pure love in their children. . .
Parents from Russia to Mexico to Brazil to Uzbekistan to Kuwait to the US to China to New Zealand, etc. . .parents who love their children. . .
who are pained when the living conditions are less than desired,
who fret if their children are hungry,
who worry should their child get sick,
who sorrowfully mourn at the loss of a child. . .
Yet there are the parents of these child bombers who send them to do the work of Allah, as in blowing themselves up in order to put an end to the “infidels”— these children who are trained, or better yet brainwashed, to commit jihad. . .

Who are these parents who allow 5, 13, 17 year old boys to strap bombs to themselves and go forth to blow themselves up- – -for what????

Lara Logan asked the Taliban Commander the very same question. . .
“For what? I don’t understand that. . .”
And his response was “You do not know the Quran. You are not a believer”

Well I thought the Koran / Quran espoused of peace and of the great love of Allah. . .
Not, send your children off to go blow themselves up. . .
What kind of “believer” is that who would pack off a 5 year old child to go learn how to get blown up into a million little pieces????

Aren’t parents wired to vehemently defend and protect their children???
To hold their hands as they cross the street?
To run to their beds in the middle of the night to soothe the bad dreams?
To hold cool cloths to fevered brows. . .???

Who for the love of God, gives their kid a bomb and says
“see ya, go off now to paradise”. . .

“Oh but Julie” you say “it’s a different culture, you just don’t understand because you’re a privileged American. . .”

Bullcrap!

I cannot repeat my initial response to that as it would not be rated G. . .
I don’t buy that crap.

Parents the world over love their children—rich or poor, privileged or not, black or white, red or yellow—
Something somewhere is now fatally flawed. . .
And I for one think the free thinking, free world needs to sound a global alarm- – –

Children are not expendable!!!!!

They are not commodities to be sold, bought, stolen or traded!
They are tiny living, breathing human beings who we, you, me, them, have been given charge of for the nurturing and caring of. . .

To “train them up” in the way they should go—and that is to go forward making this world a better place for the generations of children to come. . .

“When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.”
Mother Teresa

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 18:10

“Bring back our girls!”

Suffer the little children. . .
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (NIV)
(Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come to me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. KJV)
Matthew 19:14

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”
― Margaret Mead

(Stain-glass window of St Anthony of Padua / located in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist/ Savannah, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2013)

I cannot allow one more day to pass without noting the terrible barbarism taking place in Nigeria.
With the abduction of the nearly 300 girls, taken from school–the place they had gone, thinking they would be safe in order to take their end of term final exams—my heart cries out within me.
I cry out as a mother who’s heart shares the anguished grief of so many other mothers in Nigeria.
I cry out as an educator for the safety of those students entrusted to a teacher’s care.
I cry out as a human being who is outraged by the barbaric treatment of children by cold and calculating adults.

Our world grows ever darker.

The sinister shadows of sex trafficking and of a modern day slave trade twist and distort what bright light remains shining in this world. When we allow the marginalization of our children– be it in the latest trauma in Nigeria, the shanty drug dens of Rio de Janeiro, the impoverished isolated communities of southern Appalachia or the myriad of children living in squalor worldwide–the light of our hope grows ever more dim.

Boko Haram, which roughly translates to “Western education is forbidden”, is the latest group in a long list of terrorist organizations hell bent on jihad against humanity. Abducting then selling children–children which are seen as simply as the spoils of war, is one of the most heinous and reprehensible acts that one human can inflict upon another. It is beyond my soul how terribly detached a human can become, so much so that they regard children as a mere commodity for human depravity.

Helplessness and an unquenchable sorrow now strangles almost 300 Nigerian families.
300 families that we have knowledge of—the question remains. . .
how many more families suffer without the world’s knowledge?
How many more families, in the family of humankind must suffer?
How many more children must be exploited and used for the sick twisted pleasure of disturbed individuals?
How many more people must become less than, before we, the people with the voices, join together to shout a collective “NO MORE!”

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
Matthew 18:10