December 6, 2023
There are a whole lot of
questions in this life that I don’t know the answers to. Most of them I likely
won’t know until I have the opportunity to ask God, face to face.
I would like to believe that I
don’t hate other people. Neither collectively nor individually. I do hate bad
behavior that harms others. I do hate injustice. But I don’t hate people in the
way that too many in these times appear to hate others.
Sometimes I wonder if hatred
toward people is a thing all its own, or if it’s merely a symptom; a means of
expressing fear or anger. As I said, I have many questions in this life.
Today is a sombre anniversary
in Canada. 34 years ago today, there was a mass shooting at a school –
specifically, the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, which is an engineering
school affiliated with the University of Montreal. This dreadful event has been
categorized as an “anti-feminist” mass shooting, as all 14 of the deceased targeted
and slain were women. In addition, another 10 women—and four men—were wounded.
I don’t think it’s possible to
be aware of world events, to watch news casts, and not know that there is a growing
level of violence against different races of people. Some people hate Jews. Some
people hate Arabs. Some hate people of color. Some hate people of a different
sexuality. Some hate white people. Some hate Indigenous people. And some hate immigrants.
Then there are those who hate
not along the lines of ethnicity or color or sexual orientation or place of
origin. They do not hate solely on the basis of faith. They hate beings of every one of those
categories, including their own equally. Because they hate women.
Despite the gains toward
equality that have been made in the last couple of hundred years, there remains
in this world a hatred toward women that defies comprehension.
One need only know the history
of the “civilized” world to understand that western society has always been a patriarchal
one. Women were at one time considered property. They had value, of course, maybe
not as much as a house or a horse or any other asset, but value, nonetheless.
I would like to believe that
those attitudes toward women that existed for so long belong in the past. Women
can vote, they can attend college and university and can work. They can be
business owners, and CEOs. They can, in fact, do practically anything they want
to do. For my part, being a woman, I have never believed that women were
anything but equal to men. Different, yes of course, but absolutely equal.
And I am always shocked when I
am reminded that there is a significant number of the population of the world
that does not feel that way. Many men give voice to the principle that women
and men are equals, and I do believe that those men do believe that.
And yet there are still times
when it becomes clear that many men do not.
News coming out of the two
wars raging in our world currently, in Europe and in the Holy Lands, is grim these
days. Hatred abounds. It taints the very air we breathe. Atrocities are committed
against people, based on faith, yes, and ethnicity, yes. But the very worst atrocities
are committed against women and children.
And when you hear that
terrorists have used rape as a weapon of war, you know without having to be
told that the victims of that weapon are not men.
I do have many questions in
this life, and not many answers. But I do believe this one thing: when the numbers
of people speaking out against evil, against violence, against injustice
becomes large enough; when the sound of their collective voices becomes loud
enough, that’s when things begin change.
This essay, today, is me,
speaking out as loud as I possibly can.
Love,
Morgan
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