Seeing the world through a broken heart

The world is a pit of suffering and pain yet we see it not. All across the world, people are suffering from injustice, oppression, and from other afflictions caused by our very own brothers yet we feel not these things, least of all, know of them.

A worse thing we have done is make ourselves be the very cause of their pain as if our indifference is not enough a mockery. We do not know their plight, we cannot see their sufferings, we cannot feel their pain all because our hearts remain unbroken.

We think the world is confined to the corners in which we move. We have learned to deafen our ears and harden our hearts to the grave injustice and oppression that our brothers across the continents go through everyday. We have downplayed their sufferings with cliches and punchlines we learned from self-help books and by doing so, our hearts do not turn to see their reality.

And then, a single movie, carrying a powerful message, turns our worlds upside down. It breaks our hearts to millions of pieces and opens the eyes of our hearts. We witness the realities of this world and we get shaken. We start to stir up inside.

We begin to ponder intently and thoughtfully about what the world goes through, we start to philosophize and discuss within ourselves who we are and what man is and what does man do. We start to wander through life’s realities and we always ask why. Our hearts have been broken and now see things in their most naked honest state, and so, it refuses to rest.

What is a broken heart?

A broken heart simply is an honest heart. It is a heart which is not blinded with fantasies but clearly sees reality as it is. It is a heart that looks at people through a clear glass and not through a rose-tinted window. It is a heart which does not deceive itself with promptings taught by the learned but contents itself only with what it has witnessed.

Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda pounded on my chest like a jackhammer with a deadline. It crushed my heart down to its basic components and forced me to adopt a whole new perspective about things. I never knew that a world such as that I have seen in the movie existed. I thought people from Africa suffered only from hunger.

I never knew of a racial prejudice of that magnitude. I thought only Saddam Hussein was guilty of racial cleansing. How could have I been so base so as to be ignorant of what our brothers go through? I have never seen man so vicious. I have never seen man treat their brothers as “ cockroaches” all because they are of a different race.

My heart was shaken and the scenes remain vivid in my mind long after I have seen the movie. Often, in solitude, I contemplate on the movie and I ponder on why man such as the Hutus will do such a thing as they have done. Their skin color was the same.

The only reason for thediscriminationwhich I could gather from the movie is that the Tutsis were taller and had the more handsome features. And I ask: what is that?! Perhaps, it is envy.

As I continue to ponder, I have come to believe that envy really is one viable reason for racial discrimination. The GreatHolocaust, which executed hundreds of thousands of Jews, was inspired by envy. Aryanism is built upon envy over the chosen people of God.

So perhaps too, the thing that happened in Hotel Rwanda was inspired by envy. The Hutus were envious of the Tutsis because the latter had better physical features. It is a shallow reason but it is enough to cause man to want to eliminate an entire tribe of people.

Envy is the second of the seven deadly sins. And rightly so. The movie has proven how deadly it is. What does envy do to man? Among lovers it has caused a lot of broken relationships, unstable marriages, and even manslaughter.

Stories of lovers shooting each other because of jealousy have passed by our ears millions of times. Among families, it has caused dissension.

Families get broken up because of envy. Envy has caused brothers to hate their own brothers. It is noteworthy that the first murder committed was inspired by envy. The Bible account of Cain and Abel contains the story of the first murder where Cain killed his own brother, Abel, because of envy. Among friends, envy has caused contempt. Among classes and races of people, it has caused discrimination.