Si quieres cambio verdadero, pues camina distinto.
Autor: Lilian Arruda | Publicado: 2014-07-09T14:00:00-07:00


I thought a
lot in whether I should go down this hill or just let it pass. I won’t be
talking about football, but some easy steps of how to start intolerance. 



The first
way to connect people is to put them all together against a common enemy. It’s
a simple equation, you start to qualify a group as it all and relying in just
one common feeling – preferrable a negative one.&nbsp;



&nbsp;If I want you to pick a side, I need you to not connect to the other – how would you disrespect, fight, kill, hurt someone you feel connected to?



The words are important here – one is
not anymore an individual, but part of a major community like Christians,
muslins, etc.



&nbsp;Misinformation guides you to form your opinion according to this,
according to specific sets of words that will be connect to each group in order
to reinforce those identities.



Once you
bite the bait the following is likable to happen.



<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<!--[endif]-->Pick a Good x Bad side



<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<!--[endif]-->Put guilt or frustration on a third party



<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<!--[endif]-->Re-joy with people’s loss



<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<!--[endif]-->Blame the strong emotions



<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<!--[endif]-->Forget people’s face



I dedicated 5 years of my life working for an organization that has a
formula to try to avoid those dangers. We say that living international experiences
might be the key to keep you away from those situations.

We believe that when you experience things by yourself, you meet a
different reality; you question cultural generalizations; you meet the faces of
people you just knew by shallow references. 



You make friends, you find acceptance, you find love.



Personally, those experiences made me understand that being connect is
what makes us stronger. &nbsp;Ukraine,
Mauritius, Colombia, Egypt. &nbsp;I’ve meet so
many people sharing the same values that finally I believed that yet, it’s
possible to create as powerful connections with positive feelings rather than
negative ones.



I understood
that making peace is a constant inner battle of being coherent. That developing
people is a never ending fight of respecting and controlling your strong
emotions. And even though I’d have this weird feelings inside, and question my
or people’s values, there’s one thing you cannot forget – the faces of the ones
you've met and shared so much.



They will never be just "the colombians", "the Mauritian", "These people". When I
think about all those faces, I think twice in my words. I think again about my
actions and judgment. Because I'm the&nbsp;OWNER of&nbsp;my emotions and feelings and because I
value the people I’ve met. 



Yesterday
my loss wasn’t a world cup. Yesterday my loss was being forgotten by people I
care and wouldn’t forget. A strike of constant offensive posts of known faces
cutting deeper than 7 goals coming from the ones with whom I worked together for this "better world". Thankfully, followed by some goals of special ones
that were there to still give me hope. 



Among many things, there was a trending
expression that specifically got my attention: Divine Justice. 



It’s been a long time I’m not going to the
church but if you want to believe that, in a world like
ours, a God figure would choose to do some intervention just in the world cup –
well, not sure if there’s divine there...



I myself believe in the divine justice of love
and acceptance. I believe in the divine that each and everyone has inside that
make us forgive, give us the maturity to learn from our mistakes, give us the
freedom to choose love rather than hate.



That’s divine justice for me, when one is aware
that the divine is who I choose to be. And I choose to be different and give a
different answer and have no excuses for the hate and for intolerance. I choose
to remember the faces of the ones that showed me that the world is far way bigger
than what people used to tell me.







I choose to not forget who I am, in what I
believe, and that all of this is possible thanks to others, and their existence
remind me each and every day that I know nothing. But I care.



So this is my message to all my dear friends
that suffered from a short amnesia yesterday, you cannot tell me you strive for
world peace if you cannot face your own lack of coherence between actions and
words. Even if the world is falling – remember of the ones you care – those faces
should value more than an emotional outflow.



I see you, I remember you and I say it because
I still care.









Love,

Lilian