Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Happy freedom day: respect the human dignity of all
I hope you all had a great freedom day and took a moment to cherish the wonder of living in a free country in which the human dignity of all are protected by the Constitution. If we want to honour our freedom (and here comes the sermon – always thought I should have been a dominee or priest) every one of us need to respect the dignity of everyone in the country.
It is so easy to judge someone for how he or she looks, what political party that person supports, what gender he or she is, or whether the person speaks Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu or Shangaan. That is why this video tears me up every time I watch it. It challenges our prejudices and reminds us that we are all deserving of respect because we all have an inherent self worth. Respect.
Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 2009 – Funny video clips are a click away
