Gene's Blog

But does it?

As I have often done, I am sharing a Steve Goodier piece here. But I disagree with him. Vehemently. Not in his basic principle, but in its particular application. I’ll be back after. :^)
CHANGING THE WORLD, ONE CLIP AT A TIME

What can one person possibly do in this large world? How can one
person or one small group accomplish anything significant to help
bring people together in understanding and peace? Listen to this true
and moving story .

In 1998 deputy principal and football coach David Smith, at Whitwell
Middle School (Whitwell, Tennessee) attended a teacher training course
in nearby Chattanooga. He came back and proposed that an after-school
course on the Holocaust be offered at the school. This — in a school
with hardly any ethnic and no Jewish students.

English and social sciences teacher Sandra Roberts was selected to
teach, and in October, 1998 she held the first session. She began by
reading aloud from Anne Frank’s DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL and Elie
Wiesel’s NIGHT. She read aloud because most of the students could not
afford to buy books.

What gripped the eighth graders most as the course progressed was the
sheer number of Jews put to death by the Third Reich. Six million.
They could hardly fathom such an immense figure.

One day, Roberts was explaining to the class that some compassionate
people in 1940s Europe stood up for the Jews. After the Nazis invaded
Norway, many courageous Norwegians expressed solidarity with their
Jewish fellow citizens by pinning ordinary paper clips to their
lapels, as Jews were forced to wear a Star of David on theirs.

Then someone had the idea to collect six million paper clips to
represent the six million Holocaust victims. The idea caught on, and
the students began bringing in paper clips … from home, from aunts
and uncles and friends. They set up a Web page (you may visit
http://www.whitwell middleschool. org/ to learn more). A few weeks
later, the first letter arrived — then others. Many contained paper
clips. By the end of the school year, the group had assembled 100,000
clips. But it occurred to the teachers that collecting six million
paper clips at that rate would take a lifetime.

The group’s activities spilled over from Roberts’ classroom. Soon it
was called the Holocaust Project. Across the hall, students created a
concentration camp simulation with paper cutouts of themselves pasted
on the wall. Chicken wire stretched across the wall to represent
electrified fences. Wire mesh was hung with shoes to represent the
millions of shoes the victims left behind when they were marched to
death chambers. And they reenacted the “walk” to give students at
least an inkling of what people must have felt when Nazi guards
marched them off to camps.

Meanwhile, the paper clip counting continued. Students gathered for
their Wednesday meeting, each wearing the group’s polo shirt
emblazoned: “Changing the World, One Clip at a Time.” All sorts of
clips arrived — silver and bronze colored clips, colorful plastic-
coated clips, small clips, large clips, round clips, triangular clips
and even clips fashioned from wood. The students filed all the letters
they received in ring binders.

They obtained an authentic German railroad car from the 1940s, one
that may have actually transported victims to camps. The car was to be
turned into a museum to house all the paper clips (tens of millions
have already arrived), as well as to display the many letters received
from around the world.

When the project is finally completed, for generations of Whitwell
eighth graders, a paper clip will never again be just a paper clip.
Instead, it will carry a message of perseverance, empathy,
tolerance and understanding. One student put it like this: “Now, when
I see someone, I think before I speak, I think before I act and I
think before I judge.”

Can one person, or one small group, truly do anything to help bring
humanity together in understanding and peace? Just ask the students at
Whitwell and all of those around the world who are helping them to
collect paper clips!

— Steve Goodier

And here, is where I’m going to disagree. It is wonderful that we care about those six MILLION Jews taken by the holocaust. But who is speaking for the children of Darfur? Of the Sudan. Of Somalia? It isn’t over, Steve. It has barely begun. And THAT is what we should be thinking about. Not what was, but what WILL be, if WE, US, HERE, NOW, do not stop it. That is the task we face, that evil has hidden its face behind a burkqa does not make it any the less evil. Will the world meet this challenge? Or will it hide its face as it did while Hitler tried to kill europe? My guess? We have no more civil conscience now than we did then. We will pretend evil is just another way, until it gets in our way. And, pray then, we have the strength to defeat it. And I am defining evil simply as that which will not allow another a differing opinion. Do you doubt this is possible? Then welcome to your future. :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene