Are you really your Brother’s Keeper?

One of the greatest Bible stories that remains deeply etched in my memory is the Abel – Cain story. It was a favourite of mine when I was in Sunday school many years ago.

This story is to be found in the fourth chapter of Genesis.

In short, Cain killed his brother Abel. And when the Lord asked him, “Where is Abel your brother?” he said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”

That is immensely rude and disrespectful of human life. This means that he did not care what had happened to his brother and did not want to be bothered.

Sadly, this is the same kind of attitude some of us have developed when faced with the albino issue in our country. We feel that we are less concerned about what is happening to our brothers and sisters.
We tend to think that the responsibility of minding our own kith and kin (the albino community) is the sole responsibility of some charity groups or the government.

There is something we can never deny. As a community we know the people who are perpetrating acts of violence against this minority group. We know the ones who are “consumers” of albino body parts. We know the ones who are ordering albino killings. We know the witchdoctors who have “albino body parts” as part of their long list of prescriptions.

We know them for they live in our communities – they are our neighbours; they are our relatives.

Why should we condone such cowardly and diabolical acts of violence? We can change everything today. But we must first all realize the importance of being our brothers’ (and sisters’!) keepers.

We must first go back to the basics of valuing human life.

And that’s the bottom line.