Dear Friends,
As I write this, there are a multitude of grave injustices unfolding around the world. Just another day?
Sudan. Genocide.
Democratic Republic of Congo. Genocide.
Palestine. Genocide.
Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, North Korea, Myanmar and Ethiopia. Genocides unfolding.
Yemen, India, Armenia, Iran, Lebanon. All suffering from human rights abuses and disregard for the sanctity of life.
Sanctity. Is life holy? Take god out of the equation, and replace one’s divine right to life with a simple, universal right to life, to freedoms of thought and expression. To living with and in dignity. Human rights.
The United Nations states that, “Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.”
We are a very very far way from bestowing those rights to our fellow humans. It seems that the human condition is to deny one another these rights, as far as to steal these rights from one another, or even to rob one another of life itself.
Dark times that we keep visiting and revisiting.
But, there is hope. There is hope in the bounty of our planet, in the bounty of goodwill and kindness that we see in our fellow humans, in the bounty of our indomitable spirits to seek justice, to hold mirrors to leaders and ourselves, to fight, to express. To fight for and to express our humanity. Our right to humanity.
It is with great pleasure that I bring you issue 27 of whimperbang. A multitude of voices, each different and unique. Each speaking to the human condition. Each speaking to self and other, and to the collective “we.”
There are no small kindnesses. Holding a door, saying thank you. Listening. Hearing.
Let us listen. And hear. Speak out and fight and express.
With Peace,
Raymond Prucher, Editor
whimperbang
Issue 27, July 2024
Dedicated to the brave souls that have occupied their campuses and taken to the streets to express their outrage and solidarity with the oppressed. And to the bravest souls, standing each day for themselves, their people, their rights to life and self-determination. Human rights. We owe them better. We owe ourselves, and our humanity, better.