30 Min. Video: 30 Lives/30 Minutes Of Solidarity

“30/30 Thursday: 30 Lives/30 Minutes of Solidarity: Die-In Event” was held on Thursday [Dec 18], bringing the community together in order to make a show of solidarity against gun violence in Bermuda.

“Since 2003, Bermuda has lost 30 of our sons to gun violence. 87% of those senseless deaths have taken place since 2009, that’s in the last 6 years,” Pastor Jahkimmo Smith from Mt. Zion Church told the crowd.

“But that is not the whole story, yes 30 lives have been tragically lost, but also 30 families have had to deal with and continue to live the trauma of their loss.

“Others have lost their sons to prison, other have left been wounded or paralyzed, countless others have had to relocate in fear for their lives, and others daily live in paranoia of the same fate.

“Families have been ripped apart, and a community we continue to grapple with this issue of gang and gun violence.

Pastor Smith continued, “When a person is so filled with hatred, so filled with hurt or a sense of vengeance or have become so numb and indifferent towards life, that they can murder someone or give an order to murder another human being in cold blood….no one political party could fix that.

“No one church could fix that, no one march, prayer vigil or die-in could fix that. That takes a collective and a sustained effort.

“When a person is so filled with hatred and hurt or a sense of vengeance or have become so numb, and so indifferent towards life that they can murder someone or give an order for someone to be killed in cold blood, no Government legislation can fix that, no economic turnaround can fix that, no amount of jobs created can fix that. Good legislation can mandate tougher prison sentences, but it cannot mandate that we love each other.

“More money and more jobs can allow us to buy nicer things but it cannot make us into nicer people or nicer neighbors. This kind of blind hatred and cynicism towards life is a poverty of internal nature, and only God can fix that.

Dr. Martin Luther King once said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.‘

“And this is a lesson that MOB must learn. This is the lesson that Parkside and 42nd and all the other crews or gang or so-called families must learn if this vicious cycle of violence is to be broken.

“This is the lesson that we all must learn if were are ever to fully heal from this period in our history. As a community we must be courageous enough to radically love our neighbors as ourselves.

30 minute video of the event

“I will be the first to admit that it is naive to think that any small act of courage or single act of solidarity, symbolic of otherwise, can solve any problem overnight, especially when one as serious and as detrimental as the one that we face with gang and violence,” Pastor Smith added.

“But I also believe that it is even more naive to think that a small act of courage or a single act of solidarity, cannot or will not make a difference.”

#30/30Thursday #CrimeInBermuda #Murders #MurderVictimTributes

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