As a 1000 young people ran towards me cheering and singing slogans, holding the traffic up on the main roundabout in Tegucigalpa, I was in awe at how people here are prepared to stand up for what they believe is right and the risks that needed be taken to change things.
I was on a march of over 1000 young people, marching against the violence and murder that blights their lives, both violence by the Maras gangs, but also the police and military as they arbitrarily clamp down on young people in general.
What made this march all the more powerful is that it was being organised by the Catholic Church. Now i´m not getting all religious on you readers, but i could not helped but be moved.
Christians throughout the world celebrate Palm Sunday by marching through their cities and towns in a traditional sign on “witness” to others of their faith.
Yet this was different. There was no smug “witnessing”or “evangalising” as you usually see on Palm Sunday marches, just people saying that their society was unfair, and as Christians, they wanted that to change and they were prepared to march through the streets to get that change.
I had a great vision of Jesus watching with a wry smile and a lot of pride.
After all, his original journey into Jerusalem, that Palm Sunday remembers, was a massive political statement itself, not a self indulgent self-serving act, as he rode in to the heart of Roman and Jewish power that was Jerusalem. He did not do this in a chariot or surrounded by an army, but on the back of a donkey, with people waving palm trees as a sign on peace.
This was a massive political and social statement. The church and young people here clearly seemed to have remembered this.
Would the church in Europe be able to mobilise such large numbers of young people for purely political reasons? and also feel confident enough to take such a political stand against the government and military?
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