Sacrifice

An excerpt from a final paper which outlined my "personal prescription" for global citizenship.


What I have identified as the next step into global citizenship is one which is blissfully eliminated by the majority of privileged peoples today. As I’ve spent the semester delving into social movement theory, human rights, immigration policy and global interdependence (with the welcomed mental break of Intro to Drawing), I’ve discovered a powerfully potent thread through all that I’ve taken in: the need to sacrifice. Before I go any further I feel the need to present the definition of the key word:
sacrifice : “the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim; to give up something that is valuable to you for the sake of another person”
(Cambridge Online).
A few weeks ago someone said to me, Isn’t it crazy to think that everything we have had to be taken from somewhere? In that moment, everything I own and see around me turned bittersweet. I had felt like I was conscious of my privilege, thankful for my resources, willing to give what I have. I had never thought about all of the people and places giving for me. It seems to me that at some time our world crossed a major line. At some time, humanity morphed out of brotherhood and into a caste system. The poor must plead for charity rather than demand their right to life. I can see, now, the heavy skin and broken eyes of elderly women, their daughters, their granddaughters, all across the streets of Mombasa. I recall the tourists passing by. I remember the smile of an autistic young man who joyfully learned to play Frisbee with me in the park; called “crazy man” by his younger brothers and sisters. I question whether I have ever had to make a sacrifice.