This has nothing to do with reading or literature or the usual FrizzLit things, but…
Have you seen that video
posted two weeks ago on her substack? About the effort to save the life of an athiest living in a part of Bangladesh where not believing in God is punishable by death?It involves a pack of black-clad men wielding machetes attacking Mr. T (he is only referred to by that initial because his identity needs to be protected), and a cab driver miraculously saving T’s life by dropping him off at a hospital, and a non-profit organization that raises money to get people like T — people in real trouble — to safety.
I don’t want to give too much of the story away — go watch the video.
Julia made it after visiting T in an undisclosed location in Canada, where he is living now, having made his escape, with the help of people like Julia and the organization Secular Rescue.
After the part of the video where Mr. T and Julia jointly tell the story of what he’s been through, Julia adds a few more video clips of her thinking about T’s story in the airport before flying home.
You can tell Julia shot these clips on her cell phone and edited them together in iMovie, and homemade quality of it all adds to the authenticity.
It makes it clear that the plight of people like Mr. T is something Julia learned about, and cared about, and dove into out of a desire to make the world a better place, just like any of us could.
It reminds me: Hey, wait, I can do these kinds of things, too, if I want to. I can help.
I can’t tell you how often I think about young men in the Middle East thrown off rooftops to their deaths in places like Iraq for being gay. Or those guys in concentration camps in Chechnya. People I will never meet, being murdered for something they can’t change, by assholes with the vanity to believe god is speaking through them.
It’s so uncomfortable to think about. There’s a tight, scary feeling of endless freefall in my chest whenever I do — the panic of what those men I’ll never meet are going through, the fear for all the guys who are next, and the helplessness I feel being some guy out in Seattle sitting around thinking about their plight. How could I ever possibly help?
I realized, by watching
’s video, that I could help by donating to Secular Rescue.So now I am a monthly supporter. If you would like to support their work too, here’s the donation link.
If not, at least go watch Julia’s video. I am just walloped by how powerful it is.
ON IT