Frank Gjata, inspired by the famous Great Dictator Speech written by Charlie Chaplin in 1940, wrote this speech imagining what message Chaplin might deliver to us if he were alive today.
It’s been a long time since I addressed you, a very long time. It was a dismal time. I shared with you how greed had poisoned men’s souls, had barricaded the world with hate and goose stepped us into misery and bloodshed, how we developed speed but we had shut ourselves in a machinery that gave us abundance and left us in want. (…)
So how is life today? I ask you: has anything changed? Look around. Has violence ended? Hatred erased? Racism eradicated? What happens to you when you hear, see and feel these things have not changed? Do you get angry? Does your blood boil? Do you look around suspiciously for who is to blame, pointing fingers outward at your fellow man? (…) I ask you, what has changed?
I will tell you…I have. I’m sorry I cannot pretend anymore. I can no longer blame anyone. I’ve learned we’ve been looking in the opposite direction for the start to the end of violence. Where is the seed of violence, this root of despair? Is it not within each of us? Each and every one? Have you ever disregarded, discounted, devalued, ignored, shunned, neglected, pushed away, belittled, overlooked, attacked or hated yourself? Are these not forms of violence? Does not our outer world reflect our inner world? (…)
So, what can each of us, you and me, do to end horrific violence across the world? To end violence out there we must first end violence in here. This is why I’ve come back to you, to address you today, to share with you that we must love ourselves first. This is where peace starts and violence ends. (…)
Does this seem too simplistic and idealistic? I ask you, is there anyone among you completely free of violence within? That has embraced total unconditional self-love? (…)
Fear not I say. As we tap into the deep well of peace and love within us, it cannot help but overflow outwardly to our neighbors, outwardly to our world becomes effortless because peace and love are a truth of our nature. You have all the power of the world within you. We all do. You do not need to be a leader of a country or a warrior in an army to act. You are already much more than that! (…)
As I quoted to you before, in the 17th chapter of Saint-Luke it is written: the kingdom of God is within men. Not one man, not a group of men, but in all men! And in all women! In you! You have the power, the power to create happiness! You have the power to make this life free and beautiful! To make this life a wonderful adventure! Now is the time for us to remember who we really are! So let us start today right now by loving ourselves, being more accepting, more understanding, more compassionate, and we will see our world change. We do not need to fight to unite. Let us cultivate this love and allow it to sprout the gifts that have been planted within us, each and every one of us, to be at service, to be shared, to be celebrated. It is the expression of our unique gifts that will be our salvation, fitting together precisely designed to solve any and all of our earthly ills, and we shall be moved to tears instead of driven to tears.
We shall fall in love with the whole world, and the whole world shall fall in love with us.
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