(Minghui.org) On a cold, winter night during World War II, Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, was in a car traveling toward headquarters, when he saw an old couple shivering at the roadside.
He instructed the driver to stop, and he asked the couple if they needed help. The said their car had broken down. The couple appeared to have mild hypothermia, and could die if they were in the snow much longer.
Eisenhower asked his driver to take them home before continuing to headquarters, but his assistant was hesitant, “General Eisenhower, we will be late to arrive at headquarters if we do so. How about we notify the local police and let them handle this?”
Eisenhower insisted, afraid they might not make it. So they took the couple home and then continued to headquarters.
Allied Forces later learned that snipers had been waiting further along the road. Had Eisenhower continued without helping the old couple, he might have been assassinated. His kindness may have saved his life.
Eisenhower could have found many reasons not to help the couple. He could have felt too busy, because of his hefty responsibilities as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. He could have cited his assistant's attitude toward helping them as an excuse to keep driving. But in the end, he and his staff endured the cold a little longer and choose to help the couple.
These days, deciding to help an old couple in the cold could prove a daunting task for some people. Eisenhower, however, seemed to follow a simple process. He listened to his conscience and did the right thing. His kindness at that time helped him avoid a potentially nefarious fate.
Similar situations could manifest in our own lives. We could be presented with a choice: to either protect our personal interest, or do the right thing and help others.
Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted in China for 15 years. Many ordinary Chinese citizens been turned against Falun Gong. They had been misled by the hate-propaganda broadcast by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) state-controlled media agencies. And because of the “Great Firewall of China” (Internet censorship on a massive scale, filtering out, among other things, anything about Falun Gong except CCP propaganda), the public could not learn the truth.
Practitioners have expended great effort for 15 years, risking their freedom and sometimes their lives to tell Chinese people the truth about Falun Gong.
The practitioners in China gave the ordinary citizens an opportunity to discern right from wrong when they interpreted the persecution of Falun Gong.
The publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, which practitioners distribute, has given people in China another chance to examine the history of the CCP. It tells of the true history of all the revolutions, famines, and the cruel tactics used by the regime to suppress Chinese people.
The Nine Commentaries diverge from the warped history published in academic textbooks in Mainland China. After reading the Nine Commentaries, Chinese people can see that the CCP has always controlled the masses by instilling fear, killing on mass revolution after revolution.
Despite practitioners' efforts, many Chinese people remain unclear about the situation and blindly follow the CCP to contribute to the persecution of Falun Gong.
The 2014 Annual Report by the United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China was released on October 9, 2014.
The report stated, “Human rights and rule of law conditions in China overall did not improve this past year, and declined in some of the areas covered by this report. The Chinese government and Communist Party continued to emphasize authoritarian control at the expense of human rights and the rule of law.” (More information)
The report draws attention to the urgency of resolving the human rights abuses in China. It should serve as a reminder for people to pay closer attention to the persecution.
Communism was overthrown in Europe in 1989, the same year as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. At that time people in many parts of Europe started regaining their freedom after living so many years under totalitarian rule.
Now more than 180 million Chinese people have publicly withdrawn from the CCP and its affiliated organizations through tuidang.org. This trend indicates that people in China now hope to separate themselves from this regime, a regime which has brought severe harm to mankind over the past century.
The organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners in China in particular, has truly revealed the cruel and inhuman nature of the CCP. This brutality should make people reconsider swearing their lives before the CCP flag.
Throughout history countless examples have proven that good will prevail over evil. By acting according to one's conscience, and by supporting Falun Gong practitioners who adhere to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, people will be blessed with a better future, perhaps just like Eisenhower was.
Category: Perspective
