| | All men and women are supposed to be created equal, even if their lives
aren't. Who we are and what we become is largely based on our
environments and the choices we make in them. So how do we fit good
and evil into that mix? Take the demonic, soulless rebels in Africa
who massacre villages, rape and kill the women, force the men to mine
for conflict diamonds, and take the sons to brainwash and turn into the
next generation of rebels.
It is those children I am talking about here. No person considers them
anything but victims of the war. They are forced to commit
unimaginable horrors, to become trained to kill without remorse, and if
they object then without a doubt they'll end up on the wrong side of
their AK-47s. They have no choice but to obey the commands of the
rebels, and soon enough they loose all humanity. Those who survive the
battles grow into adults and in turn kidnap the next generation of kids
to pervert.
When did they cross the line from victims to demons? Did they ever
cross the line at all? It would seem that they certainly did, but even
if it was a gradual shift how, when, and why did that happen?
Trying to look at it from their point of view. They know they grow up
fearing death if they defect. As they grow older they've got the local
public and military to fear as well, for none of them would harbor any
pity for a defective rebel, not after all the murder they have
committed. They seem to be stuck where they are, unless they can find
a way to leave the country for good, and those opportunities aren't
exactly easily available.
They kill so that they themselves aren't killed. They brutalize so that they themselves remain safe.
It's all fine and dandy to say that murdering innocents to save your
own scrawny neck is evil, but try to actually imagine yourself in their
shoes. How many of you would be willing to say no to the rebels? Are
you ready to sign your own death warrant? Ready to die for a perfect
stranger? Someone who'll be killed anyways, by someone else if not
you? And after that first murder the next one hundred become a lot
easier.
I would like to think I'd be strong enough to spare them if I was in
their place. Maybe I'd turn on the rebels or just try to run away
instead. But it would be me alone against hundreds of others. I would
like to think I'd be strong enough, and at the moment I believe I would
be, but you never really know until the moment of truth. Not until
it's kill or be killed.
So what do you do? Do you condemn the rebels to the ranks of demons?
Consider them helpless victims? Or do you just weep for the poor
devils, for it is nothing but the blessing of God that stopped you from
being right there marching with the worst of them.
--Yeah, I just saw Blood Diamond.
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| | Posted 7/25/2007 11:53 PM - 165 Views - 8 eProps - 6 comments
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