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| me around 13 looking annoyed in pigtails |
When I was young, around 13, I wrote a letter to the Archbishop of the Church of Ireland. It was a heartfelt piece about how angry I felt about the people of violence in our community who regularly bombed and shot others. My question was how as Christians could we turn the other cheek to such individuals? How could we love those who hate us and do us harm? Living in an area of Northern Ireland prone to bombs and violence I really wanted answers. One of my playmates on our street later would be sent to prison for planting a bomb that killed others. She was released after many years for health reasons. Seeing the devastation killing created it seemed forgiveness was an inadequate response for the community. Wolves when allowed free reign will kill the whole flock. Acquiescing and forgiveness in those circumstances will not avail. Surely communities have a right to defend themselves from such abuse. But where do Christians stand given scriptural demands of a higher moral standard?
I was surprised to receive a reply from the archbishop. It was unexpected and appreciated. He wrote of our duty of forgiveness not just in words but in hearts also. He recognised how hard this task was and how many in Northern Ireland struggled with the enormity of this call. It seems strange then that decades later the man of violence on both sides are not just released from prison but invited to play their role in government. In fact those not involved in violence in the past are seen as rather ‘weak watery’ types who have little role to play in this new peace. Centre stage are the redeemed bad guys whose pronouncements on political and social affairs receives much prominence. What is this strange new vista where not only are we to forgive those of violence but handover to them the reins of power. Not just devout Christians but atheists, agnostics and those of all Faiths are expected to turn the other cheek and pretend all the bloodletting never happened.
The same scenario was repeated in Rwanda where almost 3/4 of a million were slaughtered in a matter of months. The new peace requires victims to swallow an unpalatable reality. Violence achieves results. Those who are terrorists today will be tomorrow’s government. Until someone more violent trumps the existing cards and takes his place at the peace table. So we perpetuate a system of injustice devoid of reward and punishment. Almost the opposite where violence is a new currency of political debate and is rewarded with depressing regularity. The only beneficiaries apart from those of violent tendencies are huge armament industries whose bank balances bulge with blood money.
It almost feels as if countries are being used as military advertisements of just what weapons of war can achieve. Instead of staid military hardware conventions the new sales arena for this industry is unfolding on our screens in the nightly news. Look! Look! How powerful our strikes are, how many we can kill or maim, how quickly can we lay waste a whole urban city. As millions flee the violence should we demand they turn the other cheek? Actually we ask much much more. We demand they turn around and head back to the hell they have fled. We are annoyed they fling themselves and their offspring at our European borders and drown in our seas. That's the perverse thing about injustice. We no longer see the reality that exists but some coloured perspective of our own construction. Everyone is the hero of their own movie. We look on all events as to what effect it has on me and mine. It is a tendency that is rampant in people, in industry, in nations and even in how hard facts are portrayed. To defend our dignity our nation’s flags are hauled around our naked flanks. Bare of principle or integrity but proudly indignant of the precious soil beneath our feet.
One human life is worth more than any of this. When you take another life you have lost the game. Everything shifts and you have to see things in a light that justifies your actions. To do otherwise would be unbearable. That shift is subtle but cataclysmic in consequences. You must go forward claiming justification for your actions or spend a lifetime regretting those actions and attempting to find some redemption. Perpetrators choose the easy path and we have chosen to look the other way. It is easier for us to think that when men of violence achieve their objectives we will have peace. But even in our worst dreams we cannot think our way into their heads.
Violence warps the fabric of our very humanity it makes us walk among others like humans but devoid of humanity. We no longer seek forgiveness. We are full of self justified anger. We have no mercy and are hungry for more blood. We have developed a taste for such things. I would it were not so. If I was writing to my 13 year old self I would hesitate to put pen to paper. I would not unfold the terrible path that lay ahead. It would not be fair. The young need hope to weather such storms. It would be unfair to take that away. Perhaps, with hope in their hearts, they will find a more just path than we have.
