Justification

Somewhere, deep in the fists of east-central Africa, an appalling encounter takes place. Or, well, if that’s what you can call it at least. Men, women, and children are herded into a land-locked coffer like animals. Mass beatings and slaughter stain the grass with blood, and drown the dirt with tears. Through sobs, the victims look at the masses of eyes observing this and doubt the validity of the human race. Why don’t the mouths to those eyes say anything? What deplorable sin had they committed to receive such castigation?

The victims of this horrifying genocide are the Tutsi race, a minority of the country. The murderers are the blood-thirsty Hutus. The fierce eyes that look past this incident are every single individual that compose the rest of the world. In one hundred days, eight hundred thousand people are viciously slaughtered, their bodies stacked high in the stench of the brutality of the human race at its worst. And nothing is done: Americans watch televisions with news about the lead singer of Nirvana Kurt Cobain’s death. As tattoo shops sketch symbols into Americans' skin, death sentences are etched into the Tutsi’s lives.



Some Americans march in protest of this genocide while others are too preoccupied with waging war on other countries. Both are in the wrong: war is not the answer and peace is not the means of reparation. War is the problem. Peace is the goal. If we are to preoccupy ourselves more with the salvation of mankind rather than the prosperity of the world's powerhouse, maybe a change could be visible on the horizon of a new day.

If America were to dip her army soldier fingers into that traumatized country, almost a million innocent lives could have been saved. War, in that case, would have been for a valid purpose. To embrace humanity. To help those in need. The meaning of war has been stripped of its preconceived purpose. We now wage war to benefit and prosper at the cost of broken families. We looked past such inhumain acts of violence before, it's frightening to imagine what's occuring somewhere else while our nation's eyes are focused upon the Middle East.