The Scars Must Be Deep

Yesterday, a group of Kashmir terrorists detonated 8 bombs on the public transit system in Mumbai, India, killing over 200 people.

This morning, Israel stepped up its offensive against its neighbours by attacking Lebanon in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.

Earlier in the week, Japan was rumoured to be considering “pre-emptive strikes” against military targets in North Korea in response to the latter’s missile testing program.

The world is a violent place.

I’m too young to remember whether or not Mozambique’s 30 years of war – which ended in 1992 – ever attracted the sort of international attention paid to some of the more infamous conflicts of the past half-century. It was certainly violent enough to warrant such attention: according to a report by the UN, 900,000 Mozambicans were killed, 3,000,000 were driven from their homes, and a further 8,000,000 faced starvation or severe food shortages – not throughout the 30-year period of conflict, but just during the 8-year period prior to the release of their report.

There was nothing ordinary about the conflict. A US official once described the warfare as “one of the most brutal holocausts against ordinary human beings since World War Two.”

Perhaps the world has attention deficit disorder, only able to focus on a few conflicts at a time. Dare I suggest that Mozambique, being a poor African country with a communist government and without oil resources attracts little attention in the western media? Or maybe – hopefully – I’m too young to recollect the attention that was garnered.

Either way, no war is just another war, and no death is just another death. The tragic reality is that, like in Rwanda, neighbour killed neighbour. Mozambique may be several years ahead of Rwanda with respect to reconciliation, but the scars must be deep, and may still be raw.

I wonder what, if any, evidence of these old wounds we’ll witness when we finally arrive in Mozambique?

For An Eye, Only An Eye

Many nations appear to subscribe to the seemingly retaliatory philosophy described in the Old Testament: “eye for eye; tooth for tooth.” In a discussion about the potential for retaliatory action to the public transit bombings in India, a colleague named Eddy suggested to me that the oft-used quotation was not originally intended to justify retaliatory behaviour, but rather was intended to prevent excessive retaliation, instead limiting it to an equal, non-escalating response – i.e., for an eye, only an eye. Personally, I subscribe to a different standard: I don’t believe that a problem has ever been resolved with violence. But given the alternative, I like Eddy’s insight.