Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Breaking peace

Living in a peaceful world is possible but we must work very hard at obtaining peace and then retaining peace. For example, yesterday a major breakdown in peace had taken place very close to where I live. This breakdown is similar to the rape events which have recently engulfed India.

17 year old Rehtaeh Parsons was assaulted in many ways by a group of boys. Pictures of this assault were then circulated and further assaults were committed against Rehteah in the following 17 months. Finally she had reached no other option but to end her life. She was found by her mother hanging in her bedroom at the brink of death. Rehteah was taken to hospital where she was put on life support. The final atrocity being that her mother had to make the desicion to take her daughter off life support as there was no more that could be done. The following link is the newspaper article.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1122506-school-administration-didn-t-probe-incident

As a society we have built all the needed elements to deal with such events. The single issue that is present to us is - will we do what we have to in order to repair the peace that was broken?  In the case of Rehteah, we decided that nothing should be done and she died a horrible death because of our inaction.

Our systems of governance are a reflection of who we are. We in fact are the government, the system, we are the they and that reality has been lost. Our lack of awareness is clearly evidenced by the recent treaty for small arms and light weapons, which in comparison to the rules and regulations for the trade of bananas is minimal. As we look to our own cirlces of community similar inequalties take place, Rehteah Parsons shows us how life in Canada is similar to life in every other part of the world when it comes to justice. If the people who are responsible do not care the entire society is damaged.

What can we do for those that have suffered as has Rehteah.   For one we must ensure our children are raised with compassion, awareness and peacefully. In order to do that we must strive to be that way ourselves, in our own minds and hearts. At the same time we must understand that all of this is one giant experiment for each one of us. Very few of us are perfect (apparently there are some prophets and such who are held up as examples). How many people have killed in the name of God?

What is taking place in Syria right now is an equal atrocity to a woman being raped and again we did nothing to stop it when we had the chance to stop it. Some day we will be better at breaking violence to the point where we no longer suffer the breaking of peace.

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