09.09.06

“No Vacancy” for Violence

Posted in God, History, Uncategorized at 11:32 pm by Administrator

After seeing the Futurist exhibit at the Getty yesterday, I started to wonder what allures people to violence. Supposedly, those Futurists were into violence. I remember being afraid of gangs when I was a child. There were a lot of gangs at that time. About a year ago I read a book called, “Shake Hands with the Devil” by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire. The book was of his account of the massacres that took place in 1994 in Rwanda. About 800,000 Rwandans died in a few short months. Not only were the military involved with the killings, but neighbors and farmers killed each other. And so I also thought about the current genocide happening in Darfur. Why is it allowed to happen, but also, why does it happen? I know that the results of racism and eugenics have caused many deaths, but upon reading about Communism, I realize that there is much more than racism, and that likely eugenics and racism is only a small part or even just an excuse of an underlying reason why mass murders are committed all over the world time and time again. For instance, I don’t think eugenics was the driving force for Communism by which millions of people where killed. Communism actually did somewhat of the opposite of eugenics by killing the aristocracy and those who were considered intellectuals. Sure racism and eugenics may have played a significant roll in one of the most popular mass murders we know of today–the Holocaust, which is commonly estimated to have had 12 million people murdered, but what about the other mass murders that we are not so commonly taught about? Now yes, 12 million deaths is a huge number, and I don’t mean to down play that or even hint that that figure is insignificant. However, The Black Book of Communism states that under communism the death tolls reached, “as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on. . .” From what I understand, there is still communist oppression and deaths occuring today. What other driving forces are there that lead to these killings?

So today I did a small internet search on statistics on mass murders and the forces behind them. I found a few interesting things. One was a link on democide and genocide. Now, I’ve heard of genocide, but I hadn’t heard of “democide.” According to this link, the definition is as follows:

“. . . democide is any murder by government–by officials acting under the authority of government. That is, they act according to explicit or implicit government policy or with the implicit or explicit approval of the highest officials. Such was the burying alive of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers, the shooting of hostages by German soldiers, the starving to death of Ukrainians by communist cadre, or the burning alive of Japanese civilians purposely fire-bombed from the air by American airmen.”

The meaning of genocide appears more complicated. Genocide is considered a kind of democide and is divided into three definitions–legal meaning, common meaning (the Holocaust would fit in here), and generalized meaning(this involves killing people against the government). See this link for a more detailed explanation.

Power. Some people feel that power is another driving force to violence and corruption as the saying goes, “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” But I don’t know if I buy that saying. Is there only one kind of power? Or are there different kinds of power? I think there are different kinds of power. And power can be used for good as well as bad. One doesn’t necessarily become corrupt with power. There is power through force, and then there is power through persuasion. How power is used, not necessarily power itself, is more likely a driving force to violence. So even though power is involved with violence, there must be something at work aside from power.

There is another saying, “Scum rises to the top.” Perhaps some people with ill intentions (scum) who strive to attain power are the ones who do obtain power and from there acquire the positions to carry out their violence? In this case the person/people were already bad or corrupt before power entered into the equation. What then influences people to do good or bad?

Religion. Now that’s a favorite scapegoat. Think of all the wars fought in the name of religion. But neither Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, nor Mao were religious men, yet tens of millions of people died under their leadership, greatly out numbering the deaths in many religious wars. Along those lines I found an interesting article that can be read here called, The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity? by Gregory Koukl. His conclusion is that, “outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels.” The deaths of tens of millions of people were a result of the rejection of God.

So, is there anything we can do about violence? Well the democide link states that, “Democratic freedom is a method of nonviolence and engine of wealth and prosperity. The most practical and effective way to improve human security, promote nonviolence, and eliminate war, therefore, is to promote freedom and associated human rights.” So it sounds like he’s suggesting to stand behind ideas and actions which promote freedom and human rights. (I take that to mean less government intervention). I suppose that would take care of democide, but how about violence on a more personal level? After all every leader was once an individual citizen before rising to power. In that case, maybe Koukl’s suggestion would be a good starting point. From his conclusions, I think he would suggest acknowledging God including actually following the principles outlined in the Bible rather than just “claiming” to follow the Bible, while not following its precepts. And what is that precept? Well, a scribe asked of Jesus which is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered him,

I believe if we followed these, then there would be no room for violence.

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