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Covetousness or greed is a fundamental cause of war and hatred frequently leads to violence. To uproot destructive feelings people need to change the way they think. They need to be educated in the ways of peace. However at present we live in a world that teaches adults and children not the value of peace but the glory of war. Sadly, even children are being trained to kill. At the age of 14, Lawrence became a decommissioned soldier. He was only ten years old when rebel troops captured him and trained him to fight with an AK-47 assault rifle. As a forced recruit he went on food raids and burned down houses. He also killed and mutilated people. Today Lawrence finds it difficult to forget war and to adjust to civilian life. Patrick another child soldier also learned to kill and was reluctant to turn over his weapons. He said. “If they tell me to go away without my gun, I don’t know what I will do, how I will eat.”
More than 300,000 child soldiers both boys and girls are still fighting and dying in the endless civil conflicts that plague our planet. Explained one rebel leader, “They obey orders; they are not concerned about getting back to their wife or family; and they don’t know fear, ‘yet these children want and deserve a better life. In developed countries the appalling situation of the child soldier may seem a world away. Even so, many Western children are learning to wage war in the comfort of their homes. Take Jose from southern-eastern Spain as an example. He was a teenager who enjoyed practicing martial arts. His price possession was a samurai sword that his father had bought him for Christmas and he loved video games, especially violent ones. On April 1, 2000, he emulated in real life the aggression of his screen hero. In an orgy of violence, he killed his father, mother and sister. With the very sword his father had given him. “I didn’t want my parents looking for me”, he explained to the police. Commenting on the effects of violent entertainment author and military officer Dave Grossman noted; “we are reaching that stage of desensitization at which the inflicting of pain and suffering has become a source of entertainment, vicarious pleasure rather than revulsion.”
We are learning to kill and we are learning to kill and we are learning to like it. Both Lawrence and Jose learned to kill. Neither set out to be killers but training of one sort or another warped their thinking. Such types of training, whether for children or for adults, sows the Seeds of Violence and War.
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Rashid
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Harsh world Chii Torti | Apr 15th, 2004
What can I say except that the world has taken a step for the worse? After reading through write-up I heard that lonely cry calling for mankind to make a rethink and save the younger ones from believing the gun is the only way to talk!
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