Human civilization began with a homicide (Gen. 4:8) and ever since we have just endeavoured to keep the earth moist with blood by furthering shared hatred and collective murder. We have weaponized everything at our disposal. To assuage our guilt we even devised interpretations to divinely sanction violence. Ages have passed and we still haven’t learnt to be our “brother’s keeper.”
As horrendous acts of violence are unleashed in Afghanistan by the Talibans we need to understand that we live in an age of “disposable humanity” where human life occupies the lowest strata of priorities. War is the principle that governs the world and therefore all measures would be employed to sustain it. As Arundhati Roy observes; “Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now wars are manufactured to sell weapons.” This is the horrifying reality of today. Battle grounds have become a sine qua non.
The victims of war have always been predominantly women and children. The Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations estimates that nearly 70% of the displaced are women and children. Rahima, an Afghan mother of seven girls laments; “I worry about the fate of my own daughters. I haven’t experienced peace in my lifetime and now I worry my daughters will never know peace.”
Leo Tanguma’s mural “The Children of the World Dream of Peace” at the Denver airport is a poignant portrayal of the aspiration of children i.e. a world without war. The faces of kids in the portrayal are of real Denver kids who died as a result of gang violence. We too share in the dreams of these children and await the time when “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
Prayers for peace to prevail 
Dayroyo Fr. Basil
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