a ramble on justice and getting even

[serenissima]

This morning, a man on NPR's "Morning Edition" was talking about the people in the mountains of Afghanistan, some of whom our government thinks are hiding and sheltering Osama bin Laden. He talked a little about their customs of clan feuding, and recompense and retribution.

Other voices on the radio mentioned that many Palestinians are promising retaliation for the assassination by Israel of a Palestinian leader yesterday or the day before, and that many synagogues and Jewish temples in the US are increasing their security as a result.

And then there was a sound clip of a woman whose two young grandsons were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. She says that she wants Terry Nichols to be prosecuted again in state court so that he may receive a death sentence, instead of just life in federal prison without parole, which is what he has now.

All this stuff reminded me of the essay quoted in this LJ post.

Wars are fought over many things, but it seems to me that the lingering, festering, constant war zones have a problem with wanting to get even. Hutus and Tutsis. Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. Serbians and Croats. I think one of the more impressive achievements of human government is South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which sometimes grants amnesty to people who confess and expose their crimes as officials in the apartheid regime.

Forgiveness can be very, very hard. But I think that sometimes, the results of human justice are even harder.

Comments

[wyrm.livejournal.com]

I think it's less wanting to get even, and more that they don't want to be governed by another culture. The Irish Catholics want a Catholic Government and the Protestants want a Protestant Government; the Israelis want a Jewish Government whereas the Palestinians simply want their own Government and their own nation; the Serbs want a Christian Government and the Croatians a Muslim one...
I feel that if someone could remove all religions at a stroke of a pen, the world would be a much more peaceful place.

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

Do you think, then, that religion exerts no peaceful, calming influence at all? Or that it does, but its push to religious violence is stronger?

Being governed by another culture is about culture, not religion.

One thing I don't understand is why nations are so unwilling to let go of parts that wish to secede, like Taiwan, Kashmir and Chechnya. It's one thing if the smaller part has natural resources that the larger part benefits from, but sometimes the smaller part takes more from the whole than it gives back. I heard this is true of Chechnya.

And that kind of figures into the Israel/Palestine issue. Why can't Israel simply let the Palestinians make their own country? If all Israel wants is a Jewish government, it can have a Jewish government in a smaller geographic area. There's more to the problem than that....

As I understand it, Israel feels the disputed territory belongs to it because it won the land in warfare. And it is unwilling to give up the land without recompense, yet because of past violence, Israel doesn't trust Palestine enough (and vice versa) to make a deal. If there were no memory of Israel's war history, nor of how Israel and the Palestinians have hurt each other over the years, I think they might have a better chance at making peace.