2008: a parallel menace
(Canscene) — The assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the subsequent suicide bombing claiming innocent victims is just one more example of the total evil of the presence of instruments of war and crime in every corner of the world.
Must we be compelled to the pessimistic belief that if global warming doesn’t get us, weapons of human destruction will, whether they be guns and machetes in Rwanda or the Congo or missiles’ reciprocally fired across borders in Palestine and Israel? Or worse, that dreaded BOMB.
Most guns, rockets, bombs are scientifically manufactured objects. Their makers are armaments companies all of which must turn a profit to remain in existence. They must satisfy shareholders and pay employees in order to survive.
Before we Canadians begin pointing our fingers at the armaments industries of other countries let’s take a look at a recent CBC report claiming that in 2003, Canada’s arms exports topped $2 billion. There was a decrease in 2004 and 2005 and we’re awaiting figures for 2006.
More than 500 Canadian companies and tens of thousands of employees make military products across the country — everything from bullets and rockets to light armoured vehicles.
Ken Epps, of the arms control group Project Ploughshares, said Canada is shipping arms to questionable places with low concern for human rights.
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January 12th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
You are quite right in what you say in your commentary. It would seem that the armament industry around the world is the ultimate oxymoron.
“They must satisfy shareholders and pay employees in order to survive” by selling armaments to as you say: “questionable places with low concern for human rights” that I might add are more often than not are used to kill.
While at times it seems that all is bleak and despair rampant from all the negative stories about violence around various parts of the globe and the hysteria surrounding the entire issue of global warming in the mass media, we must not forget what happened in the year 2000 when many doomsayers predicted technological collapse over Y2K.
We must never ever give in to despair and always have faith and hope in the future. Only we must take the future one day at a time.
I would like to leave you and Canscene News with a story of tremendous courage and hope amidst the horrors in Rwanda from April to July 1994 which left close to 1 million Tutsis massacred by the uprising of the neighbouring Hutus of Rwanda.
An extraordinary Tutsi woman, Immaculee llibagiza, then 22, was home from college for Easter when the Hutu uprising began. Her parents urged her to flee to the home of a local Episcopal minister who then hid llibagiza with seven other women in his 3′ times 4′ bathroom for 91 days.
When llibagiza finally emerged, she discovered that her mother and father and two brothers and other members of her family were slaughtered hacked to death by machetes.
Despite all this horror because of her strong faith in God she forgave her killers, and prayed for their forgiveness even facing the man that killed some of her family members forgiving him in a face to face meeting when he was imprisoned for his crimes against humanity.
Immaculee llibagiza wrote a must read book and account of her harrowing experiences called: “Left to Tell” that I would highly recommend to Canscene News readers. Her story was featured on PBS Television in the United States.
llibagiza now lives on Long Island New York and gives talks on her experiences in Rwanda and how her faith played a very important role in forgiving those that perpetuated horrendous crimes against her very own family and close to a million other Tutsis in Rwanda.
The Episcopal minister that hid llibagiza and seven other Tutsi women in his house was a Hutu that risked his own life to save his fellow Tutsi neighbours.
As long as we have a breath there is always hope even when all seems bleak with despair around us. The extradorinary thing about faith in God is there is always hope even in the darkest moments even when all seems totally lost and helpless. Immaculee llibagiza knows this all important truth and shares it with the entire world in “Left To Tell.” Denfinitely a must read book.