Best way to end violence? Well, according to the world we currently live in, the answer is with more violence.
This, to me, is very strange. How can one individual, group or country drop a bomb or blow up a building, killing hundreds to thousands of people and have the words terrorist thrown in its direction, but the minute another individual, group or country does it back, it’s heroism?
We live in a hypocritical, violent, deranged and skeptical world. The attacks in Paris were very sad. A lot of innocent people died and it created a scare across the entire world.
I know other events happened on the same day, and every day hundreds of people die because of extreme acts of violence, but for some reason the Paris attacks struck the world in an unusual way. It wasn’t because the media manipulated the world and steered it in a direction they wanted it to go; it was because a country that is typically safe from these violent acts experienced a catastrophe.
It’s pretty sad, though, if you really think about it. We have become so tolerant to the violence that happens in other places around the world, like Syria, Africa, Afghanistan, China, Korea and the list goes on, that it is beginning to not even faze us. We are beginning to not even want to help them.
What does that say about the world as a whole? What have we become that we are so used to mass murders, school shootings or bombings that sometimes we forget about it?
I think that is why Paris hit the world so hard. It was a place virtually untouched by the violent destructions and it made everyone snap back to reality – this is happening every day.
But it isn’t always the extremists who are taking the lives of the innocent. It is the revenge the countries feel is necessary to “even out the score” for the lives lost in an attack.
Apparently, the only way to end violence is with more violence. But, wouldn’t that mean the violence used as a response would lead to more violence because, well, apparently it is the only way to end violence, but wouldn’t that lead to more violence? And then violence just more again?
Oh wait, it does and that is what is currently happening in our world. But the moment an individual, group or country decides to take a stand and not encourage the death of others, they are seen as weak or soft, for example, Justin Trudeau.
Silly me, though, I forgot that war was the only answer. If you have the guns why not use them, right?
If you have the weapon to take out a hundred people at once, why not use it? It is quicker and easier than discussing and negotiating. There is absolutely no reasoning that could be done, none, none at all.
It’s funny, actually. That our whole life we are taught growing up by our parents, teachers and supposedly the government, that “violence isn’t the answer; use your words not your fists.”
Well, I guess guns or bombs are OK, but oh no, fists? That is just simply out of the question.
Good job, leaders of our world. You have set quite the example for future generations.
I applaud you.

BECKY HILKER
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