The Killing Of Children Has To Stop

The quality of selfishness (seeking to benefit ourselves) is responsible for the killing of children that we've seen recently:

1. Police & Militants Killing Children:
• On Dec 16, 2014 in Peshawar, Pakistan, Taliban militants killed 132 school children and 9 adults, 141 people in total. [1]
• On Nov 22, 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, police officer Timothy Loehmann killed 12 year old Tamir Rice. [2]
• Rice was brandishing a toy gun in a park, and sadly, he probably learned his behaviour from watching adults on TV or elsewhere.
• On Aug 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, USA, police officer Darren Wilson killed 18 year old teenager Michael Brown. [3]
2. Children Killing Children:
• On Apr 20, 1999 in Colombine, Colorado, USA, senior students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, 1 teacher, then killed themselves. [4]
• Children learn their behaviour from the violence they see on TV, in movies, in video games, in comic books etc. The violent content is generated by adults. We teach children how to be violent then we're shocked when they behave violently.
• We have to set positive and constructive examples for children so they don't learn negative and destructive behaviour.
• Here is a list of all the school shootings in the USA. [5] (Not all were perpetrated by children and the list includes colleges and universities.)
3. Parents Killing Children:
• On Jun 18, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Justin Ross Harris left his 22 month old son Cooper in a hot car all day. When he returned to his car, he found Cooper dead.
• Parents selfishly don't want to look after their own children. They don't want to be up all night, worried all day, dealing with exhaustion, lack of sleep etc. They see their own children as interfering with and/or interrupting their own lives. To eliminate 'the problem', they kill their own children.

Who suffers? The children!

We're surrounded by the quality of selfishness all the time - homelessness, poverty, the gap between the rich and the poor, crime, pollution, injustice etc. The killing of children is just another manifestation of that same quality of selfishness.

The quality of selfishness always has an excuse to justifying harming others - I was doing my job, it was revenge, I wanted more time to myself etc.

There are hundreds of millions of children living in slums, in deplorable conditions, exposed to disease, exploitation and even death. Yet we're not violently shocked by that. We've become numb to it, we don't even think about it.

A time will come when the deplorable state of the world will shock us and we'll weep for the world that we've created. 

We have to change from personal selfishness (seeking to benefit ourselves) to mutual bestowal (seeking to benefit others).

If we don't change, we'll see more examples of the quality of selfishness, and it will only get worse.

That said, remember that there is none else besides Him. God has a way of making everything right. Nothing bad has ever happened to us, others or all of Nature.

That doesn't mean that people have free license to do whatever they want. Not at all.

In everything we do, we should seek to benefit others instead of ourselves.

_________

References:

1. Pakistan Taliban: Peshawar school attack leaves 141 dead. www.bbc.com. Dec 16, 2014. Retrieved Dec 17, 2014.
2. Shooting of Tamir Rice. www.en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved Dec 17, 2014
3. Shooting of Michael Brown. www.en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved Dec 17, 2014
4. Colombine High School massacre. www.en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved Dec 17, 2014.
5. List of school shootings in the United States. www.en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved Dec 17, 2014.
6. Karimi, Faith, Michael Pearson (Jul 9, 2014). Georgia toddler death: Who is Justin Ross Harris. www.cnn.com. Retrieved Dec 17, 2014.

Copyright © 2014, Carter Kagume. All Rights Reserved.