Genocidal Tendancies

I'm at work. I'm supposedly reading this book called, "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed ith our families". It's about the Rwandan genocide more than a decade ago. I started this book a long time ago, but never got through it. Now, I'm starting it again, and I still can't get through it, even though it's eloquently written. I can only read a little of it at a time.

It's hard for me to explain what it is, even though "it" is probably similar to what most other readers of this book have in mind: HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED? What possessed the killers to, well, literally chop through towns and cities?

Very few of us are ok with accepting that human beings in this day and age are capable of doing such things, even though things like this are pretty much happening every minute in some way or form. We -- or I -- have a hard time taking this surreal horror in because it's simply uncomfortable to the extreme.

I can't help but to ask: It's the 21st century, and people are still slaughtering each other as if a virus had taken over their brains? Absurd.

Maybe many of the Western countries at the time asked the same question and remarked it as "absurd" the same way as I did, a word that they (and we all) used to conveniently allowed them to ignore the situation. But to beckon to such terror that the victims faced as "out of date" and a "virus" seems to be dismissing such sickening genocidal tendancies as nothing more than an epidemic occurs only in "backward" places that are clearly not running on the time we mark as the 21st century. The dismissal only leads to avoidance of the real issue, which is the fact that genocides exist in the world we have created at this day and age. Dismissal will only lead us to ignore genocides, and they will happen again and again ... much like what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

But with my snail pace of going through this book, I can understand why it is easier to close the book and check out MySpace instead. Because it is never pleasant or easy to face up to that dark little shadow inside that can identify with the killers, the part of you that you wonder whether it is empathy or an unknown evil within you that, with the right calling, can one day consume your conscience like it did in Rwanda. And perhaps it is this unknown that is the most fearful.

Maybe this is why I am reading this book -- to shed light on that unknown, so that, even if the answer isn't empathy, but it is an evil that resides within me, at least I would know, at least I would understand, at least, if I were to become evil, I would know what is happening and maybe do something about it.

Perhaps this is a microscopic view of what communities and societies should do. To uncover the shameful. To disturb the disturbing. To understand the apparently unknowable and to imagine the unimaginable ... all in order to shed light on the dark, which could be our future.

To turn darkness into hope.

Maybe my endeavor to go through with this book has more meaning than just a pastime after all.

More Thoughts on Genocidal Tendancies

I'm at work. I'm supposedly reading this book called, "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed ith our families". It's about the Rwandan genocide more than a decade ago. I started this book a long time ago, but never got through it. Now, I'm starting it again, and I still can't get through it, even though it's eloquently written. I can only read a little of it at a time.

It's hard for me to explain what it is, even though "it" is probably similar to what most other readers of this book have in mind: HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED? What possessed the killers to, well, literally chop through towns and cities?

Very few of us are ok with accepting that human beings in this day and age are capable of doing such things, even though things like this are pretty much happening every minute in some way or form. We -- or I -- have a hard time taking this surreal horror in because it's simply uncomfortable to the extreme.

I can't help but to ask: It's the 21st century, and people are still slaughtering each other as if a virus had taken over their brains? Absurd.

Maybe many of the Western countries at the time asked the same question and remarked it as "absurd" the same way as I did, a word that they (and we all) used to conveniently allowed them to ignore the situation. But to beckon to such terror that the victims faced as "out of date" and a "virus" seems to be dismissing such sickening genocidal tendancies as nothing more than an epidemic occurs only in "backward" places that are clearly not running on the time we mark as the 21st century. The dismissal only leads to avoidance of the real issue, which is the fact that genocides exist in the world we have created at this day and age. Dismissal will only lead us to ignore genocides, and they will happen again and again ... much like what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

But with my snail pace of going through this book, I can understand why it is easier to close the book and check out MySpace instead. Because it is never pleasant or easy to face up to that dark little shadow inside that can identify with the killers, the part of you that you wonder whether it is empathy or an unknown evil within you that, with the right calling, can one day consume your conscience like it did in Rwanda. And perhaps it is this unknown that is the most fearful.

Maybe this is why I am reading this book -- to shed light on that unknown, so that, even if the answer isn't empathy, but it is an evil that resides within me, at least I would know, at least I would understand, at least, if I were to become evil, I would know what is happening and maybe do something about it.

Perhaps this is a microscopic view of what communities and societies should do. To uncover the shameful. To disturb the disturbing. To understand the apparently unknowable and to imagine the unimaginable ... all in order to shed light on the dark, which could be our future.

To turn darkness into hope.

Maybe my endeavor to go through with this book has more meaning than just a pastime after all.

Edumacation

I learned quite a few new things today.

Amongst everything, I just realized that the potato was first cultivated by South American Indians in 8000 BC and later introduced into Europe in 16th century.

Taiwan started getting populated around the same time.

The largest city in 9000 BC was in Iraq, with a whopping population of 150.

The first flute discovered was in China in 7000 BC.

Isn't this neat? I'm glad I have a job that has nothing to do with ... anything! When I get bored, I just look through the internet for awesome trivia that I otherwise would not have known.

That Much

I thought about Dune today when I read Del's hilarious message on Brian's profile. It was a cool Sci-Fi TV movie, but what really hit me today was the fact that the main character's wife was willing to step down and be a concubine so that he could take a princess for a wife -- knowing that the marriage with the princess must be consumated in one fashion or another.

It suddenly struck me that it would kill me if Brian was to have sex with another person, voluntarily or forced. No, not just getting shot in the heart and then I'll recover, but getting shot in the heart and I'll die. That's how much he means to me. I asked myself what I would do if my last boyfriend were to leave me. My answer was I'd be angry, and I'd be ok. It didn't matter as much. Now, it's different, as if I've been magically transformed, as if we've been fused together, he is a part of me. He means that much to me.