Sympathy Is Not Enough, But It's a Good Beginning Antics Of Two Soccer Legends

Friday, June 18, 2010

By Elijah N. Wleh

We are living in a century where the leaders described the strength of their country by announcing the number of missiles directed at another country. At times, I want to cry, but I don't want other children to see me cry. So I only cry when it rains.

 Sympathy is not enough, but it is a good beginning because my compassion, unlike my pity must have a propinquity to the way I live, the way I make my plans, and the way I make my choices. As I write, little boys and girls are dying, however, those who care and love them, and gave them life are not faceless. They are more statistics.

There are two lives to each: the life of our actions and the life of our minds and hearts. We can allow these lives to exist together, because we live in thoughts and feelings, not in figures and possessions. Time is counted by our heartbeats.

I think of my grandfather’s silvery hair of many years shinning around a face marked lovingly by life. More than ever do we need to define strength, not as descriptive of how far and how fast a man can run, or how far a country can send missiles, or how strong its destructiveness will be is the catalyst for writing this article.

The right to be recognized as a human being is the first right. And every one must know this truth, and also must live by it, because every one is as real to himself/herself as I am to myself. Because when you later make a choice in life they are choices made by individuals that do not include others.

I am deeply troubled by the 14-year civil war in Liberia. However, who will listen to my land that is resuscitating from it pre-war status, because there are craters in my body after the war. Although, I am sad, sorry, and suffering who will know my feelings? I am sorry because of the people who can not use me rightly. According to UNICEF estimates (1986), about 80% of the casualties in these foreign countries are women and children. Women and children suffer disproportionately when warring groups seek to control the hearts and minds of a populace. That children survive at all is a testimony to their resilience, and the efforts of adults and professionals who care for them: parents, relatives, friends and therapists.

Without meaning we tend to get lost and succumb to self-destructiveness, anti-social behavior or madness. Youths are the bedrock of any country’s sustainable future; in term of education, economy, infrastructure, politics, cultures, religions and social activities. Children manage to cope with the trauma of war by holding fast to an ideology that explains and justifies their lives, but when they grow up, this same ideology spurs them to continue the war by subjecting another generation of children to suffering.

Human rights groups that studied the history of torture finds that many are the result of indoctrination, in which the youths are brutalized and tortured. This is the kind of war against children that is too painful to recount.

The crisis that stemmed from the civil war often meant severe food shortages and malnutrition. War always hit the poor hardest as the opulent in society always have available resources to protect themselves and their children. These individuals will flee, or will attempt to flee the country for safety if the war comes too close.

It is hard to look at the children of war. However, the so-called success stories of civil wars tend to remind a person of the waste and tragedy of losing so many of our own. Our willingness to see clearly the effects of the civil war on our children are the first step. Doing something about it is the next step. First, we must take care of those children of war. Individually and through our collective and philanthropic voices, we must do something to increase the resources available for abetting refugee children.

Supporting families and seeking to relocate or repatriate them to safety should be a strategy of choice. For children who have lost their parents, we must find ways to create new homes and families for them.

 Elijah N. Wreh graduated from the College of West Africa. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Biology and a minor in Chemistry from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and is pursuing his Master of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is also a member of the Minnesota Army National Guard, since May, 2006. He can be contacted by e-mail at elijah.wreh@mnsu.edu, elijah.wreh@us.army.mil, elijah.wreh@gmail.com. By phone 507-254-3011.