War

The past few nights, Tripp has cried at bedtime, very much afraid that someone was going to kill him. I had a bit of trouble getting an explanation out of him. Case in point, the first night, he told me that "The Indians are going to kill him." I asked "What Indians?" His response; "The ones in Kenya."

Then tonight, he finally asked a question that gave me the key to the whole problem. He asked "What happens if we lose the war? Will we all die?" It seems that the news has done its job in scaring the population. My response to him was first to explain that the war is being fought in another country, far from here. Then I explained that if we lose the war, then our soldiers just come home (I didn't mention dead soldiers) and that the people living in the place where they're fighting the war will either continue to fight amongst themselves, or will start to rebuild.

Children afraid to go to bed at night, due to a "real" bogeyman. People afraid to fly, due to the same "real" bogeyman. Are we that lacking in basic safety? Should we be afraid to leave our blinds open and lights on at night? Is attack imminent? I think not. But I'm sure that several of you are going to bash my naivete and explain to me just how horrible the world has become. Yeah, just recently, wars started. They never existed before. Cultures have never tried to wipe out other cultures, just because they were deemed offensive. Countries have never wiped out "lesser" civilizations in order to obtain easier shipping routes. And countries have never attacked other countries for any other type of financial gain.

These things have always existed. The powers that be seek to control other countries through brute force and the inhabitants of their own country through fear. Through little boys crying in their beds. How many generations do we have to go through before we get this right? How many mothers have to soothe their children about pointless fears before the mothers figure out a way to eliminate them? Will this be the way of things through the end of the human race?

I dunno. But at least the boy stopped crying and went to sleep, no longer concerned that a violent Kenyan Indian was going to jump through the window and kill him.