The elite establishment in our country has been under increasing pressure to release the reins of power. As a result, and they have been using fear and hate at higher and higher levels in order to divide and subdue the populous. Recently it seems they are losing control because the violence is moving toward reaching a tipping point. Something that no human with any concern for their fellows wants to see.
We have seen this play out before.
In 1994 the elite establishment in Rwanda was losing their chokehold on power. As a result, they unleashed the fear and hate which they had been fomenting for years in the form of violence. They utilized the media to great effect in justifying the violence, sighting past wrongs of the others, and dehumanizing them as “inyenzi”, cockroaches. The result was a tragedy that ranks high among the annals of man’s inhumanity to man.
Fear and hate is an easy thing to foment, but not such an easy thing to control. In the end, the elite establishment of Rwanda failed, but not before almost a million people were bludgeoned and hacked to death. They failed because their violence reached a tipping point of horror that stirred a mighty backlash. Had it not been for wise counsel, that evoked teachings of forgiveness and reconciliation, the horrors of the escalating retaliation would have been far worse than the original horrors.
In both cases, there are wrongs in the past. In both cases, forgiveness and reconciliation is the answer not further division and certainly not fear and hate.