A Deadly Road Traveled for a Cause

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

The Perspective

September 19, 2001

Hate is one of those things that will get the best out of a person or a group of people in the most negative ways. Hate intensifies conflicts and tears apart that which could have been channeled from the mundane to the most fulfilling aspect of life.

Like joy, hate can overwhelm the subconscious, eventually transforming the once gentle and kind personality into an unbearable monster.

I certainly wasn't around during war world one or war world two, nor was I around during the Korean war. But in the few years I've been around this earth, I sure have seen my share of tragedies that resulted from hate - the ones between individuals; within and between nations which is manifested in hate, injustice, and intolerance.

The level of violence perpetrated against others in the name of a cause is so unbelievable it defies humanity and decency, and mocks the religious overtones which underlies it. Because humans are expected to be decent and caring, we definitely are thought of as our brothers and sister's keepers.. As homosapiens, we are one of a kind among the species because of our level of unparalleled intelligence.

With that burden on our shoulders, we are expected, and required to be the humans we are supposed to be; decent, kind, caring, compassionate, judicious and forgiving. And once we deviate from those unique expectations placed on us by society, we are judged and placed in the category of a four-legged beast.

Because of the hatred and wickedness that tend to permeate our souls, some of us humans seemed to be no different in actions and activities from the animals in the zoos or the ones running wild in the jungles.

The recent tragedies that played before our naked eyes on television sets - with three jet planes filled with jet fuels and human beings, and taken over by hijackers, who flew or slammed those planes directly into buildings - the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center, with the fourth jet plane crashing into the fields of rural Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, is evidenced of that hatred and despicable acts that defines certain human beings.

As if the recurring scenes where those taken from an action movie, that unspeakable violence alone devalues life, and robs the innocent victims of living life to its fullest, and on their own terms until the cold - creeping hands of death takes them individually, but not through the coward and spineless hands of fanatical hijackers, who believes by killing others so grotesquely prepares them for martyrdom with Allah.

Dying inhumanely and unjustly at the hands of another person which is precipitated by hate or any other means is oppressive, because it also robs the victims, (in this case) those that met their untimely death the will to live, and the dignity of a decent burial.

I hate to spice this article with the scenes and the indignities that transpired in Liberia many years ago, the result of hate, greed and power struggles. While the individuals who hijacked those planes from Washington, D.C. to New York City, and Pennsylvania, killing over thousands of people both in the air and on the ground believed they were fighting for a just cause, Charles Taylor and his rebels believed they were also fighting for a just cause. See what happened to the country and people of Liberia since Mr. Taylor became president? Total disaster, indeed.

The executioners in Liberia didn't have access to jumbo jets to plow through skyscrapers, they had "do-do birds," missiles; guns, machetes (cutlasses), grenades, and the power to damage their subjects emotionally.

Many people believe in causes that are dear to their souls. However, hate, intolerance and the hijacking of planes that are slammed into buildings is not the way. The Liberian people cannot, and should not allow their emotions and fanatical instincts to take over common sense and a better part of them. When that happens, they are put in the same category as those hijackers, or the heartless oppressor who cares nothing about them but his unflinching quest for raw power.