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Iraqi front · where they perish by
the hundreds, hurling themselves at
Iraqi fortifications, tanks and mine–
fields to clear the way for adult
soldiers who are more "valuable"
for the war effort.
In Northern lreland, the situa–
tion is different. There are no mas–
sive fronts, but the battlelines have
been drawn and children are vic–
timized by the rage of their
elders.
The conditioned-response ha–
treds of the home spill over into the
streets as youths periodically
become involved in street violence
against opposing religious or polítí–
cal factíons or securíty forces.
In spíte of the known dangers of
confronting security forces in Bel–
fast and elsewhere, children are at
times placed in the front of funeral
processions and protest demonstra–
tions.
In Poi Pot's Cambodia, youthful
communist Khmer Rouge soldiers
committed atrocities on children
and adults alike.
In El Salvador, scores of youths
fight in the ranks of antigovern–
ment forces. The hit-and-run style
warfare conducted by the guerrillas
has made them a formidable mili–
tary force in cer tain areas of that
strife-torn land.
Throughout Africa as well,
September 1985
youthful recruits fill the ranks of
various antigovernment armies of
liberation.
The use of children in warfare is
not new, of course. Allied soldiers
in the Second World War faced
hundreds of German youths on
both fronts as a desperate Nazi
empire was crumbling.
Further back, in the history of
Catholic Europe, is the incredibly
tragic Children's Crusade that took
place in
A.D.
1212. Two teenage
boys, one in France, one in Germa–
ny, raised up two armies of youths
to reconquer the Holy Land. They
believed that a lack of virtue in the
adult crusaders was the cause of
previous failu res. The German
group got no farther than Genoa,
ltaly. The ill-fated French group
wound up being sold into slavery in
Egypt by unscrupulous merchants
who had promised them passage to
Pa1estine.
The tragedies, past and present,
of youths robbed of their childhood
make a mockery of the purpose of
childhood and of human existence.
Why
ls
1t
Happenlng?
Humanity need look no further to
discover the cause of today's
wretched condition than this revela–
t ion: " Their mouth is full of curses
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to
Isaiah 59:8
ot'
shed blood, in their paths are ruin
and misery, and
the way of peace
they do not know"
(Rom. 3:14-17,
Revised Standard Yersion).
They have never been taught how
to live the way of peace with their
neighbors. Training children for rev–
olution and war is not what God had
in mind when he created humans to
go through the experience of child–
hood. Happily, the society God is
soon going to bring to this planet is
one full of instruction in peace and
joy. "All your chíldren shall be
taught
by the Lord, and great shall
be the
peace
of your children. In
righteousness you shall be estab–
lished; you shall be far from oppres–
síon, for you shall not fear; and from
terror, for it shall not come near
you" ( Isa. 54:13-14, Revised Autho–
rized Yersion).
Only when God's government is
restored and enforced on earth will
humaníty at last be able to "beat
their swords into plowshares, and
their spears into pruning hooks."
And "nation shall not lift up sword
agaínst nation, neíther shall they
learn war anymore" (Jsa. 2:4,
RAY). Only then, when revolu–
tíons, counterrevolutíons and wars
are baníshed, will the hopes and
dreams humanity has for its chil–
d ren begin to come true.
-Dan
C.
Taylor
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