The Dark Side of Humanity

Across the Fence #350

This past week, a bomb, bullets, and a deranged mind, brought death, destruction, and shock to the people of Norway. Peaceful Norway, where gun violence is almost unheard of, where most policemen don’t carry guns, will never be the same. The people of Norway have now been touched by the violence that is so prevalent in the rest of the world.

Anders Behring Bleivik, a 32 year old, native Norwegian, has admitted that he carried out both attacks that killed, at latest count, 76 people.

Breivik described his bombing of an Oslo government building and his shooting spree at a youth camp, run by Norway's Labor Party, as “atrocious” but “necessary” in his crusade against liberal immigration policies and the spread of Islam.

This sounds all too much like one of the most famous quotes to come out of the Vietnam War. “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” It was attributed to an officer referring to the decision to bomb and shell the village of Ben Tre in 1968, in order to rout the Viet Cong from the village. They were willing to destroy the village and sacrifice civilian casualties in order to kill the enemy.

In both cases, many lives were lost and altered due to twisted thinking and differing ideologies. Both situations involved the killing of innocent people.

The teenagers who were at the camp and survived, will never see life in the same light again. Man’s inhumanity to man has once again shown its dark side. It reminded me of something I wrote while still in Vietnam back in 1966. These same words can apply to the young people in Norway who underwent the horror of that day and the killing of their friends.

This is what I wrote:

It doesn’t take long to age a boy in Vietnam. Young, in both age and spirit, we arrived in this war-torn land, full of the ideals and bright dreams of youth. Life has been good. There have been more flowers than thorns along our path.

We have a child’s confidence that all will be well, and as the fairy tales always end, “They lived happily ever after.”

Suddenly young bodies and hearts are thrown into war. Death stalks among us, plucking at random, the life and spirit from a chosen few, leaving the rest saddened, bewildered and frightened. You see bodies torn and ripped apart, voices that only a short time ago had been filled with hope and joy, now scream in pain. Others will be silent forever.

Rain pours. Mud envelopes the land. Mud that seems to reach out and pull your feet out from under you, that captures you and pulls you in. You struggle, you fall in the mud. Bullets fly and you try to bury yourself in the mud. You crawl through the mud and filth. This mud of war seems to cover everything, your eyes, your mouth, even your mind.

Where only a few short weeks ago a young boy full of hopes and dreams stood; now a dirty, bedraggled old man crawls on his belly through the mud. His hopes have turned to fear and frustration, his dreams to nightmares, his joy to sorrow, light has turned to dark, and life will never be the same for him again.

Survival is all that matters now. Life has lost its sense and meaning. The youthful zest is gone, replaced by sobering thoughts. Life has been stripped of the many centuries of civilizing and we are thrust again into the evolution of our past, and I see man as the animal he is, simply fighting to survive. It’s when this stage is reached, that men are changed and will never see things in the same light again.

I’m no longer the same person that arrived such a short time ago. It doesn’t take long to age a boy in Vietnam!

Those words were written a long time ago, but history keeps repeating itself and the dark side of humanity keeps raising its ugly head. Wars and killings, too often fought over religious and political differences, continue to cause death, pain, and suffering, for people around the world. I keep hoping that things will change, but it seems that everything is becoming more polarized all the time. A case in point, our own political parties and their differences.

I try to look for something positive in every situation, and try to keep “Across the Fence” positive too. I’ve agonized over even running this story, but there is a positive note.

My relative, Jon Olav Andersen, is the editor of the newspapers in Toten and Gjovik, Norway. He wrote to let us know that he and his family were safe. He said, “We are safe, but all are affected.” A classmate of his 18-year-old daughter was killed and another one escaped unharmed. He said a young Norwegian girl who survived the killings on the island said, “If one man full of hate can do so much, think what an entire nation full of love can do.”

I will leave you with that positive comment from her. Our hope for the future rests with the younger generation, if they can develop an attitude like she expressed. Perhaps they can show the rest of us the road to a more peaceful world.