Is Injustice Inevitable? “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.”—Anne Frank. ANNE FRANK, a young Jewish girl of 15, wrote those poignant words in her diary not long before her death. For over two years, her family had been concealed, hiding in an attic in Amsterdam. Her hopes of a better world were shattered when an informer betrayed their whereabouts to the Nazis. The next year, 1945, Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Six million other Jews suffered a similar fate. Hitler’s diabolic scheme to exterminate an entire people may be the worst case of racial injustice our century has seen, but it is not the only one. In 1994 over half a million Tutsi were massacred in Rwanda, simply because they belonged to the “wrong” tribe. And during the first world war, about one million Armenians died in an ethnic purge. The Cruel Faces of Injustice Genocide is not the only face of injustice. Social injustice condemns about a fifth of the human race to a lifetime of grinding poverty. Worse still, the human rights group Anti-Slavery International calculates that more than 200,000,000 people are in bondage. There may well be more slaves in the world today than at any other time in history. They may not be sold at public auctions, but their working conditions are frequently worse than those of most slaves in former times. Legal injustice robs millions of their basic rights. “Human rights atrocities are committed virtually every day, somewhere in the world,” states Amnesty International in its 1996 report. “Most vulnerable are the poor and disadvantaged, especially women, children, elderly people and refugees.” The report observed: “In some countries, the structures of the nation state have virtually collapsed, leaving no legal authority to protect the weak from the strong.” During 1996 tens of thousands in over a hundred countries were detained and tortured. And in recent years, hundreds of thousands of people have just disappeared, apparently abducted either by security forces or by terrorist groups. Many of them are presumed dead. Wars, of course, are inevitably unjust, but they are getting more so. Modern warfare targets civilian populations, including women and children. And this is not just because of indiscriminate bombing of cities. Women and girls are routinely raped as part of military operations, and many insurgency groups forcibly abduct children in order to train them to be killers. Commenting on such trends, the United Nations report “Impact of Armed Conflict on Children” states: “More and more of the world is being sucked into a desolate moral vacuum.” There is no doubt that this moral vacuum has led to a world saturated with injustice—be it racial, social, legal, or military. This is nothing new, of course. Over two thousand five hundred years ago, a Hebrew prophet lamented: “The law is weak and useless, and justice is never done. Evil men get the better of the righteous, and so justice is perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:4, Today’s English Version) Although injustice has always been rampant, the 20th century must rank as the age when the level of injustice reached new heights. Does Injustice Matter? It matters when you personally suffer as a result of injustice. It matters because it robs the majority of the human race of their right to happiness. And it also matters because injustice frequently ignites bloody conflicts, which, in turn, keep the flames of injustice burning. Peace and happiness are inextricably tied to justice, but injustice dashes hope and crushes optimism. As Anne Frank tragically discovered, people cannot build up their hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. Like her, we all yearn for something better. This desire has led sincere people to attempt to bring a measure of justice to human society. To that end, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” These are certainly noble words, but mankind is still far from realizing that cherished goal—a just society where everyone enjoys equal rights and everyone treats his fellowman as his brother. The realization of this objective, as the preamble of the UN Declaration points out, would serve as “the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.” Is injustice so ingrained in the fabric of human society that it will never be eradicated? Or will a solid foundation for freedom, justice, and peace somehow be laid? If so, who could put it in place and make sure that all will benefit?
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 22:47:50 +0000