Maybe we Could Ask the Government to Stop Killing People?

Right before moving to Rwanda I saw a news blurb saying that Rwanda will be joining the British Commonwealth. To be honest, I really didn’t know what that meant but somehow it came up in conversation in the teacher’s lounge and I learned that one of the requirements to be in the Commonwealth is that you cannot have capital punishment. Out of only a few requirements, not having the death penalty is one of them. So of course Rwanda doesn’t have the death penalty as well as a vast majority of countries. I find this quite interesting. Why America? Why do we still have the death penalty? There is no benefit to having the government kill people. The death penalty costs more than keeping someone in prison for life. It also has been determined that the death penalty in no way is a deterrent to violent crime. Another problem is that there are a lot of innocent people sitting on death row. Maybe you could check out Amnesty and their campaign to free Troy Davis.

Oye, I really believe that it just follows the myth of redemptive violence. I promise it doesn’t work. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. What can we do in America to stop these cycles of violence where we have continued to hurt each other again and again. I would like to end not with my own words but those of a man who understood the consequences of hate. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”- Martin Luther King Jr.

Rwanda made the choice to stop the cycle of violence and I can see it, I can see how happy people are to turn the other cheek. I would be lying if I said that everything was peachy here but things are good. People want peace and are working toward it.