Sep 9, 2006 7:20:40 PM cite

your vacuum of power is invaded by forces who invade all vacuums found, no matter which level: economic, environmental, even "spiritual. So tolerance is an arrogant attitude to another vacuum of power. If you don´t want to tolerate something you have to increase your "power" by what ever you find sufficient, to stop others from invading vacuums of power. If you cannot do that you have to try to... Otherwise tolerance is not the theme of yours.

by artotrap

Sep 9, 2006 4:33:26 PM cite

Hello Angela: You have a very good question. Because of that ugly part of history, I would like to focus on the future. I think, the more people speak out and spread the word, the better. One grain of sand will not make a beach. But many, many yes. We just cannot trust anymore on the "work" done so far by politicians and industry leaders, since they are still doing a bad job in being socially and environmentally responsible. As an example, just see what is happening right now in Darfur, Sudan, since 3 years! Who is doing something effectively, other than bla-bla? Nobody. We have to make people conscious about social and environmental responsibility: Friends, family, colleagues, bosses, neighbors, people we get in touch with. Right now I'm writing a book about peace, social rights and the wellbeing of mother earth. Just to spread out the word and encourage others to "join the club". I just read a very good book from Deepak Chopra: Peace is the way. Best regards. Alf Giebler

by alfgiebler

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: It is the fact; I don’t think it is tolerated. It is very tragic, because children and women, civilian people die. So many people, children die. We can think about minefields and stunted children, whose life has been ruined by the war, or about victims of a chemical war, of terrorism, or about children of Beslan, killed on their first day in the school, when many of them came with flowers for the first time to discover a new world. To kill those lives is terrible, inadmissible! Yet some groups do a war in the war and destroy social and political structures from within. But actually it is a political fight of “kings”, and people suffer. Here we speak about civilians, but soldiers, young boys eighteen, or nineteen years old are civilians too. There are wars in Africa, where children are given arms and sent to fight. They are civilian victims too. They are not soldiers; they are trained to be machines, predators. But they are still human beings. It is another experience, and there are organisations which work with such children, who are victims of this crime trained to kill and to be child-soldiers. And psychologists work with it. They show that they are just normal children being toys in hands of manipulation oriented people.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: What we should call killing civilians? Is not that terrorism? Should we consider it as a secondary result from the justice and democratic wars? This carelessness of civilians is really terrifying and it makes us to believe that topics are mixed and we still did not achieve moral laws for wars and other cases.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Why is this tolerated? For the same reason as hunger is tolerated by humanity. We have to think about the difference of combatants and non combatants. As I said I am living in a country with a not declarated civil war. And the combatants are not other people then the adolescents, Colombians and unemployed people from the same social class. The people who are really fighing are thus not the powerful and neither the sons of the powerful. They only finance war. But the killed people are always the most poor ones and the most weak ones that find in war a way of surviving. That is why I think that the combatants and the non combatants are all civil people. In some way those who don’t have salary get to be a part of an armed group and they are simply victims of a society that expulsed them and that obligated them to enter into the abyss of death. The civil population and those who don’t intervene in war are victims of those civilians that feel obligated to give their life and their bodys. They don’t have their ideals, they only feel the necessity of surviving.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Angela you know, I’m not exactly sure if there’s been a dramatic increase in civilian death. There’s been very little recording in the earlier parts of our blemished history of conflict just how many civilians do die in conflict. But you know it brings to mind this unfortunate term which has been used and bandied about in the Western media called collateral damage, and it just appears to me to be a persistent devaluing of human life. But I’m not too sure whether in fact that’s increased. I just think we need to understand that the people who are waging war have no interest in the living. For them we all are expendable elements. Whether we are soldiers, whether we are civilians, whether we are strong, whether we are weak, we are all expendable. We are all negotiable. That is the nature of war. So I’m not exactly sure whether it has increased or decreased. The nature of war is that your humanity is negotiable. And if it presents an obstacle, it can be removed.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: You know, Angela, I ask the same question many times. I don’t know if you knew that but I come from the land on top of the world in the land of the Eskimos when war has never been fought for any reason. So it’s really quite interesting to travel the world where war is happening. I was just across from Sri Lanka in December in the mainland of India where your people are taking sides and killing each other for land, a very small territory on Earth. When my people who lives the largest land on Earth, the land of the Eskimos, they have never fought war. And then on top of that in the last 100 years as you so rightfully stated more people have been killed in the war and then it seems like nobody is doing anything to stop these wars. You’re right, you’re right, many are doing effort to stop the war. But still many are creating wars. It does not matter how they call it, how they justify it, what they do with it, it’s still a war. And it still kills people. It is as though human life means nothing. Angela, for a piece of land? There is only one Earth and mankind is a citizen as it is stated by [Ba-how-la]. And how can you and I fight for that? It belongs to all of us. It belongs to you as it belongs to others in your land. Enjoy the beauty of your land and live that beauty within you. And prosper in your land. That is the way for you and for everyone else on Earth. War is senseless and should be eliminated. Not by the United Nations, not by your government but by you. I will help you. Thank you.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: The question of who tolerates it and who does not has to be asked because the people who tolerate it are the people who are making the decisions that lead us into wars that are, as the question points out, increasingly leading to civilian death. The basic proportion of military soldiers, people actively involved in a conflict versus civilians being killed in war has gone from roughly 90% to 10% at the beginning of the 20th century to today now being 90% civilians and 10% military. Now, of course, you also have to ask the question of those military deaths and whether any moral distinction can be made between the soldiers who are unjustly also the victims of war and the civilians who are the victims of war. But, most people know or they in fact don’t tolerate the growth of civilian deaths. Most people feel anger, outrage, and despair. The question is do they feel that they can do something about it? Do they feel that they can change it? Do they feel that governments will respond to their concerns? Do they feel that they can organize and make change? And really that, I think, is where the gap exists, not in the degree of toleration, but the degree in mobilization, organization and protest.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Angela, the thing is civilians are always voiceless and powerless. That is why they have to tolerate the deaths, tolerate all the deaths as sprung up on all the losers. So they are always -- these people are tolerant group and they I think that they also -- as I told you they are powerless, voiceless and they have to tolerate and I also think they do not understand what is their rights. So, how to defend themselves, where do they go to ask for help or get to defend themselves. So, this is also one of the things Angela.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think that we have seen an increase in civilian death because we are being told not to value life. In case of a war, where loss of life is talked about as collateral damage, with deaths of women, men, children, meaning of people is reported as collateral damage, it numbs us. It takes away something very important and vital from us where human beings are nothing but a collateral damage. We are not yet talking about numbers, we are not talking about lives destroyed, we are not talking about families destroyed; but we are basically talking about just collateral damage. It’s just numbing because we are not seeing a face; it is distant. The other thing that is happening is in situations of war, people at conflict are so made out to be the other; people are taking sides instead of taking side of humanity, instead of taking side of peace, instead of taking side of wanting a better world. We have decided to paint everything as the other. And when our interest is not seeing painted as with the other, it is easy to accept deaths of civilians. It is easy to accept the lives that we are told in the name of self-defense, in the name of promoting security, it means making the other insecure because we are being told that our security is not tied with the security of the other. And that is a recipe for continued conflicts and war situations and deaths of civilians because we are not talking about the loss of human life. We are not talking about the loss of dreams, aspirations of people; what we are talking about is what’s called collateral damage.

by Anuradha Mittal