When the war in Iraq came in the early 2000’s, I was just barely ten years old – not the age when you’d think kids would be interested in national issues.
Yet as I watched Ed Lingao (then a correspondent for ABS-CBN) deliver the latest developments from Baghdad, in the heart of the conflict, I felt a kind of strange fear that the war can actually arrive at our doorstep anytime soon.
Of course, the war in Iraq became a reality for most of us after a few overseas Filipino workers were kidnapped and hostaged by armed Islamic groups who had taken advantage of the chaos that followed Saddam Hussein’s downfall.
Mercifully, all of them were released and reunited with their families, but such incidents have made my young mind understand the crippling effects of a conflict thousands of miles away.
Of course, the Philippines wasn’t immune to conflict at that time: many Islamist groups, claiming to support their brethren in Iraq against the hegemony of the West, have taken advantage of the situation to perpetuate their own terror campaign here in the Philippines.
It was a time of terrorist bombings (the most infamous being the Valentine’s Day bombing of 2005, which left such a scar on me that up until the Covid-19 pandemic, I still fell queasy when passing through the EDSA-Ayala bus stop where one of the bombings occurred) and heightened military operations that have served to strike fear in the hearts of many Filipinos.
Looking back at the war on Iraq, amidst renewed tension in a region that has seen its own share of needless bloodlust for decades, I couldn’t help but wonder: what will we tell our kids about the conflict?
It’s very easy to adopt a “binary” stance of good-guy-versus-bad-guy (like what was portrayed in Iraq – an operation to stop a bloodthirsty tyrant from terrorizing his own people, a very old alibi).
But what are we going to tell them when they, in their child-like minds, say: “But is it okay to kill children like us just because you hate them?” “But didn’t God say ‘Thou shalt not kill’, so why are you killing other people?” “Do I have to hate other people just because you hate them, too?”
Anong sasabihin natin sa ating mga anak? Na okay lang pumatay kasi hindi natin sila kauri, na okay lang na mangwasak kasi hindi magkapareho ang ating mga paniniwala, na dapat lang pulbusin ang isang sibilisasyon dahil – dahil kung hindi, baka tayo naman ang lipulin?
Kung talagang iniisip natin ang ating mga anak, ang susunod na salinlahi na magmamana ng ating mundo, bakit natin winawasak ang mundong ginagalawan nila? Bakit tayo nagpapadala sa baluktot na katwiran at galit sa mga taong ang tanging kasalanan ay ang pagkakaiba ng paniniwala sa atin? Tunay ngang mapaniil ang ilang mga lider ng nasabing mga bansa, pero justifiable ba na idamay natin ang mga inosente na biktima rin ng pang-aapi ng naturang rehimen?
Kung matino natin itong maipapaliwanag sa ating mga anak, baka sila pa ang kumilos para iligtas ang mundong ito laban sa mga pwersa ng kadiliman. Kaya siguro pinapatay na ang mga bata, para siguruhin na walang magmamana ng mundong iiwan ng mga naniniwala sa dahas.
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