CHILDREN OF WAR ARE DIFFERENT from other children. They seem older, sadder. Their young lives have been shaped by violence, terror, and death. Like all children, they have dreams and hopes for the future, but their goals may be as practical - though by no means easy - as simply being alive at the age of 17 or 20.
Such children can teach us a lot about war- and about peace. Their unique perspectives serve both as a warning to a world seemingly bent on self-destruction and as a sign of hope indicating how things could be different if we would work together for peace. The Children of War Tour was created in 1984 by the Religious Task Force, a coalition of U.S. church and peace groups, to take the children's double-edged message to the people of the United States. Last fall 54 young people traveled across the United States as part of the second Children of War Tour, hoping to help transform the wounds of war into action for peace.
Vicki Kemper and Sojourners Peace Ministry staff member Michael Verchot interviewed seven of the youths at the Sojourners office last November. We discovered that children of war are kids too. But between bites of popcorn and potato chips and talk of shopping and much-needed sleep, they touched our all-too-adult hearts and minds with their tragic yet hope-filled stories. We began by asking them to introduce themselves, to tell us a little about what it's like to be a child of war, and even to talk about what they want to do and be when they "grow up." --The Editors
Yair: My name is Yair Qedar. I come from Israel. I would like to be a filmmaker and make films that will contribute to.the understanding of all kinds of conflicts, social, economic, political, cultural, military.
It is possible to live without relating to the conflict in my country until the age of 18, when you are drafted. You can live peacefully; you can ignore anything that happens. But I chose otherwise. I've chosen to bring the politics into my life. Next year I have to go into the army, and I will.
Rania: My name is Rania Amin. I am from Palestine. I am 15 years old. I still live in Palestine, in Jerusalem, as part of the middle class. I want to study languages. I have a lot of friends who suffer from the occupation in my country. And that's what got me involved in politics.
I hope I can live a peaceful life, and I hope all my friends can have that too and live the life they wish.
Rosie: My name is Rosie Bahe. I am 16 years old, and I come from Arizona. I would like to be a lawyer and to write poems.
Jodie: My name is Jodie Dye. I am 17 years old. I live on a farm in Nebraska. I'm hoping to attend college in the fall.
Our family lost our farm about five years ago. Now my mother works with the farm crisis hotline, and my father has an organic mill and works as a miller.
Thomas: My name is Tom. I come from South Africa. I am 17 years old. Most of my life I've seen terror and horror all around me. And it's getting nearer and nearer. I think it's very close to me now. I have seen a lot of things. Some have made me angry, and some very sad. Some made me lose hope. But they have taught me many things that have helped me grow.
I've been at school for the past 12 years, but this year my school has been disturbed a lot by the events in our township. And now there are constant confrontations with the army, which has occupied our school.
Before 1980 I had a great hatred for all white people, especially in South Africa. I felt a lot of resentment and humiliation after seeing so many beatings and detention of people that I knew, including my family.
I remember the Soweto uprising in '76. I'd never seen so many people before. Many students walked past my home, and I later joined the procession. I was involved in the midst of a lot of rioting during this time. We, the small ones, saw people fighting - the police and the students - and some stone-throwing around us. We saw people die.
In 1980 I started having a lot of friends who were involved in the same anti-apartheid organizations I am. Many of them have been killed in various ways. One who was a schoolmate, Charles, was the first student to die in our school. He died in a hit-and-run incident by a police car. Another friend was caught by the police and kicked until he died. When he was found after many days, he could not be recognized any longer. Others have just disappeared; no one knows where they are. A number have gone into exile, and others are in jail.
I'm still making more friends, but I lose friends every day. Some died next to me, when we were at funerals or demonstrations. The police would just come and open fire on us; I would see someone dying and just falling. Some are still alive. I'm still alive; I have survived. But we have quite a few injuries.
Some of my friends have gone to jail. They put one friend, David, in a cell, and they put many mosquitoes in with him and taunted him a lot. The mosquitoes bred in the cell and attacked him, and this affected his mind; he went crazy. The UDF [ United Democratic Front] helped us to take him to a psychologist, and he got some treatment. He's better now, but you always have to help him.
Many things, small things, affect us. My skin has been exposed to a lot of gas, and it is changing. And at one point I lost the sense of smell. It's better now. But there are also the threats, the nightmares. I had nightmares after my parents were detained in 1984 by the police. They were put in solitary confinement and tortured for some time. They stayed, my mother for five months and my father for six months. I often have nightmares about police arresting me, because they don't like students who are working for justice and peace. Such students are a threat to them.
Richard: My name is Richard Aguirre. I'm from Managua, Nicaragua. My father [Gilberto E. Aguirre] is the executive director of CEPAD, the Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development in Nicaragua. The first thing I hope is that I will be alive when I am 20 years old. I also want to study geophysics.
I think I will change when I become 17 years old, when I must join the army. I don't think that I think like a normal individual 13 years old, because I see so many people of my country dying in the war. Many people are dying, and it's only for injustice. That makes you sad and makes you want to do something to stop it. But it's so hard. And maybe in February I will say goodbye to my brother forever, because he has to join the army.
Sojourners: How does that make you feel?
Richard: Well, very scared, and angry. Also sad, because maybe he will die. I am scared for him, scared for my family, my mother, because if he dies it would affect the whole family.
Hay: My name is Hay Tran. I was born in Cambodia in 1970.1 live in Philadelphia now. Since Pol Pot took over the country, I lost my relatives. I lost my mother; I lost two brothers; I lost my sisters. My father was disappeared; he was taken away somewhere. One of my sisters died from working too hard. And my other sister died of starvation.
My brother and I tried three times before we could finally make it into the refugee camps [in Thailand]. We tried once in 1979. We reached one camp and had been there about two weeks when the Thai government decided to send us to Cambodia. They put us on the top of a mountain bordering Thailand and Cambodia. Thousands of people were sort of pushed down the mountain, and on the mountainside there were a lot of land mines, one mine about every square meter. People had to walk very carefully, and they had to walk far away from one another. Some people tried to walk to find water, and they didn't notice the bombs. Many people died by stepping on the mines.
We tried again in 1982, but this time the refugee camps were closed; they didn't allow any refugees to come into the camps. But some people could sneak in. So when we reached the fence that surrounded the camp, we tried to sneak in, but we were caught by a Thai soldier who was guarding the camp. We were sent to different camps on the border. We tried to sneak in again, and on the way my cousin walked over a mine and was blown up.
Finally, on our third try, we made it into a refugee camp. And then I came here. I've exposed myself to a lot of things and learned of many countries and wars and poverty.
I want to be in a career that would help people and decrease poverty. One of my goals is studying agriculture and learning how to enrich food production, especially since my country is good for farming. I think we need some kind of technology for farming over there. So I hope someday to go back and work in farming and help the people in my country.
You have seen a lot of your friends and your family members die. Have you ever wondered why you didn't die, why you have survived?
Hay: I just think that we were very lucky. We are Buddhists, so we believe that our ancestors who are dead always surround us and protect us from enemies or any danger.
Thomas: It's impossible for everyone to die. It happens, by some luck, that my family has always survived. And those of us still alive also have learned to love. To have been so close to death and survived, we think, "I will come back and give." I don't know what has saved our lives, but sometimes I feel that there has been some miracle that has happened. Or sometimes I think it's luck. But I also believe that there are some people who give luck. My great-grandmother is still living, and she often prays for me and says she hopes that my ancestors will look after me.
Rania: I am a Moslem. I believe in God. I've faced my fate. And I think that all people must be courageous and do what they think is right.
How do you understand the conflict in your countries? And how do you feel about your "enemies"?
Thomas: The conflict in South Africa does not exist because people are of different races. There is a racist minority government in power, but the nature of the conflict is not racist as such. The real issue is that the South African government is trying to keep power in the hands of the few. They are using skin color as an excuse to confuse everyone.
Unfortunately, there are victims of lies. White children in my country are taught at school that black people are horrible people who deserve dog status. This adds to the conflict. But it's not an issue of race; it's an issue of seeing the truth. The young boys who happen to believe all that the government tells them come to the townships and become very brutal. They don't care. They kill; they rape; they do all the bad things because they have been indoctrinated.
But the struggle is not racist in nature. There are racist elements, but the broad mass of democratic people, the majority, is a non-racial majority. The main problem in South Africa is the apartheid system. South African people, black and white, have all become victims of this system.
There are black people who have been subjected to many things. People have been moved off their land and pushed into reserves. And now the government is trying to confuse them by saying it is going to give them a piece of land that should be divided in half.
But the government has pushed all the African people and tried to crowd them in small, dry patches of desert land, where there are poor living conditions and diseased rivers. People are put there to die. The government is trying to exterminate them.
However, there are also white people who have been victimized. They have been taken to schools where they have been taught that God is a nice, handsome white man and that the devil is a black man, very dark, with horrible eyes. Small white children are taken to schools where they are taught this. And they are taken to camps where they are taught that blacks are horrible people, communists. They are told if the black people take over the country, the blacks will beat them. And some say the country will be poor if there is black majority rule.
All of us are victims of apartheid. For example, let's say I am a young white boy. I'm 18, I'm supposed to take an apartheid gun and jump into an apartheid vehicle. I go to the townships; I shoot some of my fellow youngsters; I kill them.
Some of the young white boys have shared some of the things they have seen. They have been condemned by these experiences. They are guilty now, and as a result this destroys our society, the whole young white generation.
Rania: The conflict in our land is not a matter of religion - Judaism, Islam, or Christianity -because our people respect other religions. We respect Judaism, and we respect the Israelis as people. The struggle is for the land. We do not want the Israelis to be killed. We are against their government. That is the conflict between us.
Yair: Our conflict is basically unreligious. It relates to two national groups, Palestinian and Israeli. And there are arguments for and against both sides - the rights of Jews to declare themselves as a nationality, because of their history, and arguments for and against the declaration of the Palestinian people as a national group, because of their history as a part of the Arab nations.
I don't think of Palestinians as my enemies. Some Palestinians, yes, but those are in Palestinian organizations. But a Palestinian on the street, I don't see as my enemy.
Richard: The contras have killed thousands of people in Nicaragua. I don't want them to come back to my country, because the poor people would become more poor again. And then there would be a lot of opposition and maybe 50,000 more people killed, like in 1979, in all that war.
And I do see the contras as enemies that can kill me, yes. I really don't hate them, but I think that I would hate them if they killed my brother. Some of them are confused because they hear the governments of Central America and the U.S. government say that the Nicaraguan government is bad. And when somebody tells you something and gives money for you to believe it, you can't be objective about it.
If you have eyes that work, and you do not see, it's only because you don't want to see. I think the contras don't want to see because they want to become rich again like they were before 1979. They want to explode all the people who are there. Then they can get rich again.
Thomas, you have been in detention, and you have talked about your mother and father being in detention also. What was that like? How long were you detained?
Thomas: For a very short period. I was one of the very lucky people in South Africa. I was taken in twice. Once in 1985 we were picked up for picketing against high rent. The police took us to jail; they gave us horrible food, and we were cold. They threatened us, but they didn't do anything to us. We just sang.
The second time they got me, I was wearing a UDF T-shirt. It had "United Democratic Front, No to Apartheid" written on it, with many people carrying a flag. I was taking a car to the mechanic for my father, and the police saw me. The police came and asked, "Where is the license?"
And I said,"I don't have my license." I told them that my father is a sand man all day and that I could pay the fine, but they refused, saying I didn't need to pay the fine. Then they asked,"What is that T-shirt for? Is that your fine?" And I knew then that I was in serious trouble.
They took me for a ride around Soweto. We were going around the area sort of searching for people. We went to the police station. They got another policeman who came running to the van and hit me with the barrel of his gun. Then he sat with the gun pointed right toward me and asked me who I was, calling me bad names. Then he started hitting me again and again, pointing with his gun and asking me why I was wearing that T-shirt.
After that, my mother had to pay the fine. My T-shirt was confiscated, and I was released. I went to the doctor for some treatment, and the doctor said it almost had a serious effect on my kidneys. But I was lucky. I could have been put in jail for wearing that T-shirt.
Richard and Yair, both of you said earlier that in a few years, or very soon, you will be drafted into the army. When you are drafted, do you plan to go into the army? How will you feel about that?
Richard: I think that if I am drafted, I am going to fight. Because that is the only way that I can make the bad people stop killing my people, the people of Nicaragua. I will take a gun, and I will fight. It makes you sad to see young children murdered. I don't want to kill people, but if they won't talk and negotiate, there's not a lot of choice.
Yair: I have two choices: I can either go into the army, or get six years in prison and a psychiatric form that follows me everywhere I go. If I go into the Israeli Defense Forces, I think I can choose to do educational work, work in a radio station, or settle in an unsettled area and make a kibbutz. If I have no choice but to fight, I would rather go to jail. I would not like to meet Rania in a uniform in one-and-a-half years.
You have seen much death, much killing, and much suffering in your lives, and yet you're here. What are the things that give you hope? What helps you go on?
Richard: I am a Christian. Jesus Christ once said, "In the world you are going to have trouble, but don't worry; I won the war."
Hay: I think we are humans with feeling, and we are a special kind of animal. We have brains and specialized organs that help us be able to live with each other. And our brain is capable of learning. Therefore if the government really does teach us good, then we will be good. If the government will teach us bad, then we will be bad.
I have hope that we might find new policies and new rules and new systems in which people could live together, and then we could take these principles and teach our children of the world. That's what I think is possible.
And on this tour, Thomas has really encouraged me to stay with him in that hope and find a real solution for the future of peace. Peace will come when there are no boundaries and everyone lives in their homeland.
Thomas: What gives me hope is my faith in God. God created us; God gave us health. I think God foresaw that some of these hands will misuse themselves; they'll go and kill people and all that. But as a result God also has placed the challenge on us to fight for peace and work for peace.
And God knows that at some stage all of us will come to our senses. God knows that we can. God has confidence in us. And God doesn't expect us to sit and wait for miracles and angels to come and do things for us. God knew that we'd have problems, but these challenge us to be able to use the heart of God.
So that's what gives me hope. I also know that it's impossible to make people suffer forever. That's physically impossible. I can't go on beating a person forever; at some point my hand will give out. And as people put more pressure on me to stop, my hand will quickly get tired. So at some stage all the people will come to their senses and there will be a just peace.
Jodie: I get hope from the Bible, because it says that we were God's gift to the world. But what we make of ourselves is our gift to God. And I see that in more ways than one. During the tour we drew our hope from each other. We just continuously pulled strength from each other.
Sometimes we can be like the body. If one part hurts, then we all hurt. If one person dies, or is taken away from the other parts of the body, then the body is not complete. But if one part is praised, then we all rejoice.
Rania: I believe in God, and I believe in a better future. If we are united now - those of us on the tour - that can help us in the future.
Yair: I think something that is very encouraging is people's courage to do things beyond the usual in our conflicts, such as people who go to demonstrations again and again and again and get arrested, who meet and defend Palestinian people.
What are you learning from the Children of War tour?
Jodie: Nothing is impossible - especially peace. Sure, everyone is going to have their differences. There's no question there. But for the most part, peace is possible.
Richard: I learned that in Nicaragua, we are not alone. There is injustice in other countries. People are dying in other countries. There is cruelty and suffering in other countries. That makes you feel good and bad. Bad, because almost all the world is suffering. But good, because we are not alone; we are with company. And when some part of the world can solve their problems, maybe the other parts of the world can follow their example, and maybe there will be peace in all the world.
Thomas: I also learned the same thing - that nothing is impossible, and that we've got the same problem all over the world. And this has inspired me to see and to work more for ajust peace internationally.
I've seen that the problem all over the world is that people in power want more and more power. They even forget that there are lives existing; there are hearts and minds existing; there are souls; there is blood existing. They are spoiling all that is precious.
And also I learned something I never knew about the American people. I thought before I left home that it is the American people who are helping the South African government. I thought Americans are supportive of the apartheid system but pretend that they are supportive of us. Like when there are sanctions, they pretend that they are concerned about our jobs, but they don't invest their money in small church projects and organized cooperatives. They'd rather invest their money with the apartheid government.
But I discovered that the American people are different. Most of them are just misinformed. I discovered that they are also victims of propaganda from South Africa and from all over the world. Americans are lovely people, and most of them have shown a willingness to listen and help and wake up and do something. This has also inspired in me quite a lot of hope.
Rania: When I came here, I had never thought of the conflicts in Northern Ireland, in West Germany, in Poland. Learning about them was really very good, because I like to know what people are facing in other countries. Also, about two days ago, there was a woman I met here who asked me, "Can you please tell me where Palestine is?" I was really angry about this, because I want everyone to know where Palestine is. That's why I'm here.
Hay: From this tour I also really got into the truth of what's happening in different countries. And as I hear of stories from different countries, it occurs to me that we face a most similar situation in my country, where there is a small group of people trying to control and take advantage of a large group. I think this is very dangerous. If people try to do that, they will never be at peace. Our meeting together, victims of war, has made us aware that we have to solve it, we have to face it, and we have to discuss it. By knowing what each of us needs, I think we could solve the problem. This is the very best way to give us a chance.
Jodie: Something I learned about, probably one of the more important things, was the U.S. involvement in almost every country. Anywhere they can get their foot in the door, they do. I found out that a lot of times they're hurting more then they're helping. And when they hurt many millions and millions of people, I'm not always proud to be an American, a U.S. citizen.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!