What Is Wrong With The World?

It’s an old cliché but maybe it’s so old because the question is still on the table: What is wrong with the world?

Recently we’ve been witness to vicious attacks on innocent civilians in Mumbai, perpetrated by hate-filled and cold-blooded killers. Of course these attacks are more noticed because the international press is all over Mumbai and we were able to see graphic photos of the attacks and read even more graphic details as the killers methodically picked their targets throughout the city.

But the 60 hours of fighting in Mumbai is just the tip of the iceberg in other parts of the world. Untold numbers of people have been killed and displaced in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since hostilities between government forces and rebels broke out in 1998, more than 5.8 million people have been killed, the most in any war since World War II. Following a brief break in the fighting, the killings began anew in September and there are no good estimates on the number of people killed recently.

In Nigeria, as many people were killed last week – and the week before – as were killed in Mumbai due to ethnic and religious struggles that have plagued the region for decades. We hear little about the all-too regular Nigerian violence unless it interrupts the flow of oil.

Just 30 miles to the south from where I am writing this, sensational murders between rival Mexican drug gangs are in the dozens each week. Police have also been targeted and many executed in recent months. All of this is due to the fact that Colombian drug lords decided to outsource drug sales into the U.S. and now it’s probably safer for an American to take a stroll down a street in Baghdad than it is in most Mexican border towns.

But this is the macro. Evil has been present in some form since the first bite of the apple. We in the U.S. don’t often meet the face of such evil that those in the rougher neighborhoods of the world do. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were a rare exception. Instead we have to look at a more civilized evil, if you will, one that can turn perfectly well-adjusted people into self-preservationists with a kill or be killed attitude.

The recent financial meltdown is an interesting sociological experiment. How people are responding to it says more about who they really are than how well they behaved when money and toys were piling up. This recession is scary, don’t get me wrong. But will it be remembered for a store clerk being trampled to death so shoppers could save a buck, or will it be remember for how millions handled pressure with grace and charity? The jury is out still, but it doesn’t appear we have come close to finding our bottom and so many people seem so restless one must wonder how long before they all begin to snap.

Tough times have come to people I love and cherish and there is one thing I know of them: they are the kind of people who will face the challenges that lie ahead with perseverance and a respect for the needs of all. I believe their Judgment Day, if there is such a singular day, will be kind to them during this time of uncertainty and maybe they will lead us to the point when we’ll no longer have to ask the question, What is wrong with the world?