Thou Shall Not Kill

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Religious wars are caused by books. Mine is superior than yours, or mine justifies this action. Sometimes it is different interpretation of the same book. Photo: art installation, The Forks.

Thou shall not kill comes from the bible, if I remember my British education correctly. We had a subject, Religious Studies to wash away our barbaric existence of getting everything we needed from the land, not the store.

Thou shall not kill is also the root of the crime called murder in Christian-based countries. However, it depends on who took the life of another human being. It’s murder if a friend kills a friend or a business partner kills a partner who swindled him. It’s not murder if the government kills. Singapore and Thailand do not tolerate drug smuggling, but some African men and women still work as drug mules. They are either executed through lethal injection, or they are injected with drugs then deported to die at home. Most countries use the electric chair. Saudi Arabia believes in cutting the head off.

Governments are exempt from ‘thou shall not kill’ because the language changes. Murder is called something else when they use it on a group of people. It is a retaliatory measure, a pre-emptive strike or mission to restore democracy. It also changes the definition of a human being. Normally, governments use it internally, their own citizens, their own families. Anything outside, has labels like pagan, communists and non-believers, and is not human.

That is how we justify the defence budget and its annual increase, because there will always be people who are not human, because they don’t believe in what we believe.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Executive Blogger

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