Boys in Charge

I am disturbed by the assault on Flight 17.  Deeply disturbed.  Across the globe we see the ambitions of certain males play out in destructive ways.  Putin wants more of the Ukraine.    ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced that Christians in Syria must either convert to Islam or die.   Boko Haram in Nigeria kidnapped 200 girls.  Kim Jong-un in North Korea rattles swords while his people starve.  Each of these men and oh so many more have never grown up.  They are as little boys throwing tantrums and demanding that all things be as they wish; that the world in which they operate will be “my way or the highway.”  Each of them so steeped in their own juice that they have lost all reason, all humanity.  How are men, grown men, to deal with such boys who yield such power?  Imagine giving such boys weapons?  We have done so.

And when the smoke clears on Flight 17 we will learn that local Ukrainian “boys” playing with Russian missiles shot down a commercial airliner killing nearly 300 civilians; men, women, children.  Never should such boys have been armed.  They are not men enough to trust with weapons.  The evidence of that is scattered all over eastern Ukraine and is now sealed off by the same boys toting guns.  I am sick to my stomach.  In a world where men have refused to grow up, have demanded their right to be armed, have demanded to have their way, have insisted on making war against others, and worse, have become heroes to other boys we must find ways to stop them and teach them without acting as they do.  If we retaliate we will be boy-like ourselves as was Bush when we attacked Iraq.

Men now appear unable to get there without help.  Where are Churchill, FDR, JFK, Wilson, Gandhi, King and Mandela?  Those are the men we need and they are few and far between.  Perhaps it is time to let women lead us to maturity, lead the world to stability, and show how we grown-ups behave with tolerance and forgiveness and firm boundaries.  Perhaps we need to be mothered to adulthood.

But not by all women.  The Palin’s and Bachman’s cannot be put in charge because they are enamored of this boy power in the same ways cheerleaders are enamored of football teams.  They as well as the men of the same mind set will always prefer to attack, even attack themselves in a form of political cannibalism via suits and impeachments and seceding from the union.  No, we need maturity, regardless of gender.

I fear the outcomes if the boys are left in charge.  Other voices that have yet to grow deep since childhood will demand that we respond in similar ways to the boys.  That will be disastrous.  Again.

This has struck such a nerve with me because it is boys like these that I have attempted to teach my entire professional life.  It is boys like these that asked me to leave; asked me to leave without demonstrating courage or integrity.  They are boys with weapons and remain so.  They are willing to engage in sneak attacks, launch missiles at unknown targets, hide in strongholds surrounded by others of like mind whether it is the caves of Afghanistan, the hideaways in Pakistan, the palace in Syria or room 108.  There they remain convinced they are correct, everyone else is wrong and, therefore, they remain unteachable.  How do we stop them?  How do we teach them?  How do we open their minds?  Boys such as these should not be in charge, they should not be armed.  They must grow up and achieve a level of moral reasoning that demands self-control, honesty, tolerance of others, forgiveness of others and constantly seeks peace for reasons larger than themselves. 

Perhaps I ask too much.