Editorial March 19, 1977 Issue

Arresting International Malpractice

Nathan A. Talbot

The world's attention was drawn to what had every potential for becoming a major international incident. Men serving in a peacekeeping force were attacked in a demilitarized zone. Two officers were slain during the altercation. The occurrence was generally viewed as a dangerous flare-up of hostilities in a potentially unstable and troubled area of the world.

Some saw deeper significance underlying this incident. It hinted, not so subtly, at the kind of tragic consequences that can accompany the promotion of hatred. An undisputed fact, sometimes discussed in news documentaries, is the policy in some countries of instilling in the minds of children a hatred for certain things "foreign."

It takes little imagination to see the relationship between a generation of such education and later violent acts. But the problem runs much deeper than the violent acts that make headlines. Hatred itself is a mental violence. Unless dealt with, it is deeply harmful to the perpetrator and potentially so to its victim.

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