Personal injustice paper
This paper seeks to elaborate an injustice I suffered under at the hands of the government. Every citizen, or individual who attains the qualification for attainment of citizenship to a country, is entitled to recognition as a citizen of the said country. After attainment of legal age, it is paramount that an individual obtains the necessary legal identification in order to enjoy the services and protection of the government. This acknowledgement should be attained as a right earned by a citizen and the duty owed to them by the government. I experienced the reality in a bid to attain identification as a citizen, however, to a crude shock. It is one thing to recognize something legally, and an entirely different thing to execute the statement of the law. The staff at the immigration and registration of persons department never took the issue as seriously as they ought to by law. I would sit at their offices for days with each day receiving one excuse or the other on why they could not key in my details. The delay was substantial, and I had to postpone my college enrollment since I had not attained the required identification documents as a regal citizen and a true holder of the names that appeared in my other document.
The above scenario provided a conflict between the system and my requirements of them as a citizen. Conflicts desire resolution failure to which, they exacerbate into bigger and difficult problems than the initial conflict. The measures employed to resolve conflict are determined by the options available to the parties to the conflict. In this instance, methods such as negotiation would not apply as one party holds the authority over the other. In such instances, one employs the intervention of a higher authority than the one involved in the conflict. It is paramount that an individual realizes the power they hold over their governments. As such, they should seek all the possible avenues to get their governments to function for them as they are intended to regardless of the existing laws and traditions. As Martin Luther king stated in his famous letter, “A just law “is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.” The individual, therefore, should show respect and subservience to the government and their agencies only if they represent what he/she feels is the right service and leadership as deserved by their subjects.
Many factors guide relationships amongst individuals. There are relationships of trust, friendship, co-existence, mutual benefit and relations by authority or statutes for instance. Voluntary and involuntary aspects of their existence bind people together. These beings so; there are bound to be disagreements and conflicting interest amongst people in any cadre of relationship. These differences are resolved using various methods, which are either predetermined or agreed upon through consensus between the conflicting parties and other involved persons. As Thoreau observes, “if the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, (), perchance it will wear smooth (--) certainly the machine will wear out”. Borrowing from this analogy, Thoreau illustrates that if the conflicts are of mutual interests to the conflicting party, the conflict will give rise to an amicable solution to the satisfaction of the conflicting parties.
The resolution of conflict is an important aspect of human living as it ensures the continuity of harmony amongst all the parties. However, some disputes are not easily resolved with many instances persons suffering injustices at the hands of fellow human beings. The failure to resolve these disputes imputes the failure of one party to cede ground and consent to their transgressions, in favor of taking advantage of the other party. Such unresolved disputes are resolved through the intervention of a third party wielding some authority over the conflicting parties. In the case of government, through the judicial system, their authority yields from the people who put them in authority, by submitting to abide by the guidance and leadership of the sitting government.
It is the obligation of the government and all its agencies to serve its citizens and not the other way round. In my instance, I realized an injustice has been committed by evaluation of the facts of the case. It was bewildering how the documents could not be processed for several months, but after I had showed up to the offices armed with a sworn affidavit expressing my tribulations and a court summon that the document appeared within several days. According to Martin Luther king, the first step towards correcting an injustice is “collection of the facts to determine whether an injustice exists” (Martin Luther, 2005). It is normal to have hiccups in any organization, however, such huge delays without proper explanation, and for an agency mandated with a certain task implies a transgression. As Thoreau rightly puts it, “when the friction comes to have its machine, (), let us not have such a machine any longer.” It is, therefore, the duty of a machine owner to realize when a machine fails in the delivery of its service, and either repair it or replace it. Thoreau indicates that when inefficiency, laxity and an ignorance of the primary goal of government, or its agency supersede their ability/ willingness to perform their righteous duty, it is the responsibility of the people to replace them.
