Just war
The current era is laden with myriads of civilian casualties. At one place, civilian is being tortured and at another place you will find that civilians are being killed. The breaking news is dominated by the killings, bombings and torturing of people from across the world. Reconciliation efforts are being launched one after another one yet none of these efforts have yielded any fruit. Several reconciliation attempts for example have been made in Libyan crisis but none of them has yielded any fruit. Although several efforts are being done to bring out peace, there is still a need for a just war.
Each level of organization right from the individual level has its own rules and laws governing the peaceful coexistence. Though rules and laws exist, the civil casualties still persists. This fact presents us with the challenge about the actual source of justice given that rules and laws no longer make any impact (Kleinig, 2008). The search for freedom is thus a major challenge to most of us who are oppressed in one way or another. Nevertheless, as martin Luther king and Elshtain described in their work, a just war may entail the use of an organized force, we shall explore one scenario and how this scenario can be handled properly basing on the ideas of the king and the Elshtain. Oppressions are everywhere, be it from the leaders, from some parents, from some organization or from some institutions.
Some systems of some institutions tend to be very rigid and restrictive (Kleinig, 2008). Going through such systems therefore become a problem to some people who may not fit the system accordingly. Due to the unfairness of these systems therefore, we get the otherwise equal people being valued differently whereas in reality they have common values. In education system for example, every student is expected to pass exam for him or her to get competitive grades. However, it is my feelings that passing exams may not reflect someone’s potential. Conversely, the system should focus on the understanding level of students in their ranking.
Passing exam may not absolutely show the difference between individuals. Some individuals may not understand the subject but due to his or her own manipulation, he or she passes. The use of exams merit as a way of ranking individuals is therefore not a fair way. There are different methods in which students can apply in order to pass their exams. Some may decide to write the summaries of their work in a very tiny, long and carefully folded piece of paper (Kleinig, 2008). This paper is hard to be noticed by the supervisor. In fact some of them are folded in such w way that they fit in between the two fingers and hence making them hard to be noticed. Alternatively, some students are good at craning the notes. Certain students for example would trans-night the day is fore exam cramming for what they have been taught.
The art of passing exam is also dependent on the psychological and physiological state of a person. There is a very high likelihood that a stressed person is likely to perform poorly irrespective of his or her past potential. While trying to explain about the election of two leaders in Birmingham, martin Luther king expressed a lot of concern that the leaders were more likely to be oppressors (Soja, 2010). However, he further advised that intervention from the public might influence the minds of these leaders. He also asserted that liberty is never freely given by the tormenter and that it must be demanded by the oppressed. On the other hand Elshtain was keen to distinguish between three major elements of achieving justice. He further mentioned that a just war tradition requires someone to consider a number of complex criteria when thinking about war so as to enable him or her to judge whether the resort to force is justified, and whether, once resorted to , its use has been kept within necessary limits (McCleary, 1992).
According to Elshtain, despite the fact that war or rather force might not be desirable, it can be a way through which justice can be achieved at. Therefore Elshtain believed on the fact that the application of crude means like the use of force to solicit justice can be justifiable if such means can results in just peace that leaves the world better off than it was prior to the resort to force. However, he further insisted that killing to defend one alone was not encouraged especially by early Christians (McCleary, 1992). Individuals could better suffer harm than to inflict it. Contrary to this, if the killings were meant for saving the lives of many, then it might be necessary to imperil and even take the lives of their tormentors.
Back to the scenario, you will find that the current education system may not actually distinguish the real scholars from unreal scholars. In other words, the system is tormenting and oppressing many of us. In fact the educational program tends to fix students to a system whereby competition for market or rather good grades takes preference over the search for knowledge. It must be realized that competent and knowledgeable people are required in the current society. However if the current system of educational ranking especially at university level persists the goals of vision 2030 might become unachievable. Therefore a just war against the system is the only way through which this system can be altered accordingly for the betterment of the society (McCleary, 1992).
References
Kleinig, J. (2008). Ethics and criminal justice: an introduction. Cambridge applied ethics.
Cambridge, CU: Cambridge University Press.
McCleary , R. M. (1992). Seeking justice: ethics and international affairs, Case studies in
international affairs. The University of Michigan UOM: Westview Press.
Soja, W. E. (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice. University of Minnesota Press
