It has been documented that acts of violence of human against human is much more severe than that of other species against each other. And it continues to increase with an alarming rate with our technological advancement.
Technological advancements should be used for the promotion of our cause for humanity not the other way around. Today we experience quite the opposite. As biological advances have been changed to biological warfare, nuclear technology has created intended nuclear disasters, and chemical developments are reversed to chemical skirmishing. Such abuses of technology may not leave a glimpse of hope for our future generations.
Our generation has inherited a complex and highly interactive world that compels us to engage our intellect, education, compassion and critical thinking with a purposeful mission more than ever before.
Now more than ever, the world needs leaders and citizens with a deep sense of understanding of their cultural and intellectual heritage and the critical thinking required to have the respect for differences, and moral discrimination, the passion for justice and the competence and the confidence that will impel them to make a positive contribution, bring a welcoming change and make sense of nonsense in order to leave behind a world not worse than we inherited.
Aggression is born as a result of undesirable accumulation of personal or environmental frustrations. Frustrations are the products of either environmental attacks on our person, property or our political, ideological or mental state, or lack of progress in our personal lives either due to our own inability to move forward or due to perceived or actual environmental obstacles.
Human beings are equipped to tolerate a certain amount of frustration in order to co-exist and to survive as social beings. The level of tolerance of each one of us is unique and depends on our genetic and environmental factors. However, when our mental tolerance has reached its limit, our bodies react. If this reaction is directed inward, it is digression or repression, which would manifest itself in the form of depression - if not treated, it may end in suicide. If directed outward, it can manifest itself in the form of aggression. This can occur on individual or societal level, examples of which we may have heard of or may have experienced at some point in our personal lives.
Humans are born with fully developed brains. At birth the brain is as a blank slate, ready to perform. One of the functions of the brain is thinking. When born, an infant’s brain is free of perceptions. Our perceptions are our way of thinking. Similar to writings on a blank slate. Our environment forms our perceptions. Our parents shape our first perceptions. As we grow older, schools, our peers, the media, and society in general keeps this process alive and feeds it until we reach the end of our lives.
It is extremely difficult to teach children non-violent means of expressing their frustration, when our government cannot curb the violence and terror. Or when unemployment has reached epidemic proportions, instead of promoting peaceful means of creating jobs, we are constantly luring our young men and women as "guns for hire" into law enforcement or military personnel. We are deliberately creating a generation of bloodthirsty warmongers for economic gains and military superiority. Currently, we need as many teachers, nurses and diplomats as war personnel.
Basically, our natural inclination is to protect life, not destroy it. Therefore, we must consider it our civil duty to teach our children peaceful alternatives to protect their interests, since no human being in his/her right mind desires to kill or be killed.
Those of us, who claim to be of superior knowledge, must exhibit the leadership and the quality of character to exemplify to the rest of the world that Afghanistan can resolve her conflicts by non-violent means. We must clear our names and our tarnished image and gain back the respect that we deserve. Let not our characters be assassinated by a few warlords. Let us solve our conflicts not extinguish them by force.
Conflicts can surface when individuals, families or nations express a disagreement about a situation. Since people are different, so are their viewpoints. Therefore, conflict is a natural part of life. It challenges our ability to solve problems. How we view and resolve a problem, again, has to do with our perceptions.
If we are of the ancient and authoritarian mind, we will resort to the old ways of solving conflict, as it is said by William Shakespeare: "Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind... And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights the citizenry. Rather the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
A war is never a win-win or even a win-lose situation as perceived by warmongers. A war has no winning side. Even the winner is a loser. Do not think of the short-lived War of Persian Gulf of a decade ago. Even that caused a considerable loss of life. Think of the miseries of the Syria, think of the millions of dead, maimed and sick children of the War-stricken nations around the world and in our own country, think of the despair of the Vietnam War or the depression era of World War II. We cannot go on killing, destroying and maiming.
When analyzing family behavior, according to the family systems theory, the family behavior pattern continues endlessly from one generation to the next, unless one generation acts as a "gate keeper" to end the bad behavior pattern for the next.