War and Suffering

Last night I watched an excellent movie "Water" by Deepa Mehta about Hindu widows in India, around the time Ghandi was making his mark on the world.
I highly recommend it, (even thought I cried buckets during it!) because I think it sets the stage for something important; and that is an understanding of Ghandi's rebellion.
All we hear about war in the news today is negative. Everyone seems to hate George W. Bush and no one wants their tax dollars to go to build up the Canadian Military instead of healthcare. Mention the word 'nuclear' and people are afraid; talk about violence and it is always a bad, bad thing.
While preparing for my interview I came across the question 'What is war?' and 'When should war be initiated?' Notice that it doesn't ask 'Should war ever be initiated?' Implicit in this question is an understanding that I think most people have, as much as they hate it, and that is that war is sometimes necessary.
The obvious example is World War II- six million Jews were slaughtered during the holocaust while North America dragged their heels and debated whether or not to jump in. In 1994 in Rwanda the Western world stood by while 600,000 Rwandans were butchered in less than a year. If you ask Lt. Gen Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the UN operation in Rwanda, what happened was a massive abdication of the responsibility of the world, and it was just because the Rwandans were black. World resources were tied up in Yugoslavia, because the people there are white, they are western, they are worth fighting for, they are worth saving.
The war in Afghanistan is easier to understand and easier to support because it was initiated by a painful attack on American soil- 9/11- that cut to the heart of North Americans (Canadians included) and provided the impetus to go to war in a country no one had ever been to.
But what about places where the suffering does not affect us, where its pervasive tendrils have not managed to crawl into our consciousness? What about Sudan, which exists as an ambiguous shape on the map of Africa, and where from for 20 years, we have seen pictures of starving orphans?
What about muslim countries where girls can't go to school, spousal abuse is normative and the value of a human life is negligible?
Ghandi was interesting in that he was one of the few men in history (besides Jesus!) who acheived revolution without violence, at least a nominal amount.
It is possible, I agree, but it will probably never happen again. (Go ahead, prove me wrong! Be warned that it will cost your life, though, which is not a very attractive option.)
It is unrealistic and impossible to expect that the world's problems will be solved by a change of heart, which is probably the only thing that would do it. In the meantime, people are suffering and dying around the world.
But that doesn't negate our responsibility to fight to be the salt and light of the world. We should fight for justice, fight for truth, fight for respect and equality and compassion and love.
We should not be afraid of violence- violence done to ourselves and violence done by ourselves. The scars of Rwanda and Sudan and Eastern Europe and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and all the places in the world where people suffer because they are helpless, and we are unwilling to step in,- these scars should remain ever in our hearts- to remind us that war is horrible, but that sometimes it serves for good. In fact, sometimes violence is the only way to stop violence. the harsh reality is, in North America we can protest war but only because we don't suffer much here. If we did live in a place where our humanity was constantly abused we might be more willing to pick up a gun and fight for peace.