Dennis Prager

Jewish World Review April 8, 2008 / 3 Nissan 5768

It's a Bad World

By Dennis Prager

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Here are some news items from just this past week:

In Tibet, according to an Associated Press report, "police opened fire on hundreds of Buddhist monks and lay people who had marched on local government offices to demand the release of two monks detained for possessing photographs of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader." At least eight died.

In Iraq, the mass murder of civilians continues while American and Iraqi government forces continue to battle murderous Shiite gangs known as militias. And a 40-year-old Assyrian Orthodox priest was killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad in the latest attack against Iraq's Christian minority.

In Zimbabwe, one of the world's longest-reigning tyrants, Robert Mugabe, began to violently annul the latest elections. He has virtually destroyed a once thriving country. Unemployment is 80 percent. Inflation is over 100,000 percent. The Zimbabwean dollar has been trading at a rate of 55 million for one U.S. dollar. And life expectancy has gone from 60 to 35.

In Woodbridge, Va., moronic officials at an elementary school called in police to arrest a 6-year-old boy for slapping a 6-year-old on her bottom. He has now been labeled a sex offender for life. And he is hardly alone among elementary school students. As reported in the Washington Post: "The Virginia Department of Education reported that 255 elementary students were suspended last year for offensive sexual touching, or 'improper physical contact against a student.' In Maryland, 166 elementary school children were suspended last year for sexual harassment, including three preschoolers, 16 kindergartners and 22 first-graders, according to the State Department of Education."

In Pakistan, more than 25,000 people rallied against "Fitna," an anti-Quran film made by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament. Speakers called on Muslims to kill themselves and others in defense of Islam's honor.

Human Rights Watch released a report that the government of Sudan "is giving [Sudanese Arab gangs] a license to rape" black women and girls in Darfur.

In Sri Lanka, the Associated Press reported, "A suicide bomber killed 14 people at an opening ceremony for a Sri Lankan marathon. … More than 90 others were wounded."

In Israel, Haaretz reported that an Arab woman has been shot in an attempted honor killing. She was to be the ninth female member of her family to be killed. "Eight women from this family were murdered in the past six years, all in connection with 'family honor.'" Male relatives had murdered them all because they brought shame on their Muslim family by not marrying the men picked for them or otherwise disobeying family religious dictates.

These are only the news items of the last seven days. I purposely chose a period without dramatic headlines. And, of course, no news came out of North Korea, which continues to be the world's largest concentration camp. Cubans continue to have no freedom. Iranians continue to be whipped and killed for sexual improprieties. Saudi women continue to be forced to be invisible in public and live a demeaned status.

The world is filled with evil. Always has been. The biggest difference today is that, thanks to communications, we are far more aware of much of it.

I am convinced that human evil is so great that most people choose either to ignore it or to focus their concerns elsewhere — like those who believe that human-created carbon dioxide emission, not human evil, poses the greatest threat to mankind. No one will ever get killed for fighting global warming. Fighting evil, on the other hand, is quite dangerous.

JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles. He the author of, most recently, "Happiness is a Serious Problem". Click here to comment on this column.