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By Cynthia Annett | March 27, 2003
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Yes, for a tree. Why is that so difficult to accept? By mocking and
dismissing the beliefs of others, your editorial (March 20)
demonstrated one of the main problems we have with other people around
the world. Not everyone believes as we do. People believe many things.
People are passionate about their beliefs. Many people in the world are
willing to take risks and suffer for their beliefs. Perhaps we should
accept that fact because we cannot change it. And by doing so we may be
able to understand the basis of many of the armed conflicts in the
world today.
There are many people who believe that the natural world, the world
that is not human-made or controlled, is important enough to fight for.
That is the basis of many cultural belief systems, and there are entire
nations that adhere to this belief. If we mock and dismiss the idea
that someone cares enough about a tree to suffer for its preservation,
how can we understand these other nations?
This is a town
that has created a long-standing conflict with the relentless drive to
develop wetlands important to many of our Native American neighbors.
You would think the Journal-World would have learned over the years to
be more sensitive to issues such as this and understand that the
nonhuman world can be as important to some as the human world is to the
editor.
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Originally published by the Lawrence Journal-World.
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