“A while later, when we moved out of the hamlet, she was still dancing. ‘Probably some weird ritual,’ Azar said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance. That night, after we’d marched away from the smoking village, Azar mocked the girl’s dancing.”
-The Things They Carried, p 130
This passage essentially sums up what, in my mind, is wrong with this world. There simply is a sad amount of miscommunication and misunderstanding between different cultures, different nations, even between two neighbors. Yes, our cultures are different. Yes, we may not see eye to eye. Yet we are all human beings, with the same basic rights and abilities as the next man.
Now I will admit that I am incredibly stubborn—probably too much so for my own good. Yet I can admit that in the long run, differences are not worth arguing over, and certainly not worth killing over. What the people of this planet truly need is to learn to respect their fellow brothers and sisters. If we can at least gain respect for all people, who knows what could happen? Yes, this may be idealistic, even unattainable; yet the only way to bring about change is to change ourselves and change others by example. If we want to change the world, we must change ourselves.
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