All wars, it is said, are fought for the benefit of future generations. This is a story of how those generations are responding. The responses vary, as you would expect. The five war zones represented here are quite different from one another, and the children in each place have their differences as well. Nor do those within a single war zone necessarily react in the same ways to the terrors around them. What all these children do have in common is a fierce will to survive—a will that sometimes takes the form of revenge, and at other times, of an abiding serenity. But no matter how they assert themselves, there is an essential good-heartedness in almost all these children, a generosity of nature that transcends and diminishes anything they have suffered.
The question one asks is: When do these qualities disappear? Assume that the children of our modern wars are like those of any time. Why then does the institution of war continue to do so well? Here are some 30 children from five warring nations, most of them eager to make and keep the peace. If their nations were handed over to them right now, it would be pleasing to think that peace would follow. Of course, nothing will be handed over to them until they are ready, and by that time they will be grown up like us, and changed like us, who supposedly fight for their benefit. For the moment their power is purely potential. So they go about their business—riding bikes, playing ball, dreaming, doing what they are told, and watching with great care all that is being done for them.
BELFAST
Nothin's Worth Killing Someone
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth. Our children know and suffer the armed men. —Stephen Vincent Benét
If you want the full account of Frank Rowe's murder, it will not be provided by Paul. Paul is 13 now, was seven at the time, yet he can still only get so far into the story—to the point where "Daddy, he ran to the back, to the next house"—before he starts crying. He has a woman's face, still dimpled, along with the absolutely blue eyes of most Belfast children, and brown hair parted carelessly down the middle: the sort of face the old masters sought. His school tie hangs cockeyed; it was knotted in a hurry.
"What do you feel about your father's death now?"
His friend Joseph answers for him. Joseph, also 13, has a small, tight head, a high, clear voice, and his ambition is to grow up and join the Provos. "Revenge. That's what you want. Isn't it, Paul?" Paul says nothing.
"I'd want revenge," says Joseph, looking again to Paul.
Paul eventually nods; then says faintly: "Aye. Revenge." As if to make his case forever, Joseph thrusts his face toward the American stranger. "You. You'd take revenge too, wouldn't you, Mister?"