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The people who served under Queen Mary turned into savages. Later in history, in the mid-sass in Cyprus, Greece, a liberation movement broke out, dividing the people into Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot, seeking annexation from the British, and fighting against unification between Turkey. This movement of war and political unrest became the Cypriot Liberation, and the movement lasted until March of 1959.
A similar movement of unrest happened in April 1994, when the East African state of Rwanda was divided into two factions of the Hut and the Tutsis people, of which the Tutsis were the victims of a 100-day massacre that accounted for 20% of the population’s death. The characters who lived through the Cypriot Liberation and Rwanda Genocide respectively are a nameless executioner who is forced to choose between his life or his friend’s life, a pastor who falters In his faith in the face of Hut killers, and a hotel manager who gives himself to his family and the people of Rwanda.
Both men are put on the fine line between life and death. Despite the situation at hand, when conflicted with the inner struggle between loyalty to self versus conformity, people lose traces of their humanity and self-identity, so holding on to their own values and beliefs show true character, sugarless of the situation. As a means to start, Pianos Annelids, a Cypriot author, uses the protagonist of his short story “Gregory,” a nameless executioner, to force the reader to decide whether the choices that the executioner makes are Justified in his sense of morality or duty. Gregory’ takes place during the Cypriot Liberation, and the executioner befriends a prisoner of war named Gregory, who had saved the executioner’s life from the sung of a scorpion. The nameless executioner goes through ups and downs in his perception of the “friendship” he has with his prisoner, like when they joke around why he didn’t “run away” or when they Gregory talked about “his girl” (Andesine 16-20). He often curses him at the fact that he was oblivious to the Idea of escape. [Because] you didn’t escape yesterday when we sent you all alone to the laundry – we did it on purpose, you idiot” (Andesine 41). This defines the conflict in the friendship that shows he is using duty as an excuse to forsake the connection he had with Gregory at one point, because the executioner states that “it anti right” and really wants to save Gregory against his order (Andesine 22-40). This is all occurring t the time that the executioner must kill Gregory, and he has to empty out every single round in the barrel of his gun to make sure his Job is done. He died with a terrible spasm. His mouth was full of blood and so were my boots and socks … HIS hands were frozen and wouldn’t let my legs go. I still have their Imprints, rend and 1 OFF scarred with his decision of conformity to his duty rather than being at peace knowing he let his friend live. Now as a character, the executioner is broken and haunted by his lack of morality because “they didn’t care to know what happened to that Gregory, alive or dead.
Although Gregory is now dead, the executioner believes he still has a sense of humanity by breaking the rule of hanging prisoners who have been executed, and decides to bury him. Without hesitation, he believes his actions were Justified by breaking away from only one part of conformity, which makes him even less of a character than Andesine sets him out to be. Pastor Murrain, a pastor who is reluctant to be true to his own moral values and his duty in the face of death, but ends up saving the life of one woman.
With the previous statement in mind, as the years progress, Immaculatee Liability was a young Tutsis woman who was caught amidst the Rwanda Genocide in 1994. In an excerpt from her autobiography Left to Tell, Immaculatee describes how she huddled with five other women in the 3-by-4 -foot bathroom of her pastor’s home, silently praying and clinging to her rosary beads as she heard Huts shouting her name outside the door, full of bloodless and ready to kill every single living being in that home.
A pastor’s duty is to follow the word of God and harbor those who wish to seek Him. He is to also love and respect every living being as if they were his family. Although the man ho hid her was a Hut, he went against conformity to the slaughter of Tutsis, and instead hid these young girls and took a chance in his faith. Liability had him push a dresser in front of the bathroom door the second time a Hut group came to search the house, and they lived through her stroke of faith in God, and his taking chance in a girls faith. It was as if with crystal clarity that I saw the dresser in my mind, and I got down on the floor and begged, “Please, push the dresser in front of the door. It is tall enough to cover it, and it will be as if they were blind” (Liability 251). Initially, Murrain is blind with his faith as well, hesitating to cover the door of the girls. However, through the same act of God and faith that defines his morality, he allowed the girls to live, and this story to be told. He was displayed as a character that allowed his morality to define him as he was strengthened by the newfound faith of almanace.