Wilmot [Max] Ramsay
[Prof. James F. Brennan
Freshman HONORS]
September 14, 1989
UMass/Boston

          Justice in an Unjust World
          [The East German Exodus]

     The execution of Justice varies in application from individual to individual.  

     According to Webster's Dictionary, Justice is: "the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishment."

     The question inevitably arises: Justice for whom?

     In the search for Justice, the individual anticipates happiness.  When an individual succeeds or 'wins' he claims that Justice is being served and thus, he is pleased and happy.

     The recent exodus of East Germans from East Germany, via Hungary, to the West is a contemporary case of a people in search of Justice in an Unjust World.  For this group, the departure from the oppression (unjust) meted out to them found solace in the echo of a cry for joy from one of their countrymen, Gerhard Meyer in declaring: "It's great, it's like a dream," he said, as he became the first East German to arrive at the border with his family.

     The smiling faces accompanied by differing acts of celebration record moments of achievement, attainment, the realization of 'a dream,' victory, success -- Justice.

     Hungary's aid and role in the exodus which has brought about Justice for the East Germans has angered the Communist government (administration) of East Germany who called such decision 'unjust' -- "the organized trafficking in human beings."

     Justice, therefore, as seen through the eyes of the Hungarian government, in relation to defecting East Germans, is viewed as the 'opposite' by their East German counterpart.

     The bottom line, therefore, is: Justice on one hand is 'blind.'

     Like-minded people convene to make into law generally agreed ideas and concepts.  These concepts we can term as logical conventions or schools of thought, agreed upon by the 'many.'  Even these laws can differ from "state" to state; country to country; region to region and culture to culture.