Anyone might tell you that conflict is inevitable. Of course, for differences of opinion are logical, natural and indeed necessary. But... why do we seek to settle conflicts with force? Why do we wage war? Why do we go to any
lengths to justify the propriety of the war we wage? Why is war so inherent in
our daily being? Why are we so
quick to launch missiles and spray bullets when there is a peaceful way
instead?
Waging war is not the choice of a people.
Common man may hate, but he does not detest. Common man may curse, but he does
not necessarily always deliver harm. It is the ugly weft of politics and
corporation-driven economics - a heady mix – that plays the filthy catalyst
that keeps war going, because it is good for business. This is then translated
into jingoistic campaigning, where people are taught to live in fear. We must wage war, or the terrorists will
kill us all. We must fight now otherwise history will repeat itself. We must
fight, we must kill. Otherwise, we will be killed.
Sounds familiar? You bet. The world is a
huge jigsaw puzzle: each piece representing a people forced to live in fear. No
piece wants to fit in. No peace is trusting of the other. Fear drives the wedge
further. Fear turns into intolerance. Because fear drives judgment, judgment
drives intolerance, and intolerance drives hatred.
And inside each piece in the puzzle, are
some people who have been educated enough to know that this is all a foolish
attempt of the years of myopic leadership. But they cannot act, for if they do,
they are silenced. But they are left only to wonder in the solitary confines of
their mind, in pieces of paper and little rooms in cyberspace. How can people sleep at night knowing that
children cry for food, for safety, while their parents have been killed? How
can people run normal lives knowing that women face the threat of rape and
sexual violence and live in fear of the complete erosion of their existence?
How is a world leader walking his walk without compunction when he sanctions
war?
While all this happens, little children cry
on the streets. The wounded lie in hospital beds. Men and women, and in some places, painfully, children, fight though they are wounded
to the bone. Masses of people are killed. Still many are thrown out of what they knew to be home.
It isn’t their fault that foot soldiers fight. They are
victims of the same fear that the rest of society is, and are taught a foolish
perversion of patriotism: that fighting on the boundaries of their country,
obliterating the face of their enemy, killing, raping and wounding the women
and children of their enemy is the service they should do to their country. But
as they shoot, they don’t shoot the enemy. They shoot, kill, maim, rape and
wound another person like them.
And that misery is the Human Cost of War.
As the 20th Anniversary of the
Rwandan Genocide passed yesterday, here’s what we’d like you to remember.
What does it matter if you are Hutu or
Tutsi, Arab or Jewish, Congolese or Rwandan, Indian or Pakistani, Chinese or
Japanese, Shiite or Sunni? What does it matter what language you speak, what
god you worship, what prayers you chant, or what food you eat? The same red
blood flows. The same white bones prop the body. The same eyes look back. The
same nose breathes in air. The same tongue gasps in pain.
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| Image from Kwibuka |
Why don’t we choose peace, then, instead of
war?