What is with men and wars, I’ll never know, but records show that over ninety per cent of wars in this world have been initiated and executed by men. No, no, I am not starting an argument, just stating a fact. Just think, in the lifetime of any given male, the chances that he would initiate or help to execute a war is close to fifty per cent. Imagine that! I know that when they were little, my children initiated many wars against each other, mostly over nothing, but that doesn’t even count. The fighting gene nevertheless appears to run true and deep in all men.
Most worrisome, however, is the fact that somehow, the fighting genes running loose in men are now being transfused into women and other things. Women, knowing no better and no different, proudly don the togas of war, supposedly for love and country and head out, leaving behind tearful babies, crying children and baffled husbands. Tch, tch. If those women only knew the truth – that they have been infected by the blood running in men’s veins – they would know better where to direct their heaving chests of indignation. All together, mankind has become like a couple of pigeons which seems to do nothing but flap their wings in real antagonism towards each other three mornings a week behind my fence. What the bone of contention is exactly, no one can tell, but all we seem to get from them are their emotions all flapped up.
Actually, nothing excuses mankind’s behaviour which seems to stem from the belief that only the fisticuffs can settle any and all matters. This is why we now have community, civil, international, cyber, psychological and, most worrisome of all, domestic wars. And with the match of science, those simple fisticuffs have been translated into the rat-ta-tat-at-tat of machine guns or the booms of cannons aimed at other human beings just like them. I don’t know about you but anytime I have stumbled across TV programmes depicting war scenes, I have been struck by one question: to what purpose?
Just recently, I read the story of a soldier who was shot at the war front but instead of falling and dying quickly, he got caught on the barbed wire that separated the two sides in the war. The war continued around him however with shots from the guns but now punctuated by his own groans of pain as he slowly bled. His own friends could not come to his rescue for fear of being hit. Finally, a soldier from the side which had hit him in the first place could stand the groans no longer so he put down his gun and ran towards the dying man. Both sides, seeming to realise what he was going to do, ceased firing at each other and watched him in disbelief as he gently disentangled the wounded man and carried him across to the enemy line and gave him to his friends. As he turned to go back to his side of the war, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the commanding officer of the enemy troop who removed a bravery medal from his own uniform and pinned it on the rescuer and saluted. Both sides then waited for him to run back to his side before they resumed their insane game.
Today, the world remembers the millions and millions of victims of the World War 2 Holocaust but we are expanding it here to include all victims of the insane thing called war all over the world. Sources say that presently, there are one hundred and forty-six wars being fought and from these, over one thousand people are dying yearly. This gives us a very frightening picture indeed considering that it shows a considerable build-up of victims of war who are mostly women, children and the aged. The worst part is that these victims, and the wounded and dead soldiers, have no clear understanding of what caused the war in the first place.
So, who declares a war and why? As a member of the human race, and a national of a country located somewhere on this planet, I think I have the right to know. Who the deuce feels he is obliged to declare a war where he does not often go to fight but only the young and able-bodied men (and now women) are obliged to go and be killed? I ask this because our lives, planet, children, and whether or not we wake up tomorrow depend on the answer. I believe that, and you can check this out, whoever declares a war must have a very little brain indeed, even tinier than mine, and he would be the kind of person that cannot even get along with his neighbour. Just watch out, next time someone declares a war around you, first interview his neighbour.
There is a line that says that ‘Love has no religion, only God’. I don’t know exactly what that means but I can extrapolate that humans can choose the Christian, Muslim, Animist, Atheist, or the Love religion. Clearly, most people have not been choosing the Love religion because all wars in history have been started by someone from the other religions. This is quite different from the poster that reads ‘Make Love, not War.’ Again, I don’t know what that means either but I would guess that it still borders on what choices we make.
I honestly don’t know what war-mongers are really after: plunder, fame or power. Whatever it is, I think we should all accept right now that none of that stays if built on the sacrificed blood of innocent men and women. One can get better plunder by raiding a rat’s hide-out. They are the only creatures I know who gather what they don’t need. Fame can come from a variety of other activities. Try calling the press to witness as you jump down from a ten-story building unto a bed of hot coals and sharp nails. I tell you, you will be toasted at every gathering in the country for years without end. And power? Why, have you tried to imagine a king testing his power by standing without his aides in the path of a herd of rampaging elephants? Again, should that king survive, he will be toasted for ever as a very powerful man indeed. That takes me to a second line I found: ‘We should realise that we have not been put here to rule the world – God does’. Anyone who feels compelled to test that theory is free to because my third line has the answer for them: ‘Those who thought they did had to leave it’.
Most people agree that wars have never solved any problem; they are only indulgences for old men looking for their manhood. They do not consider that wars without end only create victims without end. They also do not consider that the only things that wars leave behind are victims who do not even understand why they are being called on to be victims. They are helpless against the insatiate appetites of men to seek and create drama everywhere. This column commiserates with all victims of war today; they are the ones who have to deal with, and pick up pieces of lives shattered by, the insanity of war.
The long and short of it is that wars are not good; let us stop them. Only God himself can put out the flame of domestic wars, but we can try our best with the rest. Those do nothing but point to the failure of human intelligence. Nothing succeeds as much as good governance, fairness and justice. A good mixture of those elements can give us a world without wars, Amen.
