War is a matter of pride for those who win it . War is a matter of shame for those who lose it. War is just a word for those who declare it. War is the death for those who fight it. War is a profitable business for those who manufacture and sell weapons to fighters. War is a catastrophe for those who live in the war-hit regions. War is a thrill for the strong. War is a calamity for the weak. War is a luxury for affluent aggressors. War is a burden for the poor economies. Wars are fought for vainglory and showing off. Wars are fought owing to anger, greed or cowardice. Wars are fought for revenge. Wars are fought for dominance and freedom. Wars may be delayed. Wars may be hastened. But, wars will never be ostracized from the human society. To tell you the truth, wars are as old as life on the planet earth. Wars will disappear only when life on this earth will disappear. Psychologically speaking, wars have usually roots in anger and greed. Anger is one of the four basic human emotions. It is not humanly possible to eradicate the emotion of anger from one’s genes. Anger can be tamed or reduced or channelised towards a handsome end, however, it cannot be done away with permanently. Therefore, wars will exist as long as the emotions of anger and greed exist in humans. According to Semitic faiths, God Himself fought with Satan, the two sons of the first man, Adam quarreled with each other and all prominent prophets of God engaged themselves in necessary wars in their respective times. History books eulogise Achilles , Alexander, the great , Julius Caesar , Ashoka , Khalid bin Waleed , Salahuddin , Richard , the lion heart , Churchill , Lenin , Mao tse Tung and others for their so called phenomenal military exploits . In modern era, fighters are awarded and honoured by governments. They are glorified in movies, news, documentaries and on the social media. It is also eloquently stated that those who die or kill for the sake of their faith or nation or community will enter Paradise. To conclude, wars are promoted, advertised and celebrated by some people consciously as well as subconsciously . On the other hand, there are some muffled voices saying that war is a curse and war is mutually destructive. Hence, the common masses are confused, baffled and befuddled. The common masses fail to understand the hypocrisy of the heads of states. There is a vivid discrepancy between the words and the actions of the heads of nations. All nations shout that wars are wrong and yet all nations prepare themselves night and day for wars. All leaders censure nukes and yet all of them are in a rat race to possess nukes faster and greater in number than one another. When a Muslim country is invaded, all the inhabitants of the earth become deaf , dumb and blind . Whereas, when a Christian country is bullied, all people of all cottages and all mansions turn into human rights activists. Are white skinned people humans and Asians sub humans? Do white lives matter and Asian lives not? Is abusing the prophet of Islam the freedom of expression and abusing the president of France a crime? Who made such unjust laws? Why people favour such sickness? Unless you find the convincing answers to such burning questions, true peace will not prevail. Anger will increase. Wars will be waged. Precious lives will be lost. Infrastructure will be destroyed. Environment will be poisoned. The weak will cry for peace. The strong will guffaw in mirth.
Some wars have big reasons and some have small. Some wars have genuine excuses and some have lame. The biggest reason of the wars waged after WWII is the imbalance of the martial capabilities among the nations of the world. The only solution to this problem or international hypocrisy is to ensure that all nations and all communities are equally powerful with respect to weapons . The balance of power will definitely postpone wars and conflicts . The balance of power will create the lasting peace after forcing the nations to fear and respect one another mutually. America is invading any country she likes to invade only because she has the most deadly weapons on the planet or so is her impression on the rest of the world. The people of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine and Afghan are butchered like cattle only because they do not have deadly weapons. America would have thought a thousand times before invading Iraq in 2003 and killing almost two million people if the latter had possessed nukes. Every knowledgeable person knows that there is a due war between the USA and china but the only thing that delays it is the balance of power. Statistically speaking , among the 248 armed conflicts that occurred in 153 regions across the world from 1945 CE to 2001 CE, 201 were started by the USA , accounting for 81% of the total number . Surprisingly, the USA is still a peaceful country in the international media but Afghanistan, Syria, Russia or Iraq is the biggest threat to the world peace. This level of hypocrisy is unprecedented. There is great injustice in the world today. Some powerful nations do whatever they like but some poor nations are sanctioned if they try to improve their military power. Consequently, conflicts, wars and hostilities take birth. The arrogant leaders unleash the mad elephants which trample the innocent people, demolish the homes of the weak, and leave the kids crying and the women wailing. Later, the human rights activists appear in the media to condemn the violence. The mayhem is halted for a while. The leaders shake hands and the truce is announced. A couple of weeks later, the mad elephants are goaded again and the screams of kids and the shrieks of women are heard again. The national poet of Palestine, Mehmoud Darwish puts it beautifully:
” The war will end ;
The leaders will shake hands ;
The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son ;
The girl will wait for her beloved husband
And those children will wait for their hero father.
I don’t know who sold our homeland
But I saw who paid the price .”
(The author is a teacher by profession . Views are exclusively his own)
