World peace is a choice. Our understanding of life has been conditioned by reductionist explanations based on intellect and technology. We entertain narcissistic notions of self-creation or simply do not care. Every whim of the self has become an entitlement. We promote chaos and disrupt order. We virtue signal inclusion and deliver division. We glorify the margins and persecute the core. We are doing to ourselves what we have done to other species that we have made extinct.
World Peace – a military cemetery
Fragmentation and conflict are functions of falsehoods and enslavement. Unity and peace are functions of reality and freedom. US president John F Kennedy, when asked what words he would wish to have on his tombstone, replied ‘He kept the peace’. He refused to send American combat troops to Vietnam in the early 1960s as there was no threat to the US. Evidence abounds today to show that he was then assassinated by the warmongers and the US war in Vietnam ensued.
Peace that is imposed from the top down rarely lasts. A temporary ceasefire does not solve any problem. The hate retreats for a while and then returns with a vengeance. A break in the hostilities often suits both sides and is not intended to achieve peace. We will continue to have wars, death and destruction until we rid ourselves of the pathological addiction to sending young people to be maimed and killed in order to line the pockets of military contractors. There is no honour in killing or dying to enrich others.
For every person killed in any war, about ten to fifteen are wounded. Although this is a rough estimate, it does demonstrate that for every soldier killed there are multiple soldiers wounded with injuries that will last a lifetime. All this apart from the civilian casualties. Now, every single dead soldier, on both sides, has family who are then condemned to a lifetime of grief.
It is not helpful, and importantly also wrong, to demonise the enemy and to consider other populations as evil. We should avoid such comic book depictions of war. The peoples of all other countries are just like us, culturally and linguistically different of course, but otherwise they have the same human aspirations for life. The children of the corporate elite and of the puppet politicians who favour war, are never the ones to be sacrificed as gun fodder. There are no just wars. War brings forth more war, more hatred, never peace.
World Peace – destruction after a bombing raid
A handful of countries have enough military explosives capabilities to destroy the entire planet, and all life on it, many times over. This is not the behaviour of a moral species. It resembles more that of a rogue and insane one. The global military industrial complex spent 2.4 trillion US dollars in 2023 on armaments and war infrastructure. All this money, in just one year, spent for the sole purpose of killing people and causing poverty, misery and suffering. There is so much wrong with this logic that I can only explain its acceptance by all as a symptom of widespread cognitive dissonance.
We have no good reason to ignore our innate knowledge of the goodness and unity of creation. Two thousand years ago we experienced a divine incarnation to remind us of who we are. Over these two millennia to the present day, we have managed to corrupt and render the religion impotent, governed as it is by a spiritually bankrupt hierarchy.
I dream of a time when a war would be declared and nobody would turn up to fight. Now, that would be something. This is to say that world peace starts with each individual turning their attention towards peace in their daily life and in their relations with others and with the world at large. It is not possible to spread peace unless one has internalised an attitude of peace. Peace will then spread, as the value of it is clear and easily experienced, to family, friends, communities, nations and across the earth.
A good way to explain one tenet of natural law is that the rights of any one person end where those of another begin and that the rights of any person start where those of another end. It is therefore easy to see that in an open negotiation on rights between two people, agreement would be reached somewhere in the middle, so that works. Fairness and reciprocity does not mean equality and that one rule fits all and it can get complex. Agreement is reached by also considering the short, medium and long term impacts. As people we understand all this intuitively. We do not need technology, puppet politicians or corporate elites to decide on such matters for us. These concepts can be scaled up to communities and nations.
World Peace – dialogue and negotiations will find a solution every time
When there is a potential for conflict, dialogue and negotiations will find a solution every time, as long as we are willing to listen carefully to the legitimate concerns of our adversaries, with empathy. This is not a wishy washy type of empathy, but one that recognises that we would probably be behaving as they are, or worse, if we were in their position. We should strive to achieve win-win situations. For this purpose compromise and having a historical perspective are crucial. We should fully appreciate the culture and religion of our adversaries and be ready to make concessions. We should make friends rather than enemies, for our own security. It is also inconceivable that one Christian nation would fight another. Choose peace for yourself, for your family, community and country.
Published in the Times of Malta on the 6 July 2024 World Peace is a Choice.
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Also published on Substack.com