PEACE IS NOT AN ABSENCE OF WAR

Back in the early 20th Century, many leaders thought that nations had to go to war to correct the wrongs in the world. This led to World War One, the Great War allegedly to end all wars. Unfortunately, it only progressed to a magnanimous loss of lives and properties. People who were caught in the middle of the tussle thought there would be peace on Earth if only war would and could stop. They soon realised how wrong they were. The planet continued to witness many more violent upheavals which stemmed from this Trench War.

In the 1960s through to the early 1970s, Vietnamese were engaged in a never-ending battle over differences in political outlooks. Placard-carrying pacifists and opposers to war thought peace would just simply roll in seamlessly after both sides laid down their arms. How naive they were! After the war, they only found dead bodies, devastation, napalmed countryside, buried memories and dangers of live booby traps. 

Look at us now in the 21st century at the height of our science advancements and technological knowhow, we are still engaged in countless wars with no peace in sight in the imminent future.

Just like how the definition of health is not the mere absence of disease but a composite positive state of mental, physical and social well beings, peace is more than cessation or absence of war.

What then is peace? Peace can be summed up as a state of mind where one can live in an environment which does not have violence or the threat of violence. In this environment, he would be free from disturbances to be immersed in meaningful socio-economic prosperity governed by a respected political order which has the interest of the people at its core. He must feel safe and be able to profess his religious practices and allow others to express their belief systems as well. Baruch Spinoza who is credited to have coined this phrase reiterates that a disposition for benevolence is needed to give confidence to the aggrieved parties and to appear as if justice is meted fairly.

When a war comes to halt, there will be victors and the opposite side who would have waved the white flag. The winners will always be given the privilege to give peace and justice to the losers. This in itself will be a spark of resentment. National pride and egoism will stand in the way of providing an equal and just share of the national wealth to its people. It is human nature to be greedy and wanting to provide for our own kin and kind. Our leaders may become selfish and corrupted to please their own lobbyist. The hidden hand of the winning faction, the superpower, have also be known to cause of this resentment in the post-war reparation. 

The war may end but the memory of the trauma of emotional turmoil, loss of loved ones and shattered dreams will not just vanish after the whizz of the last bullet. The scar takes a long time to heal. It would need the establishment a well functioning medical facility. This would take decades to be in place.

Peace in present day appears like an elusive dream. The idea of all cultures living in harmony seems far fetched. Even though religion initially gave hope to the downtrodden, paradoxically, in modern living, it stands like a thorn in the flesh to provoke periodic upheavals. Resources in the world are finite but our greed seems to have no boundary. As Gandhi and Tolstoy put it, “the world has all the resources to meet our needs but not our greed”, we seem to be wanting more and more. Our world has become so materialistic and is driven by economics that is based on one of the seven deadly sins of Man, i.e., greed. We can never have peace in our lives if we do not know when to say enough. History has shown that economic comfort and socio-economic improvement goes a long way in ensuring peace in a society.

Even though we have all left the practices of our cavemen ancestors, lurking deep inside of us all is the tendency for violence. Just look around us. Our culture seems to get violent by the day; our music, our dance, our behaviour and even our religions, despite the religious leaders asserting that theirs is a religion of peace. It looks like our very existence is violence and many discoveries and leaps in human achievement are dependent on wars. Is it what we want, to destroy each other? We should learn to understand that violence does not end everything. It only creates new problems.

As it appears, peace and war are part and parcel of life. To attain everlasting peace, we need to change our mindset. We need to device a type of thinking looking each other of a single race, the human race, not as sub-types based on locality, colour and class. We need to be colour-blind, race-blind and look at another person as a human, as a soul, a fellow shared occupant on Earth, not a competitor. Many peaceful societies go into turmoil when each of them starts looking at each other as if they are tied up in a 'us versus them' competition. 

A good governance put in place by an agreed consensus of citizens of a country goes a long way in attaining peace in a country. Leading a country is no child's game. Many personalities and groups need to be pacified to ensure meaningful continuation of day-to-day duties. A foresighted leader who commands the respect of the majority will help to ensure the smooth running of a country.

An eye for an eye will only leave the whole world blind. With our ability to destroy each other to smithereens, soon there will be no planet to fight for. Perhaps that is why we are so keen on interplanetary expeditions!