The secret ingredient of war that everyone should beware of
“War is sweet to those who have no experience of it. But the experienced man trembles exceedingly in his heart at its approach.”
There is nothing wrong in a healthy competition among nations for advancements in different sectors of life, but things become a lot more dreadful when the healthy competition turns into a war — an act full of violence, tragedy and death of true human spirit. This might raise a question among some minds that how humans are ready to accept or impose such an act that is against the true human spirit, the so-called game which — as Saint Exupery said — is won by him who rots last, but in the end both rot together.
Imposing a war, declaring a war, and not trying to avoid a war are acts lethal for the collective human spirit and yet, governments, monarchs, and even small human tribes raise arms against each other at conflicts that can be resolved in other ways and which are neither going to be resolved by a war. So what drives war?
There is one ingredient common to wars without which war would become unacceptable. Hatred. It can be either hate against a specific person, group, nation, ethnicity, cast, religion or ideology.
There are two forms in which hatred drives wars. In one form, hatred develops in few individuals due to different reasons — for example generalizing a wrong act committed by a member of a community to the whole community — then these contagious germs spread across the community like plague.
My focus here is the second form which is more common nowadays. In it, hatred is spread through different mass-mediums according to a well-crafted strategy devised by a small group of individuals (be it state leaders or community leaders) around their self-interests — a form also known as propaganda. This second form has been excessively observed during times of conflict.
If we have a thorough overview of context of all the wars (includes all kinds of armed conflicts) in the past century, we will unexceptionally notice a proper role of mass spread of hatred. Because this is the easiest way to convince people for war: make them hate the victim, kill their sense of sympathy.
In this era, we the people need to understand this situation. We need to rethink about the people we are made to hate. Why should one person hate another only because they either think or appear differently. From within, all humans are same. There is no distinction in a human heart whether the person in which it resides is black or white; is American or Russian; is Jewish or Muslim; wealthy or destitute.
They are evil, they say. That’s the keyword used to trigger people. But before we are taken aback by our sense of responsibility to stop evil, we need to understand what is evil? Is it a group of people with a certain color of skin that is evil, or is it a group of people living inside certain man-made boundaries that is evil? Or is it just a group of people doing wrong things that is evil?
Humans are not evil, some of their actions are.
Well, grammatically evil is an adjective that you can use with humans like an evil person or evil dictator. But in the moral sense, I strongly believe, a human cannot be called evil. Humans make mistakes. They commit evil acts. We need to and and it is our responsibility to stop those evil acts. But when we associate the word evil with people instead of their actions, we make it okay to eradicate the evil by eradicating people, destroying them, killing them.
So, mark my word: Hate the evil actions but not the people committing them. If you really want to stop the evil deeds, you will have to love the people committing them in the true moral sense — the way a mother loves her child. A mother will never let her child play with fire, no matter how much she cries for it, because a mother loves her child in the true moral sense. If you see someone playing with fire (burning others), you must try to stop them in every possible way, but if you hate them, you will end up destroying them instead of helping them by stopping them from evil.
Hatred is deadlier than the most strong poisons, while love is an elixir. By love, I mean a universal love for all humanity, for all people, irrespective of their color, creed, nationality or religion. Spreading love and eradicating hatred is the only way to bring an end to wars. It’s the only way to fulfill the dream of a peaceful world. Let’s rethink about the people we are made to hate. Let’s spread the message of peace — the message of love.
