War: Do we need it?

This is a speech I made as part of a debate some time ago. The topic was Peace Across Borders: The Middle-east Crisis.

The style is of a speech, and not an Essay. I am no authority on Middle-east History. I present it here as just one of my works. As some other writings of mine, it portrays my own Pacifistic views.

* * *

August 1947.
History’s greatest migration across a newly drawn McMahon Line was accompanied by ruthless manslaughter of thousands. Hostilities continued for another fifty years. We shall live with the implications forever.

December 11, 2006.
Three-year old Salaam, six-year old Ahmed, and nine-year old Osama were on their way to school when they were blown to smithereens along with their car. The reason? They were the children of a Palestinian security officer.

Our history as a species is replete with blood-drenched tales of strife such as these. Human life has been sacrificed at the altar of territorial disputes since the days of unrecorded prehistory. But how often do we look back to see the damage we’ve done? How often do our military leaders look upon life as something more than just troops and casualties?

War is an illegal appropriation of a people’s right to exist. It is never justified, never legitimate. In my opinion, there isn’t a single dispute that cannot be solved over a conference table.

Attribute it to fate or man’s arrogance, but we have always bled in war. Border conflicts, war, insurgency attacks, terrorism – I’m just skimming the surface. Peace across certain borders of the world remains a pipedream today. The Indian subcontinent, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia today alternate between disturbances and spells of uneasy peace.

However, it is the region of the Middle-east which has consistently borne the brunt of human tragedy. It was the cradle of human civilization. Also, our first battlefield. For five thousand years, this region witnessed the most gruesome of wars. The Persian and Macedonian conquests to begin with, following the Jewish Exodus; followed by those of the Romans. Islamic invasions and the fall of Rome in the most decisive battle of all time. Then, the advent of Byzantium ; the coming of the Seljuk and the Ottoman Turks, and the unstable Mongols.

We took an irreversible turn with the “holy” call by Pope Urban II to a series of unholy Crusades – history’s most lamented chapter. What followed was a blur of conquerors redrawing borders every few decades.

The turn of the 20th century saw a chaotic and weak Middle-east, ready in every way for a European domination. Hitler’s systematic genocide of six million Jews validated the Zionist movement. Failure of the 1947 UN Plan for the Partition of Palestine and the Declaration of the State of Israel by the Zionist leadership the next year, were the beginning of literal pandemonium in the Middle-east.

The land of the Patriarchs is now rent by anger, fear, and hatred. The core issue of conflict in the Middle-east is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and what is left in Lebanese Occupied Territories. Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq still suffer from open wounds. More than a hundred civilians die every day in the Middle-east. And in the recent past, 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes: large chunks from Iraq and Palestine. The Middle-east is burning.

It is high time the peace process made a headway. And a final solution to this problem can only come from a profound understanding of the region’s ailments and an integral view of the peoples. The creation of a viable Palestinian State, and a settlement of all disputes to end all hostilities, over conference tables, is of utmost importance. As long as a commitment to peace is absent, there will always be grenades flying into our homes and revenge building in our hearts.

My fellow makers of tomorrow’s world, History’s mistakes stare at us from the eyes of homeless refugees, estranged families and orphaned children. We can never correct these mistakes, but we can pledge, this moment, that we will never repeat them. Because there is no such thing as a good war.

KISHORE KUMAR