A WORLD WITHOUT WAR

Atchulo Joseph

Once a while when higgledy-piggledy dictates injustice becomes the portion of the day, and once a while when pragmatism dictates we have to put aside all notions of our individual interest and hold fast to the interest of the nation at large. Oh how I wish that this world would have been a better place to live in, a perfect world, a world without envy, murder, theft, affliction, hatred, covetousness, false accusations and the like. As once great African writer clearly puts it 'the falcon cannot hear the falconers, things fall apart the center cannot hold, mere anarchy has been loosed upon the world''.

Albert Einstein once said ''what terrifies me most is not the explosive force of atomic bomb but the power of the wickedness of the human heart, for it is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man''. Just as the bible says that 'the heart of man is very evil above all desperately wicked.

Throughout history, the number of wars that have been waged by man is virtually uncountable; man's quest to wield absolute power has led them to commit such grievous atrocities against the very people they must rule over.

And what more shall I say for the time will fail me to make mention of the list of wars by death tolls that have been directly or indirectly caused by war. Which include death of military personnel's which are the direct results of battle or other military war time actions as well as the death of civilians which are the results of war induced epidemics and famines.

The second world war for instance involved a vast majority of the world's nations including all the great powers eventually forming two opposing military alliances , it was the most wide spread war in history with more than 100 million people serving in the military units in a state of total war, marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians including holocaust and the use of nuclear weapons in warfare which resulted in 50 to over 70 million fatalities, these deaths made world war 2 by far the deadliest conflict in human history(Wikipedia)

We fail to understand that two birds have never collided in the sky, this implies that we can make our way to the top without having to pull one another down, we kill each other for land, power among others when we indeed need the other person to help develop that same land that we have killed for.

Albert Einstein said that ''he who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt, he has been given a large brain by mistake since for him the spinal cord will suffice''.

HG Wells said that ''if we don't end war, war will end us''. The world is big enough to contain each and every one of us; each and every one was created with a unique and special ability to contribute significantly to the development of the world. However great ideas, innovations and unfathomable inventions have been bulleted to the grave by the bar of the gun. In peace sons bury their fathers in war fathers bury their sons (Herodotus), this indeed is an irony, a critical and a sad state when a father will have to bury his son instead of being buried by his son.

Jean Paul Sarte said that ''when the rich wage war it is the poor that suffers'' just as an African proverb says that when two elephants fight it is the ground that suffers, this is an undeniable fact.

In Sierra Léon thousands of innocent women, men and even children had their hands and limbs chopped off with the edge of the knife, how sad to note that over 90 % of these people had never seen diamonds and even the 10 % who perhaps might have seen a diamond have never owned one. Diamonds were sold off to developed countries in exchange for guns, bombs and weapons to destroy our existing poor infrastructure that need upgrading, dilapidated schools which need renovation, bad roads which need facelifts , hospitals and clinics that needed facilities and above all our most valued human resources including doctors ,nurses teachers, engineers etc. children with great potential have all been sunk to their untimely death with the edge of the sword and with the barrel of the gun.

No wonder Africa continues to run to and fro from one European country to the other in such of foreign aid for the development of our country when we are the very people who have deposited our treasures in these countries. The IMF and the World Bank are not the solution to the dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty in Africa, but the solution to poverty is to look within, love one another and take our destiny into our own hands. Africa by far is the richest continent in terms of natural resources yet the poorest continent in the world what an irony, this is because we have failed to reason, a philosopher once said that ' he that will not reason is a bigot, he that does not reason is a worm but he that cannot reason is a fool''. Africa has large quantities of natural resources including diamonds, gold bauxite, cobalt uranium, copper, silver, petroleum and also woods and tropical fruits. But also much of its natural resources including oil have not been harnessed.

Jimmy Carter a Nobel Laureate in December 10th 2002 said ' in order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents which is in itself a violation of believe of all religions, once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of Gods mercy and grace their lives lose all value , we deny personal responsibility when we plant land mines and days or years later a stranger to us often a child is crippled or killed, from a great distance, we launch missiles and rockets with almost untold impunity and never want to know the numbers of the victims.

Albert Einstein once said “ I do not know with what weapons world war 3 would be fought with but world war 4 would be fought with sticks and stones.'' Albert Einstein in my opinion simply wanted to say that after world war 3 there would simply be nothing left with which we could wage war.

MY THEORY OF DOMINANT CRIME
The theory of dominant crime states that if the rich in the society fail to share their riches with the poor and less privilege the poor will share their poverty with the rich through social vices such as armed robbery, theft, rape, murder, transmission of sexually transmitted diseases such as a syphilis, HIV,AIDS, gonorrhea , prostitution among others. In the bible God gave the children of Israel specific instructions on what to do during the harvesting of their crops, He warned them not to glean their farms after harvest and therefore they were required to leave a portion of their harvest for the poor and needy among them.

In luke14: 13 it says '' But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind…''

But what do we see in our world today the rich employ the poor in their large hectares of farms, underpay them and even sometimes refuse to pay them, we glean our farm lands to an extent that not even a grain of cereal is even left for a hungry mouse to feed for lunch or a dying grasshopper to feed for supper. The rich cheat and exploit the poor to their advantage, build great and extravagant mansions protected with iron gates and wire fences whiles their next door poor neighbor lives in tattered houses written all over with the paint of poverty.

We call these arm robbers and prostitutes in our society social misfits and deviants and all manner of names, simply forgetting that we could have contributed in making their lives and the society at large a better place to live in. if you had paid the fees of the poor boy or poor girl when they needed it the most he would not have become an armed robber and she would not have become a prostitute. The solution to the unending conflicts in Africa and other parts of the world is love.

If we will love one another, if we will do to each other what we would that others do to us, if we would see each and every one as a brother or a sister, if you could educate just one needy boy or girl, if you would dare to feed just one hungry soul and cloth one naked boy or girl, if you would shelter just one homeless citizen, this world indeed would be a better place to live in, a world of peace, a world without war.

Because war and conflict leave us more divided than united. In conclusion I dare to say that A WORLD WITHOUT WAR is possible.

Written by: Atchulo Joseph
Email: [email protected]
Cell: +233204186405