By John Grant
All we are saying is give peace a chance
- John Lennon
Whether war or cooperation is the more dominant trait of humanity is one of the oldest questions in human discourse. There are no satisfying answers for either side exclusively, which seems to suggest the answer is in the eternal nature of the debate itself.
David P. Barash in an op-ed [1] [1] in The New York Times called “Are We Hard-Wired For War?” tells a powerful story from Cherokee legend. A girl goes to her grandfather and tells him of a dream she had of two wolves viciously fighting. He tells her that her dream represents the “two forces within each of us struggling for supremacy, one embodying peace and the other war.”
But, grandfather, she asks, who wins?
His answer: “The one you feed.”
I’m a Vietnam veteran and have been a member of Veterans For Peace for 28 years. In the 1990s, the organization took up the themeAbolish War!
I could never quite absorb what that meant. I always wanted to know who was going to hold the gun to the heads of the war-mongers of the world? Now, c’mon you guys, just stop that! The idea is still alive in the peace movement, as in the new book by David Swanson [2] [2]called War No More: The Case For Abolition.
I enthusiastically share the sentiment of the Abolish War! movement but doubt its effectiveness. Non-violence, in Gandhi’s sense as a “truth force,” is a powerful political tool to oppose unjust power, but how does anyone abolish war and make it just go away? War, by definition, would seem to trump such good-intentioned legislation. War isn’t something that can be ordered out of existence; it has to be wooed and coaxed into submission by forces working for peace. Fears have to be allayed. Furies have to be soothed.
It seems to me the answer lies in plain sight -- in Lennon’s so simple lyric about giving peace a chance. It lies in taking the time to question the necessity to bomb someone. It lies in counting to ten to reflect on unanticipated consequences. It lies in being aware of the demonization process everyone is susceptible to that makes enemies of people who live or worship differently. It lies in granting the otherequal human status, by pausing to realize maybe those odd lumps on their heads really aren’t horns -- and that maybe they're even the result of head wounds inflicted by us. It lies in fighting off the insecurity and fear of losing an immense advantage gained from history. It lies in recalling the lessons from Sandbox 101 to share your stuff. It lies in understanding how miraculous life is and how small-minded humans can be. It lies in encouraging humility over arrogance...
For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new uncompromising four-time [3] Project Censored Award-winning online alternative newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1989 [4]