I, mistakenly so it would seem, considered peace as being a state of people living together in harmony, letting one another enjoy their lives to the fullest extent, and, based in part, on acceptance of differences. I had my concept of what Peace is but I had never really considered it on a world basis, if you know what I mean. Now that I have, I think I have a couple of interesting thoughts about Peace and the world as we now know it.
First of all, a question came to mind. Who is responsible for all the world’s unrest? Is it you? Your neighbors? Other everyday people who are striving to make a living?
How about what you know of the people in other countries? Are the ordinary folks in those countries clammering to take over the resources in another? Or, meeting with others in order to form a coalition to do away with the people in their own or a neighboring country? Or, to take over another country on the other side of the world?
I don’t think so. I think the majority of people, at least 95 to 99 percent, would be happy just living their lives and attempting to get as much happiness and satisfaction from those lives as possible.
But there is that very small percentage that can’t seem to get along. That very small percentage, however, has the ability to incite others to outrage or to lead them down paths that separate them from harmony with all Mankind.
What percentage I am speaking of? Why, the world’s leaders, of course. Think. Without Hussein or some other maddened-for-power leader, would Kuwait have been invaded? Would other so-called peace-loving nations have had to aggressively remove Iraqian troops from Kuwait? Would those troops even have been in Kuwait?
Without Hitler, would Germany have become a Nazi-dominated country with the goal of taking over the world?
How about communism and the communistice doctrine the world became familiar with? What was the purpose? What many of us remember most vividly is Nikita Khrushchev with a look of hate on his face, pointing his finger at the free-world and stating: “We will bury you.” He even went so far as to show his plan of attack for world domination.
After World War II, Joseph Stalin saw the world as divided into two camps: Imperialist and capitalist regimes on the one hand, and the Communist and progressive world on the other. In 1947, President Harry Truman also spoke of two diametrically opposed systems: One free, and the other bent of subjugating other nations. (Library of Congress, Soviet Archives).
Having lived through this period, I remember drills not so much for tornados, fires, and earthquakes, but for nuclear attack. World tension seemed to last forever with Khruschchev at the helm in Russia. I, along with thousands of my fellow teen-agers, enlisted in the military shortly after the Cuban Crisis because of the threat to world peace being as it was in 1963. We could see Khrushchev’s world domination plan going exactly as he had layed it out.
And, then there is Milosevic and the Serbs that have followed him. Now, I am not around those people and don't see them other than on television but, when I look at them, I can't tell who is who. If the newscaster doesn't state which group an individual belongs to, I don't have any idea which is a Serb.
It is likely someone is going to bring up the idea that a leader can’t cause people to treat other people with complete disregard of their humanity. But, that simply isn’t true. A leader can do so, especially if leadership removes any sense of responsibility from those under him or disperses responsibility over many so that each feels only a tiny or no sense of responsibility for the atrocities that take place.
Check out the estimated 6,000,000 people maimed, tortured, and killed during either the religious wars of old or the number of Jews tortured and killed throughout history, including the six million during the Nazi reign over Germany.
Or, closer to home, check out the number of blacks tortured and killed by the Klu Klux Klan. Of course, no one knows exactly how many but, suffice it to say, one was too many. If not hidden behind masks or without the group dynamics taking place, how many of the people involved would have acted in a like manner on their own?
Why did our own people treat the American Indians as they did? Hunted for bounty, as an example. My gosh, how could people treat other people in such an evil way?
What this shows is that people will treat other people as less than animals, meaning, for example, that some would never consider hurting a horse, but would behead a man. Or, rip him from limb-to-limb (quartering it is called).
So what is the point? Well, I don’t believe people are born hating other people. Watch kids of all different races
together and, before there is interference by adults and older kids, they play together and live in peace and harmony.
I don’t hate any other people on Earth just because they belong to a different ethnic or religious group. I don’t know them so how could I? Nor do I believe other people are born hating
Americans or people from other groups just because they are in another group? No. I think most are just like me - they don’t hate until, and unless, they are taught and led to hate.
I refuse to hate all Iraqians or Iranians simply because a very small percentage are terrorists or being led incompetently. But, then again, I am not a crazy man like bin Laden who uses religion to carry out his psycopathic behaviors. And, crazy or not, he gets followers. Probably the billions backing him helps in this. That, and the freedom his followers have to behave as crazed animals without social conscience for their acts.
I have known a couple of Serbians during my life and, judging by them, I think I would like to know many more. Certainly, I don’t hate all of them because of Milosevic and his followers. I don’t even hate Milosevic and his followers but I do think they needed to be stopped. No human can justify to me the taking of another’s life when the other isn’t threatening their life or the lives of other people.
What do I, or any of us ordinary people, know of these different nationalitites I have mentioned? Nothing more than what we have been led to believe.
If the other people have leaders who are hate-filled, then it is likely they hate. Oh, not all of them - just those that are misled by leaders who should no more be in government or acting as religious leaders. Leaders who act as both military and religious leaders are in the position of terrible damage to people's thoughts as a few of these should no more be leaders than the devil himself.
I know this is rather disjointed as it is rather mind-boggling to think about - Peace, that is. Let me say this. I don’t think the average Russian, or German, or Frenchman, or Chinese, or Iraquian, or Iranian, or South African, or any other
nationality hate me personally. I rather think, if given a choice from birth without prejudiced thinking guiding their development, that ordinary, everyday people of all other nationalities would just as soon get to know us in a harmonious, peaceful fashion, just as many of us would like to get to know them.
And, yes, there would certainly be those that I didn’t like, just as there are those indiviudals in this country I don’t like. But, I can count on one hand the people I have
intensely disliked during my life, one of which was quite recent. There isn’t any reason I can give for disliking to the degree of hate for those few (three and one was a Catholic
priest) - there was just something about them I could not tolerate.
But, do I hate all Catholic priests simply because of the one?
No, I don't. I remain nearly neutral concerning all others as I tend to give the benefit of doubt to people when I meet them.
But, what if since the day I was born, I had been taught to hate all Catholic priests, or all Catholics? What if my leaders had pounded hate into my head day-after-day, year-after-year, generation-after-generation? Might not I now hate with the passion of all who had gone on before me?
And being filled with such hate, might it not be possible I would perform any atrocity against the group I, or my leaders, could conceive of? You know the answer to that as well as I since it has happened and is happening.
Now, if another group of, let's call them "Peace-keepers", held a gun to my head, so to speak, to stop my actions. Is that Peace? Am I now living in harmony with the group I hate so intensely? Or, is it a facade?
In example, assume there is a street mugger who meets up with a person. There is a policeman right there (more or less with a gun to his head). Is the mugger likely to mug the person?
Now assume the scenario without the policeman close at hand.
The mugger sees the opportunity and little risk of getting caught. Is the mugging likely to occur then? Of course, since that is how muggers operate.
So, in the first case, was the mugger living in peace with the person or was it a something else?
I think the only way the mugger and his mark would live in peace is if neither had any thoughts of doing harm to the other, that harmony existed between them without any outside force dictating it. In other words, the mugger wouldn't even be a mugger because he would never have considered any like act against his fellow human being.
That is also how I think the very young believe until they are influenced by negative outside forces, namely the people that make up their society or subculture. Which way they believe and behave as adults is dependent on learned material, whether it be positive or negative.
Without being taught to hate or the right for them to take over or attack other people being taught, there isn't any hate or dislike or desire to attack others.
In the case of leaders who have strong influence over their followers, it is their hate and authority that leads the people under them to committing atrocities against other people. It is the world leaders who are always squabbling and leading their people to attacking other people, to inhumane acts, and to essentially force the people under them to carry out whatever they want.
This is rather disjointed and it is likely to stay that way as I add to it. But, at this time, I believe that as long as world leaders exist who want to lead the world, to exercise their power over others, that the best we can hope for is "gun-to-the-head" peace which, as is being proved in Kosovo right now, really isn't Peace at all, just a lull in the action.
Right now I can say this: Until we can walk down any street in this or any other country without fear of being attacked or our walk interfered with in some unwanted way, we are not living in Peace with our fellow man.
Can we achieve that with world leaders who are strive for power and control over others? Can we even achieve it on a small scale with hate-filled leaders of sub-cultures such as those that exist in this and other nations on Earth?
I, as disappointing as it is, Ladies and Gentlemen, fear the answer to these questions is - No.
