2023-11-10 09:10:43
We have seen the images for a long time. Films or photos from the trenches of the 1914-1918 war: broken faces, mutilated limbs, disembowelled bodies lying in the mud. Then cities razed to the ground from that of 1939-1945, emaciated survivors wandering in what were streets, piles of corpses in the pits of the death camps. Then a little Vietnamese woman in flames, screaming, running half-naked against the backdrop of a burned village. And beheadings, summary executions, civilians massacred everywhere, children and women fleeing, barefoot.
We heard, we read. The “Letters from Stalingrad” for example, these censored calls for help from starving soldiers trapped. And the unbearable stories of torture committed in all the dungeons of the world. And the calls for help from refugees abandoned to their fate.
We know what every war always brings: horror, horror, horror.
And now, with the sound of boots and the clanking of weapons, a new war breaks out over there in the east, leaving us stunned and distraught.
The use of unbridled violence seems to accompany Sapiens throughout its history. The planet is a schoolyard flown over by black birds, where arguments are born, smolder, and fester. If they are sometimes resolved through dialogue and die out on their own, they can end up degenerating. It is enough for one of the adversaries – character, State, nation – to judge that he is strong enough to easily defeat his counterpart. He will then engage in combat, certain that the profit he will gain will be far greater than all his losses. It works sometimes. But the new war will never be fresh and joyful. And the one who provokes it joins the dregs of humanity.
The reasons for the conflicts? The conquest of new territories, the control over natural wealth, the desire to impose a political system, religion, personal ambition… And wars return, with each generation, like an undertow. As if, victims of a curse, we carried deep within us, in our genes, this propensity for barbarism.
Yeah… that seems like a bit of an easy excuse to me. It reminds me of that old drunk we made fun of in the village. To justify himself, he ranted, with wet eyes: – It’s not my fault if I drink: I never had any willpower!
Thus, the human could discard: – It’s not my fault if I happen to behave like trash: it’s written in my DNA…
I admit that sometimes I am close to shouting: “Stop the Earth, I want to go down!”, I admit that sometimes I want to leave the human race, to leave everything to become a bear , sparrow, old oak…
Is there anything we can do to prevent the regular return of armed conflicts? To escape what seems to be fate, to break the vicious circle? I don’t know…
A clue perhaps, but so paltry. As if to convince oneself despite everything that one day man will free himself from his demons: war is only possible when there is denial of the other. That is to say when the adversary is perceived as a completely different being: he is the barbarian, the bloodthirsty, who wants to “slaughter our sons and our companions”. I, on the other hand, even if I do it with the force of bayonets, I bring peace and civilization.
(…) But if the pioupiou recognizes the guy opposite as his fellow man, and the war will be in danger, just like the warmongers! Remember the scenes of fraternization between German and French soldiers in the trenches of 1914: they were immediately and violently repressed by both hierarchies!
Practicing empathy, this ability to identify with others, is perhaps the first step to take to avoid war: the person who is presented to me as an enemy is a human like me. He has a family he loves, a village, and above all the plan to live in peace… Empathetic people of all countries, unite…
But I dream, while the cannon thunders. (…)
“What bullshit the war is.” How weak Prévert’s words seem today.
Chronicle published in The mail you are March 1, 2022.
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