NOURNEWS- Perhaps no people and nations can be found in the world that have prepared as much as the western world to praise, respect and celebrate peace.
In the western world, a lot of meetings, awards, conferences, organizations, and institutions have been organized and established to remind the importance of peace, but the result of all these theoretical and practical preparations was a black century filled with violence to the extent that some Western thinkers have named it “Memories of Darkness” and “Dark Corridor of History”.
Although no country’s history or track record is clean of war and violence, but as evidenced by history, the western civilization has the upper hand in the occurrence and expansion of global violence, and the biggest and bloodiest comprehensive wars are designed and executed in accordance and demand of Western countries.
Perhaps the initiative of the Westerners to include the “International Day of Peace” in the world calendar is their psychological reaction to those acts of violence.
The surprising and heartbreaking fact of the 20th century was that despite the presence and activity of those who even Westerners themselves considered to be great teachers of peace and reconciliation, the most violent and bloodiest century in the entire written history of mankind took place.
Renowned and innovative politicians such as “Mahatma Gandhi”, “Nelson Mandela”, “Martin Luther King” and “Václav Havel” who proposed peace, love, and reconciliation as slogans and ideals and as a method of politics at the end of the century, overwhelmed and disappointed, looked at the darkness of the century, which, like all history, left victims on the hands of the human race.
According to reliable estimates, the wars of the 20th century have killed nearly 100 million people and injured and displaced almost three times of this number.
This horrifying reality proves that in our chaotic world, violence, and war are the principle, and peace and tranquility are not one of pillars of the world. Peace is a rare moment that appears in short periods of cessation of war and violence.
It is as if the cycle of events in the contemporary world revolves around the axis of war, and the clanking of swords and the howling of bullets have been silenced only when the warriors and warmongers were tired and needed a short break to renew their strength and temporarily raised the white flag of peace.
If someone lines up the days free of violence and war in the 20th century world in one column and puts the days of war and conflict in another column, the comparison of these rhetoric columns will acknowledge the correctness of this judgement.
The 20th century testifies that peace was a short and temporary respite amid the massive traffic of wars and violence.
What is sadder is that the customs and routines of the 20th century are still common and existent in almost a quarter of a century later since the 21st century and the 3rd millennium.
The warmongers and violent people who turned the 20th century into the bloodiest piece of history did not listen to the words of Gandhi, Mandela and Luther King, whom they accepted as their think tanks, nor did they listen to the words of the leaders of the great revolutions of the century, who were not accepted.
The difficulty of peace and the ease of war
A fact called “the superiority of the history of war over the history of peace” in itself confirms that peace, contrary to what appears at first sight, is far more difficult and far reached than war.
The biggest wars and the most terrible violence in the 20th century started with the easiest excuses in a moment and lasted for years and were very hard to manage them and achieve peace. It seems that in contrast to public beliefs, for achieving peace, more courage and bravery is needed, as well as more resourcefulness and creativity.
Humanity of the 20th century showed that it does not have that “greater courage and bravery” nor does it have “more prudence and sight”. The result of these losses in the dark twentieth century was the ease of war and the difficulty of peace.
But the story is not limited to the ease of war and the difficulty of peace. The disaster reached its peak when war and violence became a boastful virtue. The world became full of governments and politicians who considered themselves soldiers of justice and democracy and boastfully said that their mission was “to fight for peace”.
The width of the field of this war was from the invisible depths of the forests of Vietnam, Korea and Cambodia, to the bottom of the valleys of Afghanistan and to the heart of the burning deserts of Iraq, Kuwait, Yemen and Syria.
These warriors were fighting for peace all their lives, but they were not willing to give up the trigger for a moment for peace! They introduced themselves as the “Legacy of Good” whose mission is to fight against the “Axis of Evil”.
In this way, violence and war found a moral basis and became a virtue. The meaning of this transformation was that if a war broke out, it was because of a moral obligation and a human mission.
Jimmy Carter, one of the former presidents of the US, admitted four years ago that the United States has not been involved in war for only 16 years in its 242-year history!
Although his tone was not without sarcasm to the fixed policies of the US and highlighted the extravagances and interventions of this country, but among the ruling body of this country, the absolute majority are with those who feel a moral mission in themselves, to use the strategy of “war for peace and democracy” anywhere in the world which they deem necessary.
His pacifism has resulted in hundreds of millions of dead, injured and displaced.
Now peace, for which an international day and various annual rituals are held and dedicated to it to celebrate it, is like a lost child in the commotion of strange streets.
In our world, peace, love and reconciliation, which was the gospel of great religions and the teachings of religious leaders and the advice of non-violence teachers of the world, is thinner and more fragile than ever.
The flag of peace is in the hands of those who have created the most wars and violence in the world. Institutions whose duty is to strengthen and promote the authentic culture of peace, reconciliation, and love are submissive to warmongers and smooth the way for them.
In this way, in the absence of efficient and dynamic institutions, peace has become a melancholy blue-eyed lady who holds a green olive branch in her hand and is only an object to admire and watch, neither does she object to the misuse of her name nor complain about existent double standards.
Peace is still far more difficult to achieve than war and it is its biggest victim. The brilliant legacy of the teachers of peace has reached those who, by distorting the truths, have confused the line of peace and war and introduce war as the custodian and guardian of peace.
An Iranian poet has written about the aforementioned hypocritical approach centuries ago: Regarding peace and war, one cannot trust men, when they preach about war, be ready for the wars to come.
Mohammad Ghaderi
NOURNEWS