No New Wars 11 11 2018
Meaning, let’s ensure No New Wars start as from 11th November 2018.
How? By making it clear we expect our leaders to use other means to achieve change.
It will have been a hundred years since the Armistice, a hundred years in which we have learned an awful lot not just people’s ability to harm other, innocent, people, but also about communication, reconciliation, change management, energy creation, environmental management, understanding, and sharing.
In our name, and with our financial support, people are dropping air-bombs, firing guided missiles, shooting long-range heavy-calibre machine-gun fire, remotely-controlling armed drones…to kill people, including civilians. And is a person who picks up a gun to defend their home a soldier or an armed civilian? Much of the 20th century involved the deaths of tens of millions of civilians; the 21st century so far has comprised the deaths of 100,000s of civilians, and if you include civilians carrying guns, it is already in the millions. And the media is glorying in the “Arab Spring” ignoring that it is the worst kind of war: a civil war armed, funded, supported and maintained by external forces who benefit financially or politically from the suffering and deaths of those involved.
Wars are the principle cause of this suffering, and it is time they stopped. They are not necessary for peace. There are other means, and not just financial sanctions which are only a feeble exercise in trying to show the futility of peaceful solutions. Governments and politicians are not ”’trying”’ to end war; it neither adds to their power nor is it financially attractive for their sponsors.
Wars are started by politicians being manipulated and promoted by the media. If politicians can be made to see that war-mongering is no longer going to create votes, they will become peace-makers. And if the media are hit financially by not getting readers and web page hits, they will lose advertising revenue and so will cease that behaviour.
The trite cliché “”War is the continuation of politics by other means”” is not only facile, but also two hundred years out of date and inappropriate in a nuclear-energy, internet connected, post-empire world.
I am not so naïve as to think existing wars can be just stopped. But we can do our bit to create a world where it is not necessary or politically wise to start any new wars.
We—that means you—can tell politicians they will lose their jobs if they start down the path of war.
We—that means you—can tell the media they will lose advertising revenue and sales if they promote war.
I am not saying we should not support our troops nor have a defence facility. I am not saying the campaign to stop population growth is wrong. But I am saying we must actively prevent our leaders from starting down paths that lead to the deaths of thousands of civilians just because that is easier and more attractive to them than any alternatives. We must make peace more attractive.
Other thoughts: I’ll need leaflets, email signatures and other means of publicity. Also, a blog, a wiki and a forum.
I need to form a No New Wars movement.
I need to start a 11112018 – The Eleven Eleven Twenty Eighteen campaign.
Other thoughts: the modern heroes – the new Ghandis – e.g. the Tienanmen square person with shopping bags in front of the tanks; the people who stand in front of Israeli guns; wikileaks to expose the leaders who lie. They should not be needed.
(This article was originally published on or before 13/09/2012.)