Greetings

“Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit.”

These 3 sentences, spoken by one of the most important men in modern European history, struck me with a profound sense that we in 2003 are re-living a history that we should have learned from. You might take a minute to guess who the speaker was.

Given this statement, backed by extensive experience, it may seem ironic to say that we must struggle for peace. This struggle may not need high tech weapons, nor a highly paid media. More important are conscious, caring people.

Part of our struggle for peace means we must understand where war and peace come from. We also need to understand the different shades of both war and peace, and to understand who gains what from war.

Riane Eisler herein argues that malevolent child-rearing is one root of war. One who is mistreated in their early years may see that violence, or mistreatment and domination of others, is a viable way to solve adult problems.

Arundhati Roy explores another root of war: greed for resources. This seems evident in the recent Iraq war. It’s truly good to be rid of Saddam Hussein, but what was the motivation behind it? I suspect time will tell that acquisition, more than liberation, was behind the American invasion.

Sohail Inayatullah asks if there is a future for war. It would seem so, at least in our present climate. Modern war has the arms industry and its huge profits as its base. Also, we still accept war as an answer to international problems. We need to change our perspective, so that cooperation and mediation come to the forefront of international relations.

Can one ‘enforce’ peace? And what is peace? P.R. Sarkar answers this by distinguishing between static peace—the mere absence of war—and dynamic peace. An absence of war does not guarantee justice or security for the population. A dynamic peace is based on people having a spiritual base in their lives; partly this means that we realize that we are all part of one human family. Sarkar also notes that an individual can achieve real peace, internally, but it’s difficult to have long-lasting, dynamic peace in a society. As long as there is mistreatment of people by others, we have a duty to protect our neighbors, and ourselves.

And if one lacks a sense of inner peace, then I think it would be hard for that person to recognize real peace in the world, or to know where to look for it.

So, long-lasting peace is only possible with a moral, universalistic societal base. Also, every society needs to know how to protect itself from violence. “Peace does not deny the need for the warrior spirit, for the appropriate use of strong, even military action, to defend ourselves and others from violence and injustice,” notes Marcus Bussey.

Tony Judge adds that the whole war scenario nowadays may just be a distraction—albeit a big one—from a larger issue, which he sums up as: “Destruction selectively used may be a form of distraction—as illustrated by the focus on the war on terror as a substitute for action on poverty, injustice and the degradation of the environment.”

Nowadays, it’s hard to know whom to follow or believe. I suggest that when we choose leaders, we look for benevolence that doesn’t elevate or lower any group of people, for people who act without seeking personal gain, and for those with the courage and wisdom to do difficult tasks that ultimately benefit the whole society.

Oh, and our astonished speaker at the beginning was Napoleon. I hope our present society doesn’t have to wait too long to understand what Napoleon realized only at the end of his life.

(Thanks to Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart, from where the quote by Napoleon was taken.)

This article was printed in New Renaissance, Vol. 12, No. 1, issue 40, Summer, 2003  Copyright © 2003 by Renaissance Universal, all rights reserved.  Posted on the web on June 22, 2003.