That until that day the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained - Bob Marley
The above quote is gotten from a song by Bob Marley titled war. I came across it a few days ago and I have been playing it repeatedly since then (and I probably will continue until I discover something new). The song has strong lyrics that are majorly about racism, discrimination, and war, it makes you wonder why humans do these things, and what are the benefits to them.
Later today, I watched some episodes of an anime I have been following for years (Boruto). The episodes I watched were also about war and I started wondering if the universe was trying to tell me something 😆 maybe I should try and go stop the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia?
Anywhere, the episode was about an ongoing war between a country and some rebels who didn't agree with the way the country is doing things, so they decided to fight back. One of the people involved in the war (the protagonist) saw the futility of all the fighting after he lost a very dear friend to one of the captains of the rebel group. He got revenge and killed the captain, then the captain's son decided to take revenge as well and came for the life of the protagonist.
The protagonist realized the cycle of revenge is never going to end, so he went to the commander of the rebels in a bid to stop the war. He was ready to give his life just so that the war will end and both sides won't have to lose any more people. He actually did give up his life by jumping into the sea, but he was rescued by the rebel's commander that was when everybody realized he was serious about ending the war.
They all realized that the cycle of hatred, revenge and fighting will never end and both sides agree to drop their weapons and come to a compromise. I was very moved by the outcome of the whole thing, I didn't believe the protagonist will be able to convince them to stop fighting but I was surprised when he actually did and the war ended, it was a very emotional episode, maybe Russia and Ukraine should watch it and learn from it, no?
The futility of war
After watching that episode, I started thinking about the reasons why people go to war. At the end of the day, both sides will lose more than what they are fighting for in the first place. Let's look at this scenario: two countries are fighting over a piece of property worth $2 million and they end up going into war. In the course of the war, they end up destroying lives and properties worth over $1 billion, where is the sense in that?
Why do they think war will be able to proffer a desirable solution to their problems? It's like trying to beat up someone just to make them agree with you instead of arguing your points and trying to make the person understand your views. Let's scale it down from battles between two countries to petty fights between two individuals, is it worth it to fight someone over a disagreement?
I remember being in a couple of fights when I was a kid but luckily for me when I got into high school I saw the futility in fighting someone over something that can be handled with words, what's the fighting even going to do? Fights usually come up when two people can no longer hold their anger, it takes just one of them to throw the first punch and the other will retaliate.
They fail to ask themselves: "Will this punch I am about to deliver solve anything?", But I guess they are too angry to even think about that. Let's look at another scenario: two people receive a certain amount of money which they are supposed to share between themselves but they can't seem to agree on how to share it. They get into a very heated argument and at one point, one of them starts thinking; "you know what, this is not working, let's just fight", and then he throws the first blow.
They both fight for several minutes and when they finally stop, they realize they have still not solved the problem. And you know what's worse? They have to go treat themselves because they both got serious injuries from the fight. They end up using the same money they were fighting over to treat themselves, is that foolishness?
Cases like these are quite common in my country and sometimes, a person ends up losing their life because of an amount of money that is not even up to $1. Most people don't think about the long-term implications of their actions, they just do things without thinking about the consequences that might come up in the future and that's basically why they end up fighting even when it won't solve anything.
The cycle of hatred will be passed from one generation to another during war, children that are yet unborn are already inheriting their parent's war and they grow up hating each other because of a war their parents started. Hate is a negative emotion that tends to pull us down and limits our thinking, it's an emotional burden.
I will end this article with a quote from one of my favorite anime:
We are just ordinary people driven to revenge in the name of justice. But if revenge is called justice, then justice would only breed even more revenge and become a chain of hatred. - Pain Nagato
Thanks for reading 💖💖💖
Sunday July 31, 2022
The urge to fight is most times uncontrollable especially for people that are used to fighting, it'll be like a magnetic force pushing them to do their favorite thing not minding the level of issue on ground. It's a natural thing for individuals but I find it weird for a group of people to engage in fight. Does it mean all their buttons are pressed ones to provoke their angers and no one would say no?
Funny enough, after the first and killings, eye go clear