They will beat their swords into ploughshares ………
…….. and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.
These words were spoken almost 3,000 years ago, looking forward to a time of hope where peace was the norm and everyone could live without fear.
And yet here we are, where wholesale slaughter of other human beings is perpetrated in the name of who has the right to ‘own’ which bit of land.
Prince Harry recently said in reference to his time in the military: “In truth, you can’t hurt people if you see them as people”. His comments were roundly criticised by the UK military but they are surely true – who but a psychopath could cold-bloodedly kill and maim other human beings simply because they were ‘on the other side’ unless he or she didn’t identify them as people with families, friends or aspirations but as ‘the enemy’?
On October 7th, Palestinian fighters committed unspeakable atrocities against unarmed Israeli civilian; men, women and children. In retaliation, Israeli soldiers and airmen and women have killed over 17,000 civilian men, women and children in Gaza, bombed hospitals and schools, restricted access to food water, energy and medicines.
How can the perpetrators on either side do this? Because they see war as nation against nation or faction against faction. They are conditioned to be blind to the suffering of individuals in pursuit of goals defined by their leaders.
For peace to prevail in the Middle East, Ukraine or in the numerous areas of conflict around the world, WE all need to see beyond the geopolitical manoeuvrings and national pride and insist that our leaders do all in their power to end wars even if doing so comes at an economic cost to us.
As Winston Churchill famously said: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war”.
It is only when all humanity recognises that every human being, even those who we count among our enemies, is of immeasurable value and should be treated as such, that the peace envisaged 3 millennia ago will be realised.
No – it will not happen in a day or even a year or a decade but it has to start somewhere and some time. Why not here? Why not now?
