Our future and that of new generations depends on what we do today.
By Victoria Barceló
Today there is an ecological consciousness that has been growing in recent years, starting with nonviolent social activism, clarification and denunciation of bad practices.
In the beginning, a few minorities have become aware of the impact that human actions, style of life and productive framework have on the environment. Gradually, more and more people joined in, and what started out as a minority’s impulse gradually became more and more part of the collective consciousness, until today there is a greater consensus on the issue of caring for nature, for our common home, because our survival and that of future generations depends on it.
But certain information that I consider to be fundamental is being skimped on, and that is the denunciation of the negative impact produced by the manufacture of armaments, and the consequences of their use are not correctly reported, nor are the real culprits, the military-industrial capital, being denounced. For me, environmental consciousness and consciousness of peace and nonviolence go hand in hand. For example, people are kept in the dark about how much a weapon pollutes and how large investments in armaments are damaging our economic wellbeing, huge budgets that take away from social wellbeing, i.e., improving health and education for all.
According to information from La Vanguardia, Spain is the seventh largest arms exporter in the world. In the first half of 2020, our country authorised the export of arms for a total value of 22,544.8 million euros, the highest in the last 10 years.
The truth is that politicians are at the service of big capital and the media do not inform about this reality that affects citizens and that, if they knew about it, would make them take a clear position while defending their own interests and those of their peers.
Do you care about your future?
With regard to activism for peace and violence, we have notable examples and the confirmation of the fact that ordinary citizens are the ones who suffer the consequences of violence, being at the mercy of spurious interests.
We see violence increasing and wars so cruel that we find it hard to believe that there are human beings so anesthetized, but this is how it is and we cannot witness this spectacle without feeling the need to do something, warning that we are in the same boat and that if the spiral of violence is not stopped, it will end up affecting us all.
Every day it becomes more evident that it is the people who have to rely on our strength and influence and take action starting by imagining a better future for ourselves and those to come. We have many examples in history that can inspire us to build peace through the methodology of active nonviolence, a subject for a future article.
This is the dilemma, growing peace or growing destruction.
It is a consciousness of our role in this historical moment in which we live that gives us the strength to imagine a future different from the one they would have us believe and to begin to take steps to move towards a society free from the oppression of war and all kinds of violence.
Only an international social movement of solidarity and nonviolence will bring about the change we need. Peace will not be achieved by waging war, nor with ever more aggressive answers, in an endless escalation, that only creates more suffering for populations and unfortunately can happen anywhere on the planet, as we see every day.
There is an alternative that has to do with a human change towards the creation of a culture of peace and with taking personal and social action, out of coherence.
We invite you to get to know the 3rd World March for Peace and Nonviolence.
