Human beings throughout their history, from the time they settled down as sedentary and had their first lands and animals, began to feel fear of losing those properties. They felt the need to protect them, they armed themselves and created armies to do it for them. Fear made him look at all other human beings with distrust and fear. It fed feelings of discrimination, exclusion, separation, isolation, which only fed the aversion towards the other, their antipathy, their envy. And this fear and contempt for the other led them to conquer foreign territories, to embark on endless colonial and imperial wars, imposing their culture and political regime, and even their religion by blood and fire.
Unfortunately, this order of things is still in place today, despite having had the opportunity to change due to cultural and scientific progress, and to educate us in reciprocal love, respect, non-discrimination and nonviolence. But fear was stronger again, and with it ambition, greed, discriminating and attacking their neighbour, their brother, as in the legend of Cain and Abel.
Although there are hundreds of organisations all over the world that promote peace and are against all kinds of violence and war, most people have not managed to overcome their inner aggression, their feeling of antipathy towards people who differ from their way of being, thinking or feeling. And here we all spill out. In general, people find it difficult to empathise and create bonds with people who have another political ideology, another religious belief, another ethnicity, another culture, another gender orientation. This lack of tolerance generates aversion, then discrimination and finally aggression and violence.
International trade is based on certain rules that are unfortunately not respected, as they are to a greater extent at the domestic level, for if one supermarket competes with another, it is not going to set fire to its competitors’ premises or throw a bomb at them, as is the case at the international level. And although it has not gone that far, we have seen the trade duel between China and the United States, and between the latter and Russia as well. And wars are the consequence of this trade dispute full of condemnations, threats, blockades, sabotage, etc.
The current rulers of the Western world have been unable or unwilling to distance themselves from this dynamic, rather they have promoted it, and any country that threatens to interfere with their economic, geopolitical and geostrategic interests is immediately branded by the world empires, and war is waged against it, be it economic, political or military. An example of this is the evolution of international relations since the Cold War, which, after an apparent lull, resurfaced with full intensity between the United States and Russia in particular, and no doubt also with China. This situation has been accentuated by the scarcity of natural resources and climate change.
The world’s current rulers are being short-sighted in their analysis of the present and future realities of humanity. They have never understood, then or now, that the wellbeing of societies is cultivated through cooperation and reciprocal collaborators, solving common problems on the basis of agreements, joint projects and mutual endeavours. But for this to happen, nationalist egos must be put aside, all human beings, regardless of their nationality, must be considered as brothers and sisters, not as inferior beings, in order to integrate socially and culturally, i.e. societies need to be educated in respect and acceptance of other realities and other cultures. That is why we come to the conclusion that the current rulers are of no use to us, and that they are leading humanity to disaster.
Humanity based on an individualistic and competitive capitalist society, which bases its development on unsustainable predatory consumerism, is now definitely obsolete, despite the fact that world leaders are reluctant to accept it. And to make matters worse, there are industrial entities that have long been engaged in developing weapons for war, and for them peace and security is something that goes against their business. This has created real promoters and planners of wars who often have so much power that they guide the international relations policies of the arms-producing countries. Even Donald Trump himself affirms it in one of his statements: “We have to put an end to these warmongers who get us into wars and then can’t find a way out of them” I demand immediate peace negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, or we will end up in a third world war and there will be nothing left on our planet, all because of stupid people who don’t understand what they are up against”.
And even more, these stupid people do not understand that continuing to do things the way they have been doing throughout history is only going to destroy the planet and with it the whole of humanity. The planetary situation is very delicate, climate change will continue to bring great changes to life on earth with uninhabitable regions, with massive migrations as a consequence, which will force us to radically change our Style of Life. To indulge in war now is to shoot ourselves not in the foot, but in the head. The destructive power of today’s weapons has nothing to do with those used during the Second World War. A few nuclear weapons are enough to bring about the ultimate collapse of the planet in addition to the climate change already underway.
Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of hope. Human beings often change their behaviour, their personality when they hit rock bottom and can no longer go any lower. It is like when we are faced with a giant cataclysm, when we feel equal, when we embrace even the despised, people we would never have spoken to. It is quite possible that this situation will come about suddenly, because we are reaching an inflection point, a crossroads in history, either we change the way we are or we die.
And civil society plays a key role in this, creating consciousness in these short-sighted and inept rulers who pay no attention to anyone, to any spiritual, religious or scientific leader, blinded in their madness as if they lived in another galaxy and in world public opinion. Civil society is now the key actor for it to make it known to them and to the whole world that this is no longer going on, that this madness of war has to end, with the one in Ukraine now, and with all the others that may follow. That people want to live in peace and that they chose them to live a safe and peaceful life, not to live under the Damocles sword of nuclear holocaust. That war must be abolished once and for all as a means of conflict resolution. That all the rulers of the world must sign, within the framework of the United Nations, an indeclinable non-aggression pact that builds the necessary trust to overcome the fear that blocks them and induces them to mistrust, aggression and war.
That is why we fervently support the efforts of Europe for Peace, and why April 2nd should be an emblematic day for peace, for non-violence, for a new human consciousness that awakens love and unity among all human beings, because we are convinced that without love there will never be peace, justice or unity. And for that we all have to change and show it with exemplary, forceful deeds that reflect a new spirit, a new conception of society and the world based on solidarity, tolerance and respect, demonstrating to the whole world that unity, cooperation and collaboration between all the peoples of the earth without exclusions of any kind is the only way to build true progress and wellbeing for all humanity.
