While cycling this summer through France, Italy and Switzerland it struck me how many war memorials, plaques, statues to generals and admirals grace the streets and boulevards, even of small towns. Personally, I have much respect for true patriotism, for self-sacrifice and individual heroism. I bow my head in reverence and remembrance of the suffering of prior generations, not only soldiers but also civilians – all victims of war and failed diplomacy. At the same time, I am troubled by the pervasive cult of death and the absence of careful reflection about how wars come about. I was concerned by the absence of monuments to pay tribute to pacifists and peace-makers like Henri La Fontaine (International Peace Bureau), Leo Tolstoy, Aristide Briand, Frank Kellogg[1], Gustav Stresemann. Nowhere did I see a monument to conscientious objectors to militarism and merchants of death[2]. What does this tell us about our societies? About our civilization?
In trying to explain this phenomenon to myself, I started jotting down some ideas in a notebook I always take with me when my wife and I go touring with our bikes.
Perhaps an explanation can be found in human nature. Human beings want to believe. We need a moral compass; we want to believe in values such as courage and civic responsibility. When we are young, we all need role models, good examples, heroes and heroines to admire, noble ideals to pursue. When we are not so young, we still cherish certain values, continue our search for meaning in life, endeavouring to make sense of our immediate environment, of domestic and world affairs. As children of our time, we rely on our education, on the media, on preconceived ideas and cultural paradigms.
Honour and glory are lofty concepts meant to inspire in us noble sentiments like solidarity, unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (one for all, all for one), accompanied by a feeling that we are part of the larger universe, members of the family of living creatures, animals, trees — and eight billion other human beings: Seid umschlungen Millionen, dieser Kuss der ganzen Welt (Be embraced you millions, this kiss to the entire world! Schiller, An die Freude)[3].
Pride in our homeland, in our culture and heritage is a positive attribute; it is healthy and necessary. We should nurture this feeling of identity, because it makes us more human, more integrated into our communities. We should know and be comfortable with our own history – the good and the bad. Only when we acknowledge the errors of our ancestors can we advance and strengthen the civilization developed by preceding generations.
Nihilism is dangerous. No one should reject his roots. An American has every right to be proud to be American – and because of this pride, he has a stake in improving his environment, culturally, economically and morally. Only those who love their countries have the necessary conviction to overcome obstacles and to make a contribution to future generations. National pride is not isolationist, nor should it be used against other peoples and nations. We must also recognize that a Brit has a right to be proud of being British, a German of being German, a Russian of being Russian, a Chinese of being Chinese. All have great cultures. I would recommend to everybody to read the UNESCO Constitution[4] and to rejoice in the common heritage of mankind. Perhaps the most important realization is enshrined in article VII: “that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” Hence, we need A Global Compact for Education on Peace. We need education in respect for other cultures and empathy for victims of injustice.
Because of errors and crimes committed by our ancestors we have no right to reject our roots. There is no collective guilt. Indeed, guilt and achievement are individual and we should not feel vicariously guilty for the past. We should revisit our history and see how we can do things better. No one can trust a people that suffers oikophobia, that rejects old values and has become disconnected from memory. Thus, let us celebrate the many good things of our civilisation. National pride does not mean hatred toward others, rather a more mature desire to live in peace with our neighbours, to recognize the richness of diversity, the achievements of our neighbours, the vast range of perspectives and approaches.
Alas, good values like national pride can be instrumentalized for ulterior purposes, for aggression and hatred. All too often the noble concepts of honour and glory have been hijacked and linked to a misanthropic cult of violence, war, and blood. For millennia the political and intellectual leaders of our societies have deliberately amalgamated honour and glory with military “virtues”, and nurtured a culture of aggression and domination, a glorification of war and dying for one’s country. From Horatius we have the “old lie”, that sad maxim dulce et decorum est pro patria mori[5] (it is sweet and proper to die for one’s homeland). But, should we not instead live on and contribute to the welfare of all? Paradoxically, honour and glory are sometimes associated with great killers like Alexander “the Great”, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, whom we are supposed to admire. Our western “civilization” continues to pursue this toxic indoctrination in schools, universities, in folklore and the media. Cities and towns are full of war memorials and statues to generals and admirals. The Zeitgeist, groupthink, and peer pressure continue to pay tribute to military feats, battles, “victories”. We are addicted to the fantasy of “victory” and “winner takes all”. We are expected to feel “patriotic” about old and new wars.
Personally, I feel compassion for all those young men and women who died in so many needless wars — not only the soldiers, but also the medics, the volunteers and the hundreds of thousands of civilians who lost their lives through terroristic bombardment of population centers, schools, hospitals. Yes, we should pay tribute to the devotion, constancy, self-sacrifice, heroism of so many victims of armed conflict. We should also reflect on the question why politicians preferred war over diplomacy, violence over dialogue, intransigence over compromise.
Rather than erecting war memorials, it would be healthier and more rational to ensure that conflict-prevention works, that diplomacy has the tools to outsmart primitive nationalism. It is easy to say that “war must be banned”, but this will not happen until we have a change of mindset, until we abandon our fascination for war, airplane carriers, submarines, nuclear bombs. As Oscar Wilde once wrote:
“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”[6]
I would paraphrase Wilde–as long as honour and glory are associated with war, there will be war. Thus, a paradigm change is needed. We should learn to celebrate those human traits that manifest the divine – human creativity, philosophy, art, music, architecture, engineering, medicine. We should erect monuments to the peacemakers – not to the power brokers who profit from the business of war, not to the over-decorated generals who manage the slaughter of youngsters who are brainwashed into believing that it is honourable to kill other young persons in the name of “patriotism”. True patriots honour life, not death. Patriotism means concern for the welfare of all, keeping everybody out of harm’s way, securing the future of our children and grandchildren through education, the creation of jobs, facilitating their “pursuit of happiness”. Wars destroy the future of generations.
The noblest form of civic responsibility is pacifism[7], a commitment to prevent conflict, refrain from provocations, address grievances, craft workable solutions, a durable modus vivendi. Let us reread Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth and see how relevant it is today in the context of the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere.
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, —
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires…”[8]
Let us also reread Erich-Maria Remarque’s antiwar novel All Quiet on the Western Front. I recently visited Remarque’s grave in Ronco sopra Ascona, from which opens a peaceful panorama over Lago Maggiore in the Ticino.
As a teenager I read Remarque during the Vietnam war. I identified with Paul Bäumer, the young German soldier:
“”We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces”[9]
When I reread the novel as an adult, I understood the enormity of the crime against our youth, the monstruous irresponsibility of our politicians who continue to sabre-rattle, provoke, escalate, aggress. It is not the people who wanted the wars in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza. The people worldwide want peace through negotiation. But we witness the continuing failure of diplomacy and the prevalence of the military-industrial-financial complex that wants more wars and profits from them. War propaganda is omnipresent, although it is specifically prohibited in Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights[10], which stipulates:
1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”[11]
It is clear to me that all wars are failures of diplomacy, but also caused by Orwellian war propaganda, for which politicians, academics, think tanks and the media bear responsibility. It is clear that Article 20 has been and is being violated by the United States and NATO States with regard to the war in Ukraine, which was provoked by irresponsible NATO expansion, and has been accompanied by relentless propaganda and Russophobia. It is clear that the genocide in Gaza goes back to racial fantasies, stereotypes and demonization of Palestinians as “terrorists”. In this context, it is relevant to mention that some diplomats I know in Geneva wish to revisit General Assembly Resolution 3379 “Zionism is a form of racism”[12], which was adopted on 10 November 1975 and only withdrawn in 1991 when Israel was waving an olive branch, and it seemed like the two-state solution and the self-determination of the Palestinian people were about to be achieved. How much blood has been shed since then. How much suffering, how many avoidable tragedies!
Returning for a moment to the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, we understand the senselessness of the First World War, followed by so many other needless wars. At the end of the novel, our universal soldier Paul Bäumer is killed, in October 1918, a few weeks before the armistice: “Im Westen nichts Neues” –all is quiet on the Western Front, reads the situation report. Paul’s face displays a calm expression, “as though almost glad the end had come.”
Literature offers us many positive lessons. But our politicians do not want to learn. No, there is no honour and glory in war. Only slaughter.
Notes.
[1] https://diplomacy.state.gov/the-kellogg-briand-pact/
[2] There is, however, a commemorative stone, erected in 1994 on the north side of Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, remembering “men and women conscientious objectors all over the world and in every age”. https://heritage.humanists.uk/conscientious-objectors-commemorative-stone/
[3] https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/transl/schiller_poem/ode_to_joy.pdf
[4] https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution
[5] Horatius, Odes III, 2,13.
[6] The Critic as Artist (1891), https://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1305/
[7] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pacifism/
[8] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47393/anthem-for-doomed-youth
[9] chapter five (Arthur Wheen translation)
[10] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights
[11] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights
[12] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights
