The title of this article has a problem: my renunciation does not prevent war and my request seems very much out of touch with reality. What is real, therefore, are wars and nuclear weapons to destroy human beings of all ages and of all sexes and of all races and also every living being, without any discrimination whatsoever. Renouncing war is the work of a madman who is outside rational and common thinking. Dismantling nuclear arsenals is insane because it would be the only way to prevent atomic bombs being dropped on people. And of course, following that line of thinking, one would have to modernise and increase nuclear power and wage defensive or pre-emptive wars or wars of conquest, “justified” by interests of some kind.
The states capable of having enough nuclear weapons to kill a quarter, half or all of humanity are the “protector” countries that can participate in the “Security Council of the United Nations”, with the right of veto over all others.
I call for the resignation of Mr. Putin and Zelensky. Putin is a cruel and ruthless person. I also have no respect for the president of Ukraine and I think he sacrificed his people. He sacrificed them like Abraham sacrificed Isaac, but he refuses to listen to God’s voice to stop the holocaust. I also think that Biden, the president of the USA, the president of the European Community Ursula von der Leyen and the Nato generals should all resign. For being inept, for not being able to stop the war and for feeding the arms machine of the big business of death.
“Our family has lost the war”, wrote David Grossman the day his son was killed in the war in Lebanon; “Damned, a thousand times damned are those who arm wars”, were the words of Julio Anguita, secretary general of the Spanish communist party, the day his journalist son covering the war in Iraq was killed.
When we listen to analyses of the reasons and causes of the conflict, Putin’s evil, Ukrainian heroism, NATO expansionism, we never ask ourselves what our countries have to do with this conflict, what my immediate environment has to do with it and what I myself have to do with this madness that has been unleashed in Russia and Europe. At the risk of my questions seeming irrelevant, I would like to develop this perspective, which can help us to strengthen and give meaning to our action.
First of all, no conflict would be so dangerous if it were not for nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction such as biological weapons, which are supposedly banned. The creation and accumulation of these weapons as a deterrent to peace, or on the assumption that no one will use them, is absurd. We need to include the right to live free from nuclear danger in the declaration of human rights. We could demand the dismantling of these arsenals before signing free trade agreements, for example. We could oppose nuclear power plants from which raw materials are obtained for their manufacture. We could join with nuclear-weapon-free countries to form an economic pole to make it difficult for those who wield nuclear power. We could put this issue on the education curricula and make it a constant demand from us to our rulers.
Secondly, our military budget, that of my country, is increasing year by year. Why is it that we believe that we are thereby resisting possible invasions by our neighbours? The moral FORCE to demand an end to wars begins with a change of attitude among our neighbours and by deciding to progressively and proportionally reduce the war budget in the region. Why do we organise fairs to encourage arms consumption? Why do we go and take our children with us? Why not boycott? As you can see, the conflict is on our own territory and not on NATO’s borders.
Thirdly, the social unrest within our countries is getting more and more out of control. The indebted, the families thrown onto the streets, the crowds of immigrants who have to endure inhuman misery, the protests against the constant injustice of the powerful. All of them repressed with unprecedented violence. Violence is validated as a methodology of action to repress the population. Violence is also validated to fight for “just” causes and also to defend personal interests. Isn’t this what happens in a war?
We have become sick of violence, but with the aggravating factor that everyone justifies it in order to defend themselves against their antagonist and above all against what he might do to me in the future. It is useless to prove that it is the worst way to exacerbate hatred, revenge, jealousy, the desire to possess without limit.
Let’s add the existential anesthesia of not considering debt, poverty, discrimination of minorities and majorities as violence, and only experiencing it when someone gives a stick to someone else. In other words, I judge the violent reaction and turn a blind eye to the hidden violence to prevent your full intention, through economic rules or psychological manipulations.
Well, after this detour I return to my title. I renounce war and I renounce any side that has stained itself with human blood, or believes it has the right to stain itself with people’s blood to justify its supposed rights or interests. I also call for the elimination of all nuclear weapons from the planet. I ask this from the centimeters of space that my body still occupies. Anyone else? Will there be two of us? Will there be 100 of us? One day there will be all of us.
