Absurdity of war

George Bernard Shaw, the dramatic genius of the 20 century had a dislike for war. In his famous play, Arms and the Man, he exposed the absurdity of war. The World Wars has already disillusioned the war from its romantic concepts. The War poets of the 20 century described war with all its horrors. People all over the world have tasted the bitterness of war. Today none really wants war.

Still war happens. Countries fight each other; countries even fight against themselves.

Who wants war? If no man wants war, who is behind all these wars? I do not have an answer for a secular audience. In the spiritual realm, we attribute all these to the evil force in the world.

Every nation has an enemy nation; some nation has more than one enemy nation. In most of the case, the enemy country is the neighbor. Our country is also not different.

I do not understand it.

Asharaf is a man living in my neighboring nation. (Name and situation are only fictional). Since the country he lives is an enemy country, Asharaf is an enemy to me. A country is nothing but the people. A geographical area is not the real country.

I have never seen Asharaf and Asharaf has never seen me. So far we have no disputes between us. I am not jealous of the prosperity Asharaf enjoys. Asharaf has never heard of the prosperous life I lead in my country. In fact we have never seen or heard of each other.

Still Asharaf is an enemy to me and I am enemy to Asharaf.

What made us enemies? I will never, never find an answer. There is no reason for the enmity.

Who told us that we are enemies? Everybody says. The newspaper, TV, Internet, Politian, historians, sociologists, cricket players and all and all.

So we are enemies.

Or why I fight against his country and he fight against my country.

Fighting against our countries is fighting against us.

Auden has exploded the myth of war in his war poem, Strange Meeting.

A solider dies and goes straight into Hades. There he is greeted by the skeleton of another soldier. The second solider greeted him calling ‘friend’. The first solider looked into the eyes of the second one and recognized him as the one whom he killed yesterday. They have realized the truth that they were never been enemies in their life. Then why the first solider killed the second one?

This is the absurdity of war.

Why my nation is fighting against our neighboring nation? If Asharaf who lives in our neighboring nation is not an enemy, why should I fight against him and kill him?

If Asharaf is not my enemy, who else is there in his country?

The answer the political leaders may give is that we fight because the neighboring nation is fighting against us.

I throw all my questions to the neighboring nation. I am sure that Asharaf is also asking all these questions to his national leaders and to my nation.

We will never be answered.

So till then, we fight. We remain enemies. We may kill each other before we find an answer.

Professor Jacob Abraham                                                                            

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