“War is sweet,” so they say. “It would be interesting, sometimes even fun.”
Sad beyond measure, war has a numbing, silencing effect on some “thrown in its brazen throat”, but as the world goes, war must be a very delightful thing.
In this grim sentence we read the dethronement of mercy.
What rapture, what comfort, what joy does war hold? Disregarding the melancholy and despair, there must be something agreeable about it. So here we go again rushing to expedite another jolly old war, embracing it like a trusted friend.
Does history have no lessons to teach? Do we accept it? Do we take it for granted?
What a seething, restless place this world is. Bored with the high-tech weapons on a video game, we proceed forward to the theatre of reality, with live ammunition for real slaughter, real misery, and real death.
At nearly all times, since the dawn of history, man is obsessed with war, while simultaneously advocating his love for peace. Which is it? How to distinguish the grand from the grandiose? There is no escaping from basic instincts, while feigning superiority. Such is the complexity of mankind. “The urge to kill, like the urge to beget is blind and sinister.”
The world is a vulgar place where great empires and little minds go well together.
War is now a precious commodity, never wearied as long as we buy and sell and find a profit. Everyone gains except the dead.
Artists love war too. They derive their inspiration from calamities, infirmities, terror, and destruction. With pen, brush, or flute, they use the horrors of the war, keeping fresh the painful infamy of their spoils.
The artist brings about a catharsis, an unburdening of the sorrow through their expressions. They use the violence of war as they sit behind closed doors, writing of their sad tales, singing their mournful notes or painting on their blank canvases. Nothing is as profitable as war films. They produce fame and fortune as the wars keep raging.
Poems, books, symphonies, and movies are never out of print as war after tragic war continue, until the last survivor stand.
The excuse for war is almost the same: “they want to kill us,” in whatever order. The reason we wish to kill is to exercise self-defence, on both sides. It is the same traditional rhythm of every age. How else could we have timeless works for perpetuity?
Could Picasso have produced his famous canvas of La Guernica were it not for war? It is displayed in the heart of the United Nations building for all to wonder and enjoy. Hundreds of visitors and UN members gaze at “the spike tongues, the rolling eyes, the frantic splayed toes and fingers, the necks arched in spasm”, making it the most visual, credible, and political statement of the century. They contemplate the masterpiece and hurry to their next war conference.
Do they remember within the UN walls that the tapestry serves as a reminder of the importance of peace and security?
History is but a pageant and war is their finest asset.
Movies continue to profit from every war of every nation, spinning their doleful tales of cataclysmic wars, as we watch the screen and shed a tear.
Of all the many warfare genres is the British musical war film Oh, What a Lovely War (1969), a satire of WW I and by extension on war in general. The ensemble cast of superstars, directed by Richard Attenborough, is delightful and well worth watching. This bitter mixture of history, satire, panorama, and music includes parodies of traditional old songs, all in good fun, leaving you laughing at the “vulgarity of war”.
The deepest impact of the film is reminiscent of a real war extravaganza. Much like a movie, it’s entertaining the panorama as soldiers, armies, artilleries, missiles, planes, helicopters, warships and kill, kill, kill by starvation, subversion, extermination, annihilation. Or, should we call it genocide? It would be even lovelier.
Amidst the eradication of tens of thousands and the dispersion of millions of the homeless innocents, a voice from the Nobel Peace Prize headquarters announcing the Peace Prize Award of 2024 is accorded to (drumbeat) the Organisation Nihon Hidankyo, an anti-nuclear weapons group made up of survivors of the atomic bombing in Japan during WWII. Why? For its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and must never be used again.
Have we heard this promise before?
This takes place in November, while wars are waging throughout the world.
Do the members of the Nobel committee live in another universe?
A good cause certainly, a tragic act of terror we can never remember. This organisation has existed for decades, since 1956, while the Nobel committee has awarded its many Peace Prizes right and left to worthy and especially unworthy recipients.
We applaud Gandhi, Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Anwar Al-Sadat. We question Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres. We criticise Al Gore, Malala Yousafzai, Abiy Ahmed, and we condemn Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, and Barack Obama who have virtually done nothing.
To aim for peace and be awarded a peace prize is commented. To be politically motivated, premature, faulty or neglected is inadequate.
“Stars can’t shine without darkness”
Enter war, laughing at the “vulgarity or war” and more.
“War is sweet to those who have no experience of it.”
Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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