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Do we know that it is a form of madness to watch our sons and daughters fight in the name of nationalism and defense? And how dare we use music to glorify such madness? Music is sacred. And to have a band procession salute the flag and soldiers is preposterous. It is as insane as watching someone getting raped on television while listening to Beethoven's Symphony Number 9!
But since we see others supporting war, we think it is a necessary evil. Because we are fast asleep. And our dream has become a nightmare, and though it seems elusive, we can awaken from this stupor at any time. We just have to look closer and realize that we are allowing this hell to persist. By supporting war, we are only cheerleading the fight of evil against evil. And we are strengthening the evil in our own selves when we justify violence.
There is no good in war. No good side. Killing is never "good". We have brainwashed ourselves to think we are separate from one another. We are the ones who created borders to "protect". We are the ones who created class systems that are divisive to disenfranchise our fellow brothers and sisters and create opportunities for burglary and crime.
We are the ones who created enemies.
We are the ones who created refugees. We are the ones who created a monetary system and institutions of power and expansionism. We are the ones who created both armies and terrorists to protect land that belongs to Earth, to seize resources that belong to Earth and all sentient beings. And as long as we are slaves to greed and our egos, as long as we are not aligned with our inner divinity, we will continue to see violence in our world.
We need to heal from our collective sickness instead of creating more opportunities to threaten one another. We can find ways to protect ourselves from dangerous people who want to harm us without bombing an entire country, raping its women and displacing innocents. What is this madness? One dictator, one enemy, one government; and an entire country has to pay the price? And then we proceed to cheer the troops? How sick are we? What's worse is when genocide is accepted because one ego decides that the nation should be purged of an entire race or religion.
We are all the same. We are killing the life source that pulses through each and every living being. We are killing fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. We are killing people whose main concern is to provide a safe life for their families. We are killing dreams and possibilities. And people who protest war are considered idealists, dreamers, even rebels in some parts of the world. Well we need these dreamers, these so-called rebels, to remind us that this is no longer acceptable.
The planet is begging us to transform ourselves. We have been given the blessing of consciousness, but are using it to cease existing rather than coexisting. Why is fear permitted and love not? This is because we have been taught to believe that chaos is a way of life. If it were, then most of us would be slaughtering each other and we would not feel pain at such horror.
It is time we awaken and realize that war and terrorism are both forms of insanity. And there is no justification whatsoever to not live with one another. We are a gift to each other. We are here to love each other and use science and technology to take care of the planet and bring us closer to one another. But as long as we take sides, we will become as savage as those fighting the battles. There is nothing glamorous about heroes and villains. There is nothing glamorous about the war against terrorism.
The war against terrorism has only been successful in creating terrorism against war. And we will continue to perpetuate this cycle until we realize that the only way to peace is through peace. This is no longer about picking sides or deciding which group is evil. There is no justification for terrorism. We all agree with that. But there is also no justification whatsoever for war either. This is what we need to remind ourselves. War will make the rich richer, the poor poorer, the angry angrier and will give the arms industry a reason to keep supplying enemy combatants with more and more weapons.
Earth is beautiful and healthy and can sustain itself. Why are we destroying it? Why are we polluting it? And why is that though the majority of us want peace, war seems to always find a way to close our hearts? We have managed to find ways to glorify war. Now it is time to glorify peace. And one day, there will be neither war nor peace, just being-ness. But, until then, let's root for peace!
By Nejoud Al-Yagout
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