By Barnes Mawrie
Perhaps it’s time to change the saying, “wild as an animal” into “wild as a human.” How unjustly we blame the poor animals as “wild and ferocious” while in fact, human beings are more cruel even towards their own species. Human beings may claim that they are civilized and developed but in reality their behaviour has not improved; it has only worsened. Who can deny the fact that among all creatures, human beings are the most cruel and revengeful. There is more human blood shed on the Earth’s surface than all animal blood put together.
Since the beginning of human civilization, violence has been the characteristic of humans. Centuries have been marked by thousands of wars fought for reasons of greed, pride and ambition. Man is definitely a “self destructive being.” This is even seen in the violent sports that we have invented from the gladiators of the Roman era to the WWE Championship of modern times. But what demonstrate more the violent nature of man are the wars that are being fought even to this day. The human carnage that is going on in Ukraine where innocent people are being sacrificed at the altar of one man’s greed and ambition, is the most recent example of this. War crimes are being committed in Ukraine and elsewhere which prove that we humans are prone to violence. The horrific events of recent decades like the Cambodian genocide between 1975 and 1979 claimed about 3 million people, the Rwanda genocide in 1994 where 800,000 people lost their lives, the Bosnian genocide between 1992 and 1995 which claimed about 39,000 lives, the Rohingya genocide in 2017 where 43,000 innocent people were killed and the present Ukraine war which has claimed more than 14,000 lives already. If a list of human carnages which have taken place in history is enumerated here, it would run into many pages.
War is an invention of human civilization and with time its lethality has improved by leaps and bounds. From using crude weapons like swords, spears and arrows, we have come to the age of cruise missiles, kamikaze drones, chemical weapons and even nuclear bombs. Thus from a casualty of hundreds, modern wars are capable of wiping out a population of millions. It looks like our civilization will be terminated by wars. People thought that with the end of World War II and its horrific consequences, humanity had learnt a hard lesson and that the world would choose a path of peace. But far from it, human beings are violent by nature and we seem to prefer war to peace. Long ago the great Roman general, Julius Caesar has rightly said “si vis pacem para bellum” (if you desire peace prepare for war). Caesar seemed to have had an insight into human psychology and he seemed to have understood human nature. Today this saying is being proven true for the fact that militarily weaker countries become easy targets of powerful countries.
In the era of colonialism, the powerful European nations invaded weaker countries in the far continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the 20th Century, the powerful Nazi army invaded Poland, Czechoslovakia, France and other countries because these countries were weak and ill prepared for war. Today we see mighty Russia invading a small and weak country Ukraine and causing untold suffering and destruction to that poor nation. Had it not been for the military support of NATO, Ukraine would have been swallowed up by Russia in a matter of weeks. The Russian aggression has alarmed many peaceful nations in Europe, thus even Germany has been forced to revamp its defense policy and it is reinforcing its military power. As a matter of fact China may be tempted to invade Taiwan knowing that it is far superior in military might.
Undoubtedly, if India were to be militarily weak, China would have captured much of our territory by now. The threat from North Korea has alarmed its neighbouring countries like Japan, South Korea and Philippines. Today we see a demilitarized nation like Japan hurrying up to reinforce its military arsenal in order to meet any threat of war from its hostile neighbour. The reason that many countries are going nuclear, is because that seems to be the final act of defense against any inimical aggression. But seeing the violent nature of man, nuclear weapons in more countries could prove to be a doomsday for human civilization itself. Thus finally it is evident that human beings are belligerent by nature and we can never live in peace and harmony. The messianic day foretold by Prophet Isaiah when peace and harmony would reign in our land seems almost impossible. As long we play by the rules of hatred and vengeance there will no end to wars and conflicts. The only solution lies in the adherence to the golden rule of Christ, “love your neighbour as yourself.” If we humans learn to love one another like brothers and sisters, then only will we be able to live in peace and harmony. When will that day come when Indians and Pakistanis would cease their enmity and embrace each other like brothers and sisters? (It is good to remember that before the partition we were but one country and one nation). When will that day come when every country would give up the arms race, stop manufacturing weapons and invest more on education, health care and poverty alleviation?
For this to take place, humanity needs to look beyond race, ethnicity, religion and culture.