“There is no profound difference between the farmer and the soldier” Mao said. “When you take your arms in hand, you become soldiers; when you are organized, you become military units.”
Along with the hammer and the sickle, recently a gun was drawn. So, a movement which started as one of the farmer and the worker became one of soldiers too. Soon, it might become one of soldiers exclusively. “Let death be welcome, provided that our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons.” says Che Guevara.
That all great ideologies end up as military campaigns is an irony of history. How much blood did a religion formed after a man who advised love and allowed himself to be crucified spew? Two world wars were fought in this century in the name of democracy. “What is history but the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”, asked Gibbon. Is the standard of human progress the increase in the quality of the weaponry?
All acts of creation begin as ideas. When ideas become faiths acts become repetitive and man becomes a slave of weapons. The first victims of weapons are the ideas which gave birth to them themselves. Weapons kill the ideas and anoint idols, their ghosts. Thus throughout history weapons and idols piled up.
To think that wars are fought between nations or ideas is an illusion. All wars are fought between man and his own creation – the weapons. And in all of them, it is the same side which always gets beaten – that of man.
(1971 May)
1 response so far ↓
Areem // June 9, 2008 at 4:14 pm
All wars are fought between men. Period. Man incidentally also procreates another man. So in that sense yes, he fights his own creation. Either which way, man loses. Has lost it already actually.