"Give peace a chance." John Lennon
And MLK Jr., and Ghandi, and Jesus, and Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Dalai Lama ...
If a man issues a plea for peace while standing in a forest and no one hears it, did he really make a plea for peace?
I hope this modified version of “What if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it?” comes across as a bit more nuanced than the original. It’s meant to strike at the difference between merely talking about peace, or actually working toward that goal.
Perhaps ministers and teachers can be satisfied with talking about peace because they may influence others to act; that kind of “talk” can count as “doing,” I suppose. But for many of us, it seems that all we can do is talk about peace, maybe vote for a “Peace candidate” in an election, or donate money to a trusted charity that we believe will help the victims of war, none of which is really that satisfying for the soul. (I mention “soul,” but without any religious endorsement implied; the original Greek word “psyche” simply meant “soul” and it was not a supernatural entity. The “psyche” was just a special place within each of us that was different from our more physical attributes.)
I’m writing a post like this today because we are nearing the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and likely on the cusp of invasion 2.0. Yet there are plenty of other places where war rages. The US pulled out of Afghanistan, but I keep reading about how our soldiers are taking out militants in Somalia. We’re not still at war somewhere? There’s a bit of a truce in Syria now to let in foreign aid workers after the recent Earthquake, but otherwise that war rages. The crackdown on minorities in Myanmar continues, and Russia is to establish a new naval base in Sudan, then occupy it. There’s so much more that I don’t even know about, I’m sure, including gang warfare inside countries such as Mexico and several Central American states. Oh, and right here in the United States.
The Ukraine war gets most of the attention these days, either because it’s right on Western Europe’s frontier, or because it’s “white” people dying this time. The latter view is too cynical for me – Europe lost 40 to 60 million people in World War II, and we were part of that war, losing more than 400,000 soldiers (in Europe and Asia, both “battle deaths” and other deaths while in service), so it would seem implausible to not be more concerned about the war in Ukraine now.
Plus, most of Europe is in NATO, and we – the USA, the backbone of NATO – are committed to helping any country in the alliance should it be attacked.
I read about different scenarios to end the war in Ukraine, and dire warnings about sleepwalking into a bigger conflict there. In one corner, we hear that Moscow must not be allowed to succeed. In the other corner we hear that it is up to us – the West – to find an off ramp for #Putin to that he doesn’t lose face with the home crowd, maybe lose his job or even his life.
It's all above my pay grade, of course. But painful admissions and concessions are going to have to be made by all sides, including Russia needing to honor Ukraine’s full sovereignty over all its territory, perhaps combined with a guaranteed neutral stance for Ukraine going forward, as well as a rethink of how former Warsaw Pact countries (the old Soviet-dominated alliance) should be thought of within NATO, perhaps becoming a semi-autonomous and neutral alliance of its own.
It's a long shot; maybe it’s pie-in-the-sky. It also looks, on first blush, more like a victory for Putin and Russia than for the West. But NATO may be overextended as it is and maybe we need some kind of off ramp ourselves, and maybe some grandiose pact between all parties would solve some problems without setting traps for ourselves in the future.
That’s right! Please don’t go until you check out my latest short story collection, “Don’t Go,” from the Stephen F. Austin State University Press, available at https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781622889297/dont-go/ or any online book seller or by order at your local book store.