The End to War All Wars

 

I am left uneasy by a poetry reading I attended last week. There was no planned theme, but perhaps unsurprisingly, given events in Gaza, poems tended to focus on the horrors of war. My own contribution too, actually. What troubled me was how the moderator, summing up, suggested we were all, by saying war was bad, speaking out boldly to end war and change the world.

That, it seemed to me, was offensive. I cannot go so far as to say everyone agrees war is bad; the Fascists liked it. But it is the opposite of controversial to say so. By saying so, the poet is accomplishing absolutely nothing for anyone but himself, by washing his hands of the affair. Such a stance ought to be condemned, not praised. It is the stance of Pontius Pilate.

It further annoys me that people put such emphasis on killing civilians—as though it is perfectly okay that any number of soldiers die. The average soldier has no more control over war and peace than the average woman or child; killing him is just as wrong. Unless men’s lives don’t matter.

The necessary task is to propose how we might end this war, or war in general. Simply lamenting war is doing more harm than good: it gives succor to the aggressor.

In my defense, my own contribution proposed, in poetic terms, that all life is war until and unless we turn to God.

And that was a problem for those assembled: it violated “the separation of church and state,” one participant observed.

Not that “separation of church and state” is in the Canadian Constitution or Charter of Rights, or for that matter the US Constitution. And certainly not in Britain’s, which recognizes an established church. Not that that is a basic liberal principle that would have been propounded or recognized by John Locke. But all references to God or morality are now excluded from public discussion. Or rather, they are excluded unless you are Muslim.

Which is fatal to social and individual peace, because they are the solution to literally everything. And I mean literal in the literal sense.