Jane Plunkett from 7days.ae called me couple of days ago. Jane wanted some public views about peace for a feature she was writing on world peace to publish on peace day which falls on 21st September.
I wasn't even aware that there was a world peace day! Jane asked me if I thought world peace was plausible… very interesting question and thought provoking.
Aristotle famously said “we make war that we may live in peace”…. And therein lies the biggest contradiction about peace and the means we employ to achieve it.
No lasting peace can ever be achieved by war. So long as there are some losers, true peace will remain an illusion like a mirage which treads further as you keep trying to reach it…
8000 years of human history is littered with “glorious” wars.
Isn’t it a contradiction, that most of the world “heroes” are kings and generals who have waged huge wars and won them! We actually revere and glorify killers…
What is most tragic is that even major world religions ( except perhaps Budhism ) legitimize wars and killings if done for the sake of "protecting" God. What a tragedy that man has to protect God!
More interestingly, peace does not make business sense. Huge nations make their living by selling arms and ammunition, and they need perpetual war to keep this machinery going.
I am inclined to think that world economy will shrink by half if we ever achieve world peace.
That would be dreadful thought for most nations.
