Sent for publishing on January 5, 2009
To the Editor,
The Evil of War
On the eve of the New Year, St. Paul's in Saskatoon sponsored a "Peace" Assembly. January 1st, 2009 would be the 42nd year designated as a World Day of Peace.
This Year of Peace had hardly begun when the world received the news of the inexcusable military exchange between Palestinians firing rockets into Israel and the deadly bombing by the Israeli Air Force, followed by the ground invasion of Gaza.
Peace is more than just the absence of modern day warfare. But war is clearly deliberate and obvious.
Christians commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, whom many have named the Prince of Peace.
It is almost 2000 years since the birth of Christ. Looking back through the centuries, a great sadness fills our hearts for the millions of humans beings - men, women and children - who have been killed, tortured or mutilated, but also for the millions who have participated in that slaughter, or have allowed that to happen through omission.
Throughout the centuries, there have been many others, who, in their yearning for peace for all people on Earth, wondered and even proposed suggestions about what could be done to avert the cruelty and heartlessness of war. I will quote only a few of these famous people, not necessarily in historical order. Dear readers, I hope their wisdom will make it possible for us to see war for what it really is - the wanton diminishment and the desire to kill those we decide are our enemies, or simply to seek power over other human beings.
"What kind of a society is it when someone is left defeated? What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is made in the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? What is a war criminal? Was war not a crime against God and humanity, and therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered and conducted wars, war criminals?
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty." - Ghandi - assassinated in 1948.
" People have been horrified by war to a sufficient extent. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today." – John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
"Our only hope lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit is to go into the sometimes hostile world, declaring hostility to poverty, racism and militarism" - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refute military service." - Albert Einstein
"To fight poverty is to build peace." - Pope Benedict XVI - January 1, 2009
Leo Kurtenbach,
Box 268, Cudworth, Sask., S0K 1B0
Phone: 256-3638.