What Price War?

Boston-Herald-282x300On June 17, 2014, in the skies over Ukraine 298 innocent lives were lost in one second.  Each one of those lives required an average of nine months to create.  It took a combined total of 2,682 months or more than 223 years to bring these souls upon this one planet where life as we know it exists.  Yet in one second those lives were extinguished.  This is too great a price to pay for war.

In Palestine on this date Israel invaded Gaza and untold numbers of Palestinian lives will be lost.  The loss of these lives as well as the loss of Israeli lives is too great a price to pay.

Each life needed two other lives to bring it into being; each of those two lives needed two other lives to bring them into being.  Each life had untold siblings, uncles, aunts and friends who will mourn their loss.  The web of life extends outwards — much like the internet; we are all truly connected.  So, the loss of any one being ripples out and affects countless lives.  Each life lost to war and the violence in Ukraine, in Palestine, in Syria, in Central America, in Africa and in our own backyard, our cities and homes, is too great a price to pay.

The families of those that perished on June 17th mourn their losses; I mourn their losses.

To honor their deaths let us find a way to stop this madness of war and violence. It demands too great a price in human blood and treasure.  We must stop feeding this beast of war and violence with the lives of our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and friends.  Instead, let us honor life.  Let us address the issues which lead to violence through creative peacebuilding initiatives.  John Paul Lederach in his book The Moral Imagination:  The Art and Soul of Building Peace explores the means by which we can break the cycle of violence.  War is simply sanctioned or justified violence on a massive scale as each combatant will have its reasons why it has resorted to war as a solution to its problems.  Let us promote peacebuilding initiatives that will allow us to resolve our long-standing differences.  Let us think outside the box; let each of us creatively deal with the underlying conditions which lead to violence and war.  If we do not, war and other forms of violence will continue to consume untold lives.  And with each loss the mountain of pain and destruction will grow.

Join Pasos in its exploration of peacebuilding.  How will you find a way to end the madness that is war and violence?  For every life lost to war and violence is too great a price to pay.

By Siegrid Raible

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