Two Decades On, We've Learned Nothing
Originally printed in the Editorial for The Kashmir Messenger, day after war was declared by Patagonia.
The declaration of war by Patagonia should be condemned in the strongest possible terms by anyone who has a shred of morality. After unprecented violence and devastation brought our species to the brink of extinction for a second time, it's hard to believe that we could forget such experiences so soon, and be so ready to, once again, leap into the abyss.
After a few hopeful recent years, in which the chaos of the Cataclysm seems to have calmed down and the world seemed to have collectively recoiled from the horrors of war to settle in a period of lasting peace, the fires of war are flaring up once again. One does not even need to look to South America. Fraticidal killings are once again all too common in Ceylon. To our immediate north and west, Punjab and Tajikistan are flexing their military muscle. And Sri Lanka's belligerent attitude threatens to destroy the fragile stability and rebuilding efforts in the south of India.
Here in our own country, the attitude of certain influential groups is deeply troubling. These groups, at the forefront of which is the Party of Nationalist Unity, are pressuring Iqbal's government for confrontation with China over Himachal Pradesh. They are pushing for a more hardline stance on the issue, in contradiction with the national goal of peaceful development and peaceful diplomacy as agreed in the Skardu Accord barely five years ago. But the most worrying group of people are those openly advocating war. They are influential, hateful men who uses intimidation as well as demagogy to occupy public discussion space and our leaders are, frankly, too gutless to stop them. The media give them inordinate attention. We often hear them propagandising war as a glorious enterprise and an act of patriotism.
The truth is a true patriot must oppose war. A true Kashmiri patriot must see war as an evil. War is an insult to the past, a catastrophe for the present and a curse for the future. War is death, poverty and slavery. We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by false promises of glory in battle or believe in an illusionary destiny to conquer. We must have the courage to resist the maligned forces that wants to drag us to the killing fields. We must be able say, Enough. No more deaths. No more wastelands.
(The Kashmir Messenger is an English-language newspaper, published in Srinagar. Originally founded as The Greater Kashmir, it was nationalised in the Soviet period. It changed its name to the Kashmir Messenger after merging with several smaller newspapers. Today the newspaper is once again independent.)