Humanity and War

In the past three thousand years of recorded history there have been four thousand wars big and small. Man has been fighting wars even when he led a nomadic life. When he settled on land and started farming, wars increased in number and intensity. The greed for land made him more aggressive. People fought wars to capture more and more land. Rich landlords could buy good armor and weapons and they loved wars and oppressed the poor and the weak. Parties fought wars for long periods. Poets wrote poems to praise warriors who gave their lives in the battle-fields. Singers sang songs expressing bravery of warriors.

More ambitious warriors among them gathered large armies and invaded other countries to build huge emprires, such as Changez Khan, Timur and Babar. The Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, Chinese, Indian the modern European Empires like those of the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese were built by such ambitious warriors.

In olden times, wars were fought first with bows and arrows and then with swords, spears and daggers. Both armies gathered in a vast field and fought face to face or one of them remained in fort or city whereas the other laid siege to it.

Gunpowder was first used by Chinese during the 900s AD for simple rockets, bombs and grenades. It was unknown in Europe before 1200. In the 15th century guns began to be used in wars.

In the 18th century industrialization began in Europe and industries began making weapons of war. World War I, was the first modern war fought with modern weapons. Twenty million people were killed and wounded in this war as a result of use of modern weapons. In the World War II tanks, bombers and submarines were used for the first time.

In World War II, fifty million people were killed or wounded. In this war Germany also used rockets and missiles for the first time, but it was defeated by Russia on land after three years of stiff fighting. Japan had a very strong navy at that time and it was very difficult to reach Japanese Islands, so America as soon as it had built the first atom bombs dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which forced Japan to lay down arms. In these two explosions approximately half a million persons were killed or wounded.

Though anti-war movement started in World War I, but war has not yet been banished. There have been wars even after World War II, but World War III did not begin and atomic war has been avoided. In World War II, only one country used atomic weapons but in World War III, if it started many countries would use atomic weapons, which would of course be very disastrous than we can think. Now, it is in the interest of humanity to avoid and banish war for the sake of its future.

(16-4-94)

Expectations

Expectations limit us, bind us and frustrate us far beyond our tolerance level. Our school encourages us to impersonate the characteristics of successful person; our parents expect us to have the same values as they do; our friends expect us to be there by their side whenever they need; our higher-ups expect us to follow their ways and the list goes on and on. Why do people expect us to be so dependable? Why do people expect when they do not deserve it? After all we are humans, not perfect.

Expectation relates to time. We judge people on the basis of experiences that they have with others or we have with them. Based on those experiences we make judgments in our minds. We limit our thoughts. We project those judgments and relying on those projected judgments we expect from them. So expectations are mere projected judgments.

We listen to others and our mind interprets messages. Sometimes, our mind distort those interpretations to fit into our fix believes. Those fix believes are based on past experiences. Misunderstanding occurs and a wrong judgment is made. However, we always believe that our judgment is true. We have higher egos. Yet we expect of ourselves that what we think, what we do is correct, what a misfortune!

We complain about people and things happening around us. We complain because we expect people to behave in a predictable pattern. Most of us complain about yellow journalism, politicians, justice, bureaucracy, education and the whole system etc. Do we ever think who are reading those exaggerating violent stories in newspapers? Who are electing those politicians? Who is raising any voice for justice? Who are the people in bureaucracy and where are they from? What are the components of this system we blame all the time? Oh no don’t say that we don’t have any choice, yes we do have choices. It’s us who create what we are, what our community is, and the world we live in by the choices we made every passing moment. We are definitely responsible of what we are.

We have become self-centered. Our tolerance level has dropped down to near zero. We shut our eyes, ears and thought when something goes in our favor otherwise we start blaming. We do raise voices, we understand problems in our system, we know causes of those problems but we have become so self-centered that we do not try to uproot those causes. We just do not have time and we do not put sincere effort into this cause. Even if some of noble people around us put in an effort and spend their time and money, there is a general lacking of sincerity. When we do not put in the effort and spend the time required on our part as an individual for the betterment of the society we live in, how can we expect it to be a society we dream of?