#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ITALY #SICILIA #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Sicilia Libertaria November 22: Editorial - DESERT THE WAR (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 It is useless to go around it: si vis pacem para bellum. The Latins had said it,

von Clausewitz reiterated it in the early nineteenth century - War is nothing but
the continuation of politics by other means - the States practice it without
hesitation. The war in Ukraine (and its similar ones elsewhere) is the fruit of
this logic; a logic that in the twentieth century technological revolution added
the economic interests of the industrial military complex to the will of
domination by the powers, adding aberration to aberration. Up to the extreme that
in recent weeks has caused the use of nuclear weapons to be feared, a maximum
wickedness that has attracted the consciences of many and rekindled the protests
against the war. Well, finally a more open stance to put an end to this war, and
in the coming weeks it will be understood whether these mobilizations - which had
a first start in the days from 21 to 23 October last with a series of initiatives
in many cities in the within the scope of the appeal launched by Europe for peace
and will have another important step with the demonstration convened in Rome on
November 5 by various organizations, including the first Italian Peace and
Disarmament Network and Sbilanciamoci- they will be able to find words, spaces,
actions to overturn at least a narrative that sees war as a necessary and
inevitable choice; indeed, it promises a future in which war itself must become
culture and armaments become the only means of defense (and attack). However, if
this emerging opposition to the war is to give life to a real movement for peace,
it will be useful to clear the field of some ambiguities that are already gathering.

First of all, the issue of sending weapons: its refusal must be clear-cut. One
cannot think of promoting peace and in the meantime arguing that it can be
achieved with arms and armies. The military logic is that of states that fight
for small or large hegemonies, not to liberate peoples. After the tens of
thousands of casualties and the destruction of entire territories, there should
be no doubt that other choices would have at least spared deaths and horrors, but
it cannot be just this or the threat of a nuclear war to distance ourselves from war.

Second question, without wishing to enter into the merits of relations between
states and blocs - which is probably not of much interest to the aspirations of
the populations - a quick look at the dynamics that led to the current war is not
useless. The crisis that lasted for several years, rather than opening up the
possibility of dialogue, was channeled into ever deeper oppositions in which each
side provided to represent the other as an irreducible enemy. How many times have
governments and diplomacy had the opportunity to stop the spiral and have not
done so? Why has there never been a serious attempt to really involve the
populations concerned, outside the logic of national and identity? Instead on our
side, that of Western civilization, whose fate has been entirely delegated to
NATO, scenarios of upcoming armed clashes have been built for years that the war
propaganda has emphasized with images of military exercises in the skies and on
the seas in every where in the world. And the same will have happened on the
other side. In fact, if you want peace, prepare for war!

Third issue, this war, which is evidently not one of the many neocolonial wars
but already mimics a clash between powers - Russia and the USA and, in the
background, China - has exacerbated the conflicts between hegemonic blocs, has
launched a new arms race, prefigures a world in which force and deterrence will
define international relations even more, decreeing the end of a semblance of
diplomacy for peace, represented up to now miserably by the UN, and the return to
an early twentieth-century diplomacy. In this devastating scenario there can be
no space within a peace movement for those who claim - person or institutional
representative - to long for an end to hostilities and in the meantime work to
promote armies and armaments, to incense generals and forces. armed, to
strengthen the enemy-friend division. No hesitation and no ambiguity: the
rejection of weapons, armies, the hegemonic and competitive system must be
radical and unequivocal.

Fourth, it is urgent, as Danilo Dolci wrote, to break the circle: to invent, to
find that pick that takes us out of the spiral of war, that defuses the
mechanisms of opposition, feuds with the enemy. Reverse the trend: to aggression,
to violence for once, do not respond with violence, with force, but take other
paths, imagine other solutions. In her fundamental The Count of the Saved Anna
Bravo entitles two chapters in this way: Without weapons against Hitler: in Italy
and Without weapons against Hitler: in Denmark.

Instead, today, in the war probably most reported by the media, the use of
weapons is emphasized, the patriotic values, heroisms and sacrifices of those who
fight or suffer weapons as an ineluctable destiny are exalted. Thus the
perpetrated horror asks for revenge, preparing other mourning and other misfortunes.

The hope is, of course, that on November 5 there will be a great demonstration
that finally makes a voice for peace be heard and speaks out to stop the din of
the weapons hissing from our television screens and from the pages of the
newspapers. In this moment that sees the whole world heading towards ever more
pervasive wars, which have already lasted for several decades, it is necessary
that everyone, as Alex Zanotelli maintains, plays his part and does not back
down. However, if a desirable peace movement does not want to find itself hostage
to states and governments intrinsically inclined to war, it must speak out
against institutional armies, weapons and diplomacy. Otherwise, everyone will
have satisfied their humanitarian conscience, but the world will continue to go
at breakneck speed towards possible self-destruction.

Angelo Barberi

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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