There is no denying that wars don’t happen in a vacuum but are rather waged between two or more countries. For centuries, wars have ravaged countries and brought misery to millions of people on this planet. Wars, which were fought to bring about peace, often didn’t achieve the desired results and instead brought ruin and further wars with them, thus throwing people in despair and the countries in ruin. Be it wars and armed conflicts waged in African countries or the recent wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Ukraine, and Kashmir, these have brought unimaginable suffering and trauma to the inhabitants of these lands. War brings poverty to the people, to its victims.
Most wars waged by the US and other imperial forces were justified by one pretext or the other. But the real motive and purpose behind these and other wars was to grab resources and land. Warlords and manufacturers, who sell arms, made a fortune out of these wars, by selling weapons and other materials, but at the cost of civilians and poor people. As Viet Thanh Nguyen has righty said in his memoir Nothing Ever Dies,
“War grows on intimate soil, nurtured by friends and neighbours, fought by sons, daughters, wives, and fathers.”
The war between Palestinian militant outfit Hamas and Israeli forces, which erupted after Hamas attacked Israel and its forces, has claimed thousands of lives so far. The people killed in this escalation had no direct hand in these wars, but were caught in the crossfire. Thousands of Palestinian children have been killed in this war so far and there seems no end in sight to the mayhem. This war has given birth to thousands of orphans and widows. Gaza City, termed as “an open air prison,” is a besieged land ravaged by Israeli airstrikes. Israel’s right-wing PM Benjamin Netanyahu has called to wipe out Gaza from the world map and turn it into rubble. This amounts to calling for the genocide of a particular community.
The massacre of Palestinian children by Israeli forces should make us think about the devastating consequences of war and armed conflicts which are fought on petty issues, and even to satisfy the ego of some of the warmongers. The bombardment of hospitals and schools in Palestine should open our eyes to the horrors of war. Children maimed and killed in this war which has been brought on by imperialist and colonialist forces should wake us from the deep slumber. The slumber which has made us dumb and blind to the miseries of war and its destruction. This war like other wars has snatched the smile from the faces of mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. It has snatched their smiles and assassinated the dreams of the children and parents.
War brings with it loss and trauma: Loss of dear ones and the trauma associated with this loss. The scars left behind may never heal. The trauma and stress war brings on people is hard to cured. War makes people, young and old disappear, impossible to be traced, leaving behind a trail of trauma.
One man’s war is another man’s money-making machine. One nation’s destruction and one man’s killing is another nation’s and another man’s pride. That’s where the war becomes a commodity and a kind of enterprise. In war, women are molested and graveyards spread everywhere. Families are destroyed.
Soldiers who fight in these wars also feel the brunt of it. The families of dead soldiers also feel shattered. Their children become orphans. Their wives become widows. Their mothers and fathers have to live on without their child. If these soldiers survive the bullets and the battlefield, they take the trauma and the horrors of war with them; the trauma of dead comrades and the killing of victims in which they are involved. Bao Nihn’s novel The Sorrow of War captures the horrors of war, and of soldiers, as a soldier remembers the dead and who he killed, and the memories shatter him.
“With canine one smoked to forget the daily hell of the soldier’s life, smoked to forget hunger and suffering. Also, to forget death. And totally, but totally, to forget tomorrow.”
That’s what the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Palestine, and many others are doing. They are bringing misery, death, and destruction everywhere and upon everyone. War is a monster which consumes everything coming its way. It destroys cultures. It not only demolishes the bodies, but also the souls. War brings with it terror which lasts for centuries. People’s hopes are devastated. The attack on Gaza has demonstrated that there are no winners in war. Only losers, victims.
Dr Ashraf Lone is a writer associated with Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His deeply personal memoir, based on the turbulent period of 1990s of Kashmir will be released in 2024 by OM Books International, New Delhi.