Whose life is it anyway?

So they’ve ceased firing

For how long, I wonder

A year, maybe two

‘fore the bombs again thunder

Where life is cheap

And dignity even cheaper

The wrinkles tell their own story

As the wounds just get deeper

That child silenced for ever

Was she Jew or non-Jew

Collateral damage, they say

And continue to bomb anew

And we, from the sidelines, watch

This drama year after year

From the comfort of our cosiness

We shed the odd tear.

Israel-Palestine war : Two weeks...and counting

In my previous post, I had talked about my not getting “involved” in the Palestine situation. For my own sake. And in the belief that my views do not make a difference anyway.

Now, over a week later, I find that this was not right on my part. For many reasons.

Firstly, I am unable not to get “involved”. By nature, I am very much interested in politics and current affairs. Have always been. Especially in stories that involve the human side of things. So I just cannot shut myself off from all that is happening in the world. And I do see the pictures of this war on TV, I see pictures of the wounded and the dead, the hospitals, the statements made by various leaders, reporters and members of the public. So how can I not get "involved" ?

Secondly, the war is still raging on. It is now two weeks since Israel first launched its offensive into Gaza – and, despite a UN resolution passed last week, there seems to be no let-up in the intensity of the fighting.

Lastly, and most importantly (and very honestly), I am somewhat ashamed at myself.

For even suggesting that I did not want to get “involved”.

Let’s get things in perspective.

I am sitting in the comfort of my home, with the heating switched on (it is way below minus) and blogging.

Those out there in Palestine have no heating, no lighting, no food, they have lost loved ones, have others injured but have no medical facilities to treat them, they do not know how their next hour or day will look, if at all they live to survive that day.

And these are the ones I do not want to discuss about because I want to be in a “positive frame of mind” ? What if everybody thought the same way ? These people, who already have close to nothing, would then really have nothing to hope for.

My writing may not make the slightest difference. I have no illusions about it. But I have decided that, whether anybody reads what I write or not, I will continue to write. I will continue to talk about the war and Israel-Palestine – from my personal perspective. This is MY blog, so I am entitled to express my opinion, whether others agree with me or not.

In the last week, we just saw the fighting go to a different level altogether. After the initial air-strikes, Israel decided to launch ground operations. These were always going to be higher-risk, at least from Israel’s point of view. But, if they wanted to weed out “militants” from civilian locations, air-strikes were not going to help, without causing considerable civilian damage. So it was a combined air-strike and ground operations offensive that we saw in the last week.

While Israel has claimed considerable success in attacking rocket-launching sites, weapon-storage facilities, smuggling tunnels, it has not come without considerable civilian cost. Although Israel claims to have made tremendous effort to minimize loss of civilian lives (including pre-announcements of attacks and requests to evacuate target areas), in a densely populated war zone as Palestine, it was always going to be unrealistic to expect civilians to escape unscathed.

One incident earlier in the week, where an attack on a school saw children casualties, saw the whole world horrified although Israel claimed that the facility was being used as a cover to protect “militants”.

Every format of news from aid agencies and humanitarian work groups in the Gaza has just one message – that it is a humanitarian crisis, that the numbers of dead and injured are mounting, that the number of civilians affected is increasing, that medical and food supplies are not enough and are not reaching in time, that doctors, working 24/7 are not able to cope with the number of cases flooding in, that aid agencies are being hampered in their aim to distribute food and medicine due to the fighting on the streets.

So, if anybody ever had to see the ugly face of war – and its consequences for the common man - he or she could not have a better illustration of all that war results in. It is not just the loss of lives – which is horrible in itself – it is also the numbing casualties in terms of injuries and destruction of infrastructure. It takes years to rebuild something that it takes seconds to destroy.

The UN Security Council, after considerable debate about the “wording” of its resolution, finally managed to come up with one on Thursday. Not that either side in the fighting cared. Israel, never one to allow anybody or anything to come in the way of its military objectives, just continued on its mission to go after Hamas. Which, inspite of the concerted Israeli offensive, continues to manage to launch rockets into Israeli territory, more as a show of defiance than anything else.

In the meantime, in fact before the UN finally managed to come up with a resolution, a joint proposal to end the fighting was formulated by Egypt and France. This proposal of an immediate ceasefire was accepted by Hamas but Israel, wary of a ceasefire that it fears would only allow Hamas to regroup, seems to show no interest in this proposal.

All in all, the war continues - and, while the world can keep screaming, Israel is on a mission here and does not appear to want to entertain any discussions that may derail its mission. And that mission would seem to be to, once and for all, disarm Hamas.

And herein lies one of the fallacies of this whole story and one that convinces me that this was just an election-winning ploy by the current party in power in Israel.

Let’s say, for one moment, that Israel succeeds.
That Hamas is disarmed.
Will this really solve the problem once and for all ?
Surely Israel itself does not believe this.
All it will get is that, temporarily, just temporarily, there may not be any attacks on Israeli soil – at least not through rockets fired from Palestine.
But then, for how long will Israel enjoy this “peace” ?
How long before Hamas, or another outfit, regroup and launch their revenge attack on Israel ? Even forgetting about the fact that Hamas was the popular choice of the people, surely it has even got more ground support now after these recent offensives by Israel ?
So, if Hamas or another outfit attacks Israel, what then ?
I expect Israel then to retaliate with full force – and for another war to be kicked off as a result.
With more casualties, more destruction.
And the saga will go on.
As it has been going on for as long as I can remember.

All this because none of the powers-that-be makes enough effort to address the root cause of the conflict.


For once, the holier-than-thou West should see things from a Palestinian perspective. The Palestinians live in their own country like second or third-class citizens. They have restrictions on their movement, they have scarcity of supplies, of jobs, of basic amenities like electricity and water. And, to add to all this, they also have to contend with their land taken away from them.

In the wake of this, they have elected a party which they believe will espouse their cause, will win them back some of their rights. That such a party adopts violence in its methods to make its case may make it a “terrorist” organization in many eyes but it is more a reflection of the hopelessness and helplessness felt by the Palestinian community than anything else.

Had the world listened and cared, had the world been fairer in allocation of resources and treatment of Palestine, I doubt if we would have seen all this fighting in all these years. Like I have said in an earlier post, the seeds of this conflict were sown decades ago. What we are seeing now is only the effect.

I know Israel believes that they will always be insecure, surrounded as they are by Arab neighbours and Islamic countries. That is one of their basic premises for having a strong military, for always being “ready to go to war”.

But if you don’t give peace a chance, you will never know whether it will work or not. And every such war as the one we are seeing now only further distances neighbours, it certainly does not bring them closer. And therefore gives peace even less of a chance. And, as a result, only increases mistrust and tension. Sort of a catch-22.

No, the solution is to address the structural issues of land and emphasise the equality of rights of all living in that region. Whether Jew or Muslim.

The UN, after sowing the initial seeds of discontent, has been hopeless so far in extinguishing the flames of hatred and violence. Like I said in an earlier post, the best solution is probably one from the region itself. These are the countries closest to the situation, they are the ones most affected. They will also be the most direct beneficiaries of any peace talks and attempts to improve understanding between the countries.

But for that, the parties involved should be open to discussion with each other. They should be interested in peace. They should be willing to compromise on some of their demands, in the interests of peace.

We are a long way from this. And, by the looks of it, not getting any closer with all that is happening.

Having said that, and despite not having much of history to give me any assurances to back my optimism, I am hopeful that the times are a-changing.

Relationships are changing. There is or will soon be new leadership at the helm of affairs in some countries. This will hopefully herald a new, more compassionate view on matters Middle-Eastern.

One can only hope. For there is nothing else for most in Palestine to live for.

On Israel-Palestine again..and need for "pyar bant-te chalo"

It has only been a couple of days since my last entry on this blog about Israel-Palestine. But since then, a lot has happened.

Israel has dropped a one tonne bomb on a Hamas leader’s home, killing not only him but 20 persons in all, including three of his wives and 11 of his children.

No prizes for guessing the Hamas response. I quote :
"The Palestinian resistance will not forget and will not forgive," said Hamas lawmaker Mushir Masri. "The resistance's response will be very painful."

No prizes either for guessing the US response. President Bush called the Hamas attacks “acts of terror”. Both he and Condoleeza Rice have their position that it was Hamas that instigated the attacks by first launching rockets into Israeli territory.

Sorry, but no prizes either for guessing the UN response. I know I am not being very generous here but I need to see some sign of effort :-). For the UN response, I quote :

Maxwell Gaylard, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinians Territories, said some 2,000 people have been wounded in the past week and a "significant number" of the dead were women and children. "There is a critical emergency right now in the Gaza Strip," he said.

Oh, really ? A critical emergency ? Thank you for informing us. We did not know that.

President Bush’s weekly radio address – included the following excerpt "The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful cease-fire that is fully respected," Bush said. "Another one-way cease-fire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice — there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end."

Brilliant. And, I will be optimistic here. There is every chance that this will work – in the short-run. But what thereafter ?

For how long can this be sustained ? Till a peace deal is struck ?

And when will that happen, if at all it does ? You think with the events of the last week, it will happen anytime soon ?

Not unless the deal is obtained at diplomatic gunpoint (but this time US or Israeli gunpoint, so that’s Ok).

And don’t worry, the peace deal will definitely be respected. That part of the world is not yet used to toilet paper out of recyled material.

And oh, I forgot ! My congratulations to Israel for killing one Hamas leader. Don’t worry about the other 19 (including women and children) who died in the process. We will just put that down to collateral damage, shall we ? Those lives were not worth living anyway.

And btw, I would just like to inform Israel that another couple of hundred jihadis have just enlisted, in Syria, to join Hamas today. Sorry, it is not “GAME OVER” time yet. Not by a long way.

In case anybody thinks I am swaying towards Hamas, he or she would have me completely wrong.

I am not swaying towards either side. I am just disgusted with the déjà vu aspect of this entire saga. Because I know it is only a matter of time before it will erupt again.

Anyway, I have decided not to work myself up into a frenzy on this subject. So this will be my last piece on this.

In fact, in my agitated state of mind when I wrote the last piece, I even joined a Facebook group to support Palestine. Which I did entirely because I believe in it – in supporting the people who are living under oppression.

What I discovered in the group however was vitriol, in huge quantities and of the highest quality. It should not have surprised me. The anger in the streets of Gaza has naturally spilled over, very effectively, onto the discussion forums on the net.

As for me, I don’t need this. It is the start of a new year – and I would like to be in a positive frame of mind. So while the subject will still be close to my heart – and I will be following developments like I have been all these years – I will not get “involved” in it. I am not able to make a difference anyway so there is no point getting worked up about it.

At such times, I tend to take recourse in music or reading. I have found Everyday Gyaan, a blog on my blogroll, to be an excellent stop for an inspirational read and feed.

Or else, I play for myself some songs that transport me into a different frame of mind. The one below is one of my favourites – it is certainly my favourite song on unity and brotherhood of man.

I am sure there are similar songs in their own languages, otherwise somebody needs to translate this for the Jews and Arabs in Israel and Palestine.

Pyar baant-te chalo (Spread love)…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P3zSjYlKg

Israel-Palestine...shame on the world !!!

Strange though it may seem, the saddest thing to me about the recent Israeli offensive in Palestine is not the bombing itself.

It is, yet again, proof to me that this world is shameless. And selfish to the core. I use strong language here but I cannot help it.

But at least the world is consistent.

Consistently indecisive – and entirely predictable. And I might add, consistently ineffective (assuming there is at least an iota of interest in resolving the conflict).

Oh, how much longer do I have to see this charade ?

I have been following this for over 30 years. From the time that I was just into my teens and beginning to understand a bit about world affairs.

Through the mid-late 70s, the Khmer Rouge (with Pol Pot as its leader) created front-page news. By the late 70s, the news began dying down.

As if on cue, the Iran-Iraq war, started in September 1980, took over the front pages. Then there was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, followed by the first Iraq war as a result of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

More recently, in events following 9/11, war and terror have almost always been a regular front-page feature in some part of the world or the other.

All this while, the war in Palestine has been going on. And, unlike other wars, since this was such a long-running war, it had its dedicated space on front-pages.

I remember, as a boy in India, I would actually be surprised if there was no mention of Gaza or West Bank on any given day’s news. Everytime there would be some escalation or some other big news (like the Sadat-Begin deal in Camp David in 1978), it would be headline news. Then, after a few days, the Israel-Arab conflict would again become side-column news.

At that time I was too young to understand the details, the background. All I knew was that Israel and the rest of the Middle East, primarily Arabs, were fighting a war. And that Israel was one of two countries that were explicitly “blacklisted’’ for Indians (the other was South Africa, due to apartheid). This gave me the impression then that India, without being involved as such, was sympathetic to the Arab cause.

As I grew older, I tried to understand more about the conflict. Maybe it was the daily dose of human suffering that I had been following for years in Indian newspapers – I just wanted to know more. So I began reading up on it. Read articles, news items, even watched TV programs on the subject. In those pre-Internet days, it was not all that easy to get information, especially if you wanted different points of view. These days of course there is so much information (some would say mis-information) out there, one can sift and analyse to one’s heart’s content.

But that is not the point here. The point I am trying to highlight is that this conflict has been going on and on. I still would not claim to know very much about it but it does seem to me to be at the root of many flashpoints of tension around the world in at least the last 30-40 years. (I am sure this was the case even before this but I can definitely speak for the last 30 years).

So what has the United Nations done ?

Effectively nothing.

Yes, there are some resolutions that have been passed. And which have had absolutely no effect.

The United States has made an effort. The closest I have seen a peace deal was when Clinton got Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak together at Camp David in 2000. It looked then that there might, just might, be a deal. Barak went far, farther than any other Israeli leader I can remember.

But the deal fell through on that thorniest of issues - Jerusalem. So, in a huge anti-climax, the discussions ended – and it was back to the familiar square one.

Since then, there has only been mistrust and further tensions. The players have changed but the animosity seems to remain just as strong as ever.

Arafat is dead, his Fatah Party has not been able to win elections in Palestine. Instead Hamas, much-dreaded by the Western world and hated by Israel is in charge in Palestine.

In Israel, Ehud Olmert and his Kadima party have toughened their stance in the light of elections coming up in February next year. But if they appear a bit hawkish now, this is nothing in comparison to the opposition Likud party, whose rightist leader Benjamin Netanyahu seems to me to be the last person to be willing to negotiate anything with any Arab party.

So the situation, purely from a bilateral negotiating standpoint, looks very grim. A ceasefire, even if it is agreed upon, is hardly likely to address anything structurally.

For any structural solution, the best option, in my opinion, is for the UN to step in.

I know it sounds laughable – given the UN’s track record in resolving any conflict around the world.

But while the UN may have credibility question-marks on its leadership ability, the United States, Europe and the Arab states have all got credibility question-marks on their integrity.

And that is a far more difficult bridge to cross.

Maybe, just maybe, with the new leadership in the US things change, but, at the moment, the US is still seen as too biased towards the Israelis to have much support from the Arab community. Besides, the US has enough problems of its own and may want to focus on them rather than engage in international conflict resolution at this point in time.

Europe has always had a wishy-washy standing in the Middle-East, though personally I believe Europe has probably a better integrity rating in the region than the US. But Europe has shown itself poor on taking a leadership role in past conflict resolution, conveniently leaving that role to the US and happy to play a support role.

The Arab states, closest to the heat, could bring both parties to the negotiating table – and if Israel is comfortable with this, this could actually be the best thing to happen for the conflict.

And, it would appear that Egypt, which often plays the lead role in mobilizing actions in the region on this matter, is beginning to establish some sort of rapport, however tenuous, with Israel.

But then, there is the other issue of the Arab world itself. It is too simplistic to talk of ONE Arab world, given the power struggles and constantly changing equations in the region.

Let’s look at this a bit.

Egypt, no doubt, has its influence - but Syria, the other neighbour in the conflict region, has its own issues with Israel. And though there are signs that the new Syrian leadership may even be willing to engage with Israel, there is the other big influence in the region, Iran, that cannot be under-estimated.

Iran sees itself as THE power in the region, especially after the Iraq war. It is very unlikely to allow any deal to be brokered in the region without its own stamp on it. And that stamp will ensure that Israel is left as much out in the cold as possible – which will be a non-starter for the deal itself. For a meaningful, and importantly sustainable deal, it has to have elements for both parties.

No, much as I would like the deal to be brokered from within - and this would be my first preference - I have doubts about this working out.

So I go back to the United Nations.

If, the UN, doing, for once in its 60+ years of existence, something that it was set up for in the first place, if it brings the parties together and works out a “bottoms-up” structural solution, it would appear to be a non-partisan solution and hopefully seen as fair by both parties.

But for this, the UN has to really go back to the basics and understand the root issues of the conflict. Which, in my opinion, are to do with land allocation, economic deprivation, human rights violations and oppression in general. Yes, religion too to some extent, but I believe that is used as a cover for these bigger day-to-day issues. When people are dying of hunger and have no water to drink, that is where the focus of the UN effort needs to be - in finding a political solution to the conflict.

After all, Arabs and Jews did live side-by-side for years (and still do). And there is every reason to believe that they can and will continue to do so.

But for this to happen, the world has to do more than just “condemn” violence.
Those perpetrating the violence – on both sides of the conflict - do not really care anymore about words – they are way beyond all that. They have real issues to deal with at ground-level. Since the world has chosen not to do anything for them, they have taken it upon themselves to fight their own battles.

No, the UN has to step in now and do something to address this once and for all.

After all it was the UN that threw the first stone, symbolically speaking, all of 61 years ago.

In November of 1947, a decision to separate the land of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state was taken through UN Resolution 181. Details can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_181 .

Reading through it again today, I found it interesting to note that the names of the countries that were involved in the voting process.

When countries like Bolivia, Costa Rica and Dominican Republic can have a say in influencing geographic boundaries and decisions of the Middle-East, one has to wonder about the quality of the decision.

To me there is no doubt that it was a decision forced upon the Arab community (the Arab league obviously voted against it) – and, to this day, we are seeing the fall-out of that decision. And the parties suffering are not Bolivia or Costa Rica or Dominican Republic. Or even Liberia, Haiti and Philippines, who, pressured by the US, voted for the decision.

No, it is the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and, consequently, Israel itself.

So much for group decision-making and for a neutral, objective body. The extent of my disgust cannot be quantified.

Anyway that was November 1947.

Sixty-one years on, and we have only seen wars and casualties since (and counting). Not unexpected, when you have such a sham of a deal. Arabs have not rested since – and Israel has not been quiet either. Rather, the six-day war in 1967 was just Israel flexing its muscle and taking the conflict to a different level. Whether it was pre-emptive or a reaction to Arab offensives, the fact is that it was a slap on the face of the United Nations.

I am not taking sides here. I can see very much why the Arabs feel so aggrieved. At the same time I can see why Israel feels threatened. If anything, I am more disgusted with the way the seeds of this conflict were sown than anything else.

If the UN could make that magnificent “leadership” move then, how about another one now ? But this time, involving maybe the parties directly affected a little bit more ? Guatemala may not be the best country to ask for its opinion on this subject.

It is a different world now compared to 1947. The UN needs to recognize this – and be bold enough to engage the region directly in a dialogue and not by proxy. It needs to show that it cares and genuinely wants to help. If it means re-drawing some lines, then so be it. If it means excluding some big names from the dialogue, so be it. Those affected directly are the ones who need to be actively engaged.

I know it is not going to happen.

There are too many vested interests today. Even more so than in 1947. Today’s politics is played in a much more subtle style than in 1947.

So we cannot realistically expect the UN to do anything.

Other than of course "condemning violence".

And in the meantime, people will continue to die and live a dog’s life. Children (what have they done wrong to be born in that region ?) will be deprived of their childhood. Instead of learning about life and how to enjoy it, they will be learning about death and how to escape it every day.

And the world will continue to see these pictures on TV, express their outrage, debate on websites.

And I will continue to write on my blog.

Like I have written before in http://rajaswaminathan.blogspot.com/2007/07/children-of-lesser-god.html and in my piece about war in general here http://rajaswaminathan.blogspot.com/2007/07/genesis-of-war_14.html .

Like I said, I do not claim to know much about the conflict. About who is right, who is wrong. Whether anybody is right or anybody is wrong. Sometimes these things are not about right or wrong, they are about compromise and making things work for all.

What I do know is that, by the UN doing nothing meaningful in the thirty years that I have been following this conflict, something is very wrong.

And oh yes, Happy New Year to all readers. Hope at least your lives are safe and peaceful.

Children of a lesser God ?

This piece was written on 6th August 2006. The war in Lebanon had been raging for almost a month. Pictures of the war were being streamed into our living rooms every minute. Some of us can remain detached. Some cannot. I must confess to getting rather despondent at that time.

At such times, I write. Write whatever comes to my mind. Write for myself - not for anybody else. It gives me some peace of mind. No, that is not right - not peace of mind, just some psychological relief.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am a disturbed person.

As the war in the Middle East rages on, the rest of the world tries to conduct its business in as normal a manner as possible. To be able to do so, requires a tremendous ability to distance oneself from events that one cannot control or influence. For the pictures streaming in on one’s home TV or on the internet (which is becoming as much of a medium, if not a more potent one, to share live pictures and opinion) make it very difficult to stay disengaged.

Those focussed on their own lives, and on the immediate world around them, will not have an issue at all. They realize that world events, especially wars and natural disasters, happen all the time. And as long as this does not touch them, they see no point in wasting time getting involved.

Sometimes I wish I could be indifferent too. Or just take it in my stride. If there is a war going on in Lebanon, why does it bother ME so much ? I don’t live there. None of the persons particularly dear to me in my life live in Lebanon or Israel, or even Syria for that matter.

Yet I am extremely disturbed by the war that has been raging there for close to a month now. It is not just the horrific pictures. From years of watching pictures of war on TV, I cannot remember images other than those of destruction, bloodshed, weeping family members and vows of revenge. And of course the mandatory military press briefing. That is the face of war that the public at large sees.

It is obviously not quite the same as actually being in a war-zone. Wondering when that next rocket is going to fall and how far from you that will be. Wondering whether you should move to another place (maybe a bunker close by) or stay put. Wondering how long the supplies you have will last you and your family and whether you should go for a replenishment trip. And if so, when.

The smallest of travails seems to have risk associated with it – something that those of us, sitting in the comfort of our living rooms, do not have to put up with. We just have to put up with the images we see on TV. And even that we do not have to – there are always the entertainment channels to switch to.

After all, it is somebody else’s war. It is somebody else’s nightmare. It is somebody else’s fate. We cannot espouse every cause in the world, nor can we help our own cause by getting involved. There is the political machinery of each country and established international institutions like the United Nations which have the political framework and the military apparatus to tackle war – it is their job to do so.

Indeed it is. We, the common people, have no role to play. We may have an opinion but it counts for zilch.

Maybe I just need to accept this. That my opinion counts for nothing. If I had wanted to be able to influence global events, perhaps I should have entered public life. Even then it would have been a very long shot to be able to make a difference but at least I would have been in the right profession. From where I am today, I feel I cannot even influence things happening in my own backyard, let alone things happening halfway around the world.

Somebody once said something about the pen being mightier than the sword. I think it was Rabindranath Tagore. Maybe that is an option. To be able to express oneself so powerfully and to be able to communicate with the masses and the powers-that-be , with just the power of the pen.

With the proliferation of communication means nowadays, it should be easy, sitting in one’s own drawing room, to be able to get one’s message across. A lot of people do this – and some, quite effectively too. My challenge is that I lack the self-confidence to put my views out there and to be able to engage in debate on them. I cannot argue on history, on what happened thousands of years ago around the time of Christ, what happened on the formation of Israel, what UN resolutions have or have not been issued since then to attempt to keep peace in the region.

The bottom line therefore is that if I choose to go the “power of the pen” route, I do not have enough content to be able to make a meaningful case for my argument. (To be honest, I doubt that a case can anyway be won on content in this highly-emotional, highly-disputable and fuzzy issue). I do not have a choice of going any other route because I have no political influence whatsoever.

On top of this, I feel that this war, whenever it officially ends, is only a precursor for bigger wars to come because the battle lines have been drawn so clearly now – and in blood – that rapprochement, always a difficult objective, is now going to be almost impossible to establish. Co-existence, for long a difficult but still viable mission and vision, now seems to be a million miles away.

And, I am not able to distance myself from this subject. It may sound stupid but I am just not able to look away from those scenes or switch off the TV or change the channel. For the truth is what it is – and does not disappear by one's choosing to ignore it.

This is our world - these are our children who are dying due to politics and war. What have they done wrong ? I don't care whether they are Israeli or Lebanese. Jew, Muslim or Christian. Try explaining to these innocent souls about UN resolutions. Are they children of a lesser God ?

Like I said at the start of this piece, I am a disturbed person. Small wonder.

The genesis of war

It is when I am in a Wordsworthian "vacant or pensive mood" and do not, unfortunately, have the serenity of watching daffodils out of my living-room window that my mind begins to dwell on subjects, abstract at a personal level, but close enough to my heart to occupy meaningful mind-space.

One such subject is war - often glamorised by the victors (as if there are any). As Israel-Lebanon commemorate the passing of one year since the Lebanese war - and lives continue to be lost in Iraq every day - and there is not the slightest signs of any quelling of the voices of mistrust and jingoism around the globe - I return to a piece I wrote a while ago.

Normally, any writing tends to get dated and loses its relevance and sting over a period of time. It is a sad and sobering reflection of the power (if that is the right word to use) of war that it enjoys perennial currency.

So when I picked up this piece that I had written exactly a year ago (mentally troubled as I was during the Lebanese conflict), I found that, sadly, nothing much has changed. The one positive development in the last twelve months is the brokered peace in Northern Ireland - one that I hope will be sustained. The key ingredient for any brokered peace is trust, and while I am cautiously optimistic about the situation, it is early days yet.

Anyway, onto my piece - as it was written on 18th July 2006.

Since time immemorial, man has been fighting man. Over land, over religion, over women (for example, Helen of Troy and Rani Padmini of mediaeval India).

One of my ex-bosses, a cynical man if ever there was one - an Italian by origin, a Welshman by birth, an Englishman by upbringing and a Dutchman by domicile – once made one of the most startling comments I have heard about war and peace. In his inimitable style, he said “Peace is just an interlude between two wars. It is man’s biggest folly that he believes he can live in uninterrupted peace”.

He was a cynical person, so let us not take this statement too seriously. But he was also very well-read – especially on world history and politics and could discuss, in great detail, events that triggered off and occurred during the Greek, Roman, Persian wars before Christ. He could just as well analyse the Crusades, wars that happened during the “dark ages”, wars fought in Europe for the last five hundred years (almost every country fought with every other country and the map of Europe has been changing every century), wars fought in Japan and China, down to the most recent wars of the last few decades.

I was amazed at his knowledge. He would be able to analyze cause-and-effect and the spillover effects of various wars. For example, Russia pulled out of Afghanistan finally in 1989 – and immediately the Kashmir issue, which had been dormant for many years, suddenly raised its ugly head again with kidnappings and increased violence in that region. Could it be that suddenly there was a huge availability of arms in Afghanistan (most of them provided by America by the way), there was a generation whose only skill was to fight – and suddenly there was a vacuum when their primary cause for fighting died out ? So, hey, suddenly “the liberation of Kashmir” becomes a welcome cause for this passionate, restless soldier community.

I still believe he was exaggerating when he made that comment. But sometimes you have to exaggerate, for effect. He had me for sure completely shocked by his statement. That statement was made sometime in 1997 or so but it has remained etched in my memory. I have thought a lot about it in the years since.

War is a complex subject and to try to analyze it purely factually would be to do grave injustice to the many non-quantifiable factors that play their role in the creation of circumstances that lead to a war or to the war itself.

I am a simple man and I try to figure out, for my own simple mind, why people fight with each other. And I come to the following conclusions.

Greed. This is the single biggest reason why people fight with each other. Whether you are arguing with your neighbour over what exactly constitutes your fence boundary with him, or you are eyeing that weak country that you could “grab” hold of, it amounts to greed. In previous millennia, it was very common for emperors to expand their territories by marching into others’ territories and forcing submission by war if necessary. Reason : acquisition of more wealth, lands, slaves.

While the flavour of such expansionist ideas did change over the centuries, the concept continued till at least the end of the First World War. The powers of the world then (many of whom by then had whetted their appetite for political expansion) suddenly tried to appear more civil and set up the “League of Nations” – a first, rather hurried effort to try to bring “world order” into place.

Mr. Adolf Hitler, who had not only missed out on all the fun of land-grabbing but also felt that the final whistle had been blown at a wrong time for his country (Germany lost huge terrority to France when the Versailles Treaty was signed after World War I ), decided to give it one more try. It did not work for him. The biggest villain of the twentieth century was, to put it simply, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just a century or two earlier, and he would have been remembered as an inspiring leader. Now he was consigned to be remembered as the man who cost the world a few million lives.

Coming back to my point – the biggest reason for war is, in my opinion, greed. Greed for more power, more land, more wealth.

Supply-Demand imbalance. This to me is another major reason for war. As long as there is plenty of supply of any commodity, mankind will be relatively at peace. I say “relatively” because there are still those greedy elements who, inspite of having more than their requirement, will not spare anything for the more needy. But, by and large, surplus supply of any asset is not something that one often complains about.

When there is a shortage, that is when there is definitely stress – and struggle. Whether it is a shortage of jobs, or land – tensions mount. Where there are haves and have-nots in one society, and there are extremes between these two, there is always a chance of civil war. There may be other mitigating factors for this but if the institutions of that society are not strong enough (for example, if the power is not derived through democratic means), the exposure level of that society is high. The most recent example we have of this is Nepal. One may argue that there were other reasons for the Nepalese tensions but in my simple mind, it comes down to haves and have-nots and the imbalance in the power equation.

Make no mistake - the war in the Middle East (in and around Israel) is not just a war about ideologies, although this is used very effectively to rally forces to your cause. It is also a war about limited resources, land, jobs, water – everything that you fight for in those regions. And then, the difference in religious ideologies just takes the conflict to a different level altogether.

So, would an economically developed Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon be able to live in peace together ? I would love to say yes but that is where I would be very naïve in not recognizing that third demon of all wars – religion.

Many are the wars that have been fought over religion. This is very ironic considering every faith professes peace as one of its primary teachings. But, whether it is the Crusades fought over centuries, or wars fought in Bosnia and Chechnya, they have had religious differences as their driving force.

There are other reasons for war too. Anything that divides people can cause war if the circumstances build up to such a flashpoint. In Rwanda and Burundi, the war between Hutus and Tutsis in the 1990s which killed millions, was one fought on ethnic differences. If you delve deeper, you will find that even here, the root cause is the more dominant ones – supply/demand imbalance and to some extent, greed for power. The Hutus were the original settlers in Rwanda and tilled the land. The Tutsis were a nomadic tribe whose main occupation was cattle-herding. As they got more economically dominant to the soil-tilling Hutus, they began ruling the Hutus, though they were in a minority. The Hutus began losing more and more of their land, though they outnumbered the Tutsis. The stage for a grand civil war was set and it was a disaster just waiting to happen. The world could only watch as the atrocities mounted every day and people died by the millions.

A rather perverse reason for war, and one that is not realized very often, is the sheer availability of means. We keep talking about motive – but any good detective story will tell you that motive and means are both required for a successful murder to be committed. All the above reasons are about motive – but if there are no means for war at all, there is a chance that a disagreement will not blow up into a full-scale war. But if the means are also readily available – as in my earlier example about the situation in Afghanistan after the Russian retreat – then the situation gets that much more explosive.

As I said earlier, war is a complex subject. There is rarely just one reason for it, often one reason feeds another. Greed for power or land, often creates a supply-demand imbalance.

So, now that I have had my theoretical say on what I believe is the genesis of war, do I have solutions ? At least theoretical ones ? I daresay I do.

As with my holistic approach to try to explain to myself why people go to war, my solutions too are only holistic. Unless one side in a war is so overwhelmingly dominant as to completely exterminate the other side and its ideology – that too, for generations to come, I fear that violence will only serve up more violence. Unfortunately, modern weapons of warfare are not confined to just one side in a war and that makes the likelihood, scale and duration of a war far more frightening than ever before.

But, if my assessment of the root causes of war is even reasonably accurate, would it not help to at least try to mitigate conditions that create war-like circumstances ? For one, reduce the supply-demand imbalance. Share more resources instead of the “I want it all” approach.

I know that a suggestion to reduce means will directly hit at the supply capability of the not insignificant global armaments industry. After all, in peacetime, production goes on and stockpile only accumulates dust. I have always been a bit wary of sincerity in various “arms reduction treaties” between warring factions – but where there is a will for warfare – and a means - there is, frighteningly enough, almost always a way.

So work on the will AND on the means – and you will working on the root causes of war.

And hopefully, my erudite ex-boss, for all his knowledge of every war that has ever been fought by humanity, will be proven wrong about that “war and peace” observation.

I know, for all his wisdom and ego, he would love to be wrong on this one.