#BTColumn – Stop being so passive

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Jade Gibbons

Aristotle said: ‘We make war that we may live in peace’. When I first read this quote, I thought it was deep and profound. After watching the documentary No Greater Love (2015) by Justin Roberts I understood that Aristotle’s comment had not been the result of academic discourse.

Rather, it was a self-evident truth articulated by a man who had experienced war. One of the soldiers in No Greater Love echoed Aristotle’s comment when he highlighted that the reason he fought was so the villagers could live in peace.

The way he saw it, he fought not to take the life of an enemy, but to preserve the life of someone who could not defend themself. I mention this because it is my firm persuasion that the primary cause of the persistence of contemporary wars is pacifism.

A modern commentator may say that this position is counterintuitive as pacifism promotes peace and nonviolence, yet the festering sores of Syria and Yemen implore me to see otherwise.

For our purpose, pacifism will be delimited as the opposition to war and violence, even as a means of self-defence.

It entails the belief that the waging of war by a state and the participation in war by an individual are absolutely wrong, under any circumstance. This form of pacifism, which is classified as absolute, is the furthest point down the rabbit hole one may venture.

Why is it a problem? Because it is an extremist view and, like any other view in that class, is highly destructive.

To articulate my point, I will examine a war that has already concluded. From 1939 to 1945 Europe and all of her colonies were embroiled in a fight against what we today would class as pure evil.

A historical analysis permits one to see that it was not the dialogue nor the harsh words of Winston Churchill that stopped the Nazis’ systematic extermination of the Jews.

The evidence shows that it was the overwhelming combined military might of the Brits, Americans and Russians that prompted Hitler to kill himself in the face of inevitable defeat.

The result of this was the surrender of German troops.

It must be noted that the aforementioned nations only entered the war after being attacked.

If the Governments and people of these nations had not retaliated with force, it is highly probable that the Holocaust survivors would have met gruesome deaths. It is also probable that I, a black person born in the late twentieth century, would never have been born.

When we look back on WWII, we can all conclude that Hitler was unjust for the injury he caused to the Jewish people.

We can also conclude that the Allied forces would have been equally unjust if they had failed to protect their citizens and defend their neighbours from injury when they possessed the ability to.

In 1941 an editorial in the Times Literary Supplement wrote: ‘We have discovered that there is something more horrible than war – the killing of the spirit in the body, the Nazi contempt for the individual man. The world reeks with the foulness of the crimes in occupied Europe, where a Dark Age has begun anew.’

In closing, I’d like to highlight that there is a difference between unbridled, destructive belligerence and constructive defence.

We live in an age where very few of us have tasted war but all of us benefit from the blood sacrifice of those who went before us. Some will argue that Christ tells us to love our neighbours and to turn the other cheek and this is true.

He also calls us to seek justice for the oppressed. Executing justice may cause loss but it is important to remember that failing to execute justice will result in disaster. I’d also like to highlight that war can take many forms.

By definition war can be (a)- a state of armed conflict between different nations, states, or armed groups. This is the type of war discussed above. Or war can be (b)- a sustained contest between rivals or a campaign against something undesirable.

As Christians, we are called to war against our spiritual enemies and their physical manifestations. Christ said, ‘From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.’

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making.