Will we ever learn the futility of hate and war?
The Universe
(September 21, 2003)
THE madness is back. Short-range tactical nuclear weapons are the ‘in thing’ with the military establishment –especially that of America and you can be sure that the other western nuclear powers – Britain, France and Russia – will be taking a hard look at the developments.
We all thought that world powers had long abandoned reliance on nuclear weapons for defence. Not so.
US President George W. Bush has pulled out of a treaty with Russia to greatly reduce the number of nuclear weapons in their arsenals. However, the commitment of the US to explore and develop ‘backpack’ nukes, or the so-called low-radiation bunker-buster nuclear bomb is something that will reignite the anti-nuclear movement.
In a recent BBC interview with Tim Sebastian on Hard Talk, a representative of the conservative Washington think-thank which works to win, and if using nuclear weapons was the only way to achieve that, then it had the right to use them.
What a chill this sent through me and, no doubt, all people of non-violence. I have walked the painful path through the Hiroshima atomic bomb museum and have seen the utter power and destruction caused by one nuclear device, tiny compared to what is available today.
When I stood at the spot where the blast occurred, I felt a great sadness at the madness of the human race. Why do we hate and kill each other with such ferocity and savagery. Why do we kill at all? The millions killed by bullets or starvation or radiation, the atrocities of all wars and genocides of recent years ought to have us doubt a loving caring God or convince us that human kind has truly turned away from a loving creator. That of course is what Jesus Christ tried to restore – a loving bond, a state of harmony between Creator and all of us.
From the broken branch first used by humans to bludgeon a rival we have developed a weapon of incredible power and destruction. Yet the basic impulse to use it and the reason for doing do remain more or less the same. Intellectual developments has taken place but precious little spiritual and human growth.
The bigger and more destructive the bombs, whether the massive ‘daisy cutters’ of the military or the car bomb or hijacked aeroplane of the terrorist, none ever brings an end to hatred and killing. They only create more deeper thirst for revenge and retaliation.
Nothing will bring peace but the laying down of
weapons and calls for the development of a new way of seeing the world
around us; not one to be subdued with brute force, but a world to be
built from peace and mutual respect by international justice and
peace-making.
