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In the patriotic Hollywood movie 'Syriana' (2005), a child asks his parent why people fight. In a simple reply befitting a young child, the parent offered a brief comment on politics, power, and belief systems. In another movie, this time a Bollywood spy film, Khufiya (Secret; 2023), a similar conversation took place about why wars occur. The mother's lines were…
“As long as the world is divided into religion and countries… this will continue, and we are all responsible”.
It may be simplistic to categorically identify the reasons tribes go to war. We may say that people fight for the piece of cloth that holds them all together. If that were true, why should the European borders change so often from the 17th to the 20th century? The motif on the cloth and the allegiance to the powers that be changed so often at the drop of a hat (or helmet) with each battle.
Do religions cause disputes? Funny, because Man created religions to instil the fear of God and to work towards a greater good for humanity. Religions intended to create a level playing field so the weak and poor will have a chance at living on God's great Earth. Amusing that this noble cause has been twisted so much to become the nidus of many a war. One brother thinks he has found the real path to God and becomes hell-bent to defend his idea to the grave. He does mind harming his own flesh and blood to drive home the point that his personal god is superior to his brothers'. Multiple wars are still being fought on many fronts, defending religion or its numerous denominations within.
Do we defend the land we reside in as it is our motherland (or fatherland, if you are German)? Have we been behaving like predators, trying to mark our territories to ensure the land's wealth is exploited for our personal needs? We know what happened to the whole world when the Nazi regime was singing the glory of the Third Reich, as if the previous two Reichs were any better. Nations have been shutting their doors to their needy and poor neighbours for aeons. This is even seen in the 21st century.
During the First World War, India is said to have sent 1.3 million of its people to fight for the British Empire in exchange for the promise of self-rule. Paradoxically, not everyone was in the same boat with this arrangement. The Indian Muslims were not so thrilled with the idea of killing their brothers of the same faith in combat on the opposing side. Yet the whole world thought it was justified to start a world war, all because Germany had invaded a fellow European country, even though the imperialists had been doing the same over Asian and African countries for the longest time. Apparently, some lives matter more than others.
In India, that resistance against sending troops to support the Allied Forces soon morphed into the Khilafat movement, which eventually divided India into three parts. The idea of reliving the glory days of the Ottoman Empire is still very much alive through groups like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah. It becomes more complicated as the perpetrator and the victim both justify their actions and claim victory over the other. I guess the true victims are the ones caught in the crossfire. To the warring factions, they are written off as mere collateral damage.
Evolutionary experience has taught us that we need others to survive. We become stronger in groups. For all intents and purposes, it is a numbers game. Babies as young as five months old have learned to favour their own tribes and be wary of outsiders. This trait must have persisted into adulthood, fostering distrust of outsiders. When things do not go our way, we conveniently blame all our woes on 'others'. When the economy is bad, we blame everyone else. When the crime rate skyrockets, we blame immigrants. The 'others' that we blame may be invisible, but they form important bogeymen to absolve our oversights. Political leaders find these 'others' convenient punching bags to rally support for a power grab.
On the one hand, we think we need others to prosper; on the other, we have an innate tendency to dominate them. We assume resources are limited, and we have to be one step ahead of the man next door, always trying to outwit them. We hoard goods for a rainy day, but do help a friend in need. These 'selfish genes' ensure the survival of our own kind. In modern times, we call this geopolitics. It ensures that the needs and interests of people in a particular locale are addressed. In geopolitics, there are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. For years, I have kept hearing this sentence when it comes to geopolitics. There are no permanent friends or enemies. Self-interest prevails.
Since languages unite people, it was thought that countries and states should be demarcated according to their spoken languages. Then, it dawned upon us that even people speaking the same language can be at loggerheads with people of the same linguistic group. An example that comes to mind is the case of Andhra Pradesh, established by the Telugu-speaking community, only to split along economic lines.
That is where it finally comes to. It is all about dollars and cents. As the old Tamil adage goes, 'at the mention of money, even a corpse would gape its mouth in awe'! People may be intertwined in many ways - culture, language or even DNA. The things that supersede all these bonds are wealth and power. Greed has no boundaries. The world provides for all our needs, but not our greed.
The promise of the mother of all wars to end all wars is just a dream. It will be the beginning of many more. As Einstein posited, "I do not know how World War 3 will be fought, but one thing I know is that World War 4 would be fought with sticks and stones!"
It just goes on to show that even when the tide is down and out, the human spirit to overtake, control, lead and be one step above his neighbour will never stop. Fighting is in-built. No generations of civilizational advances will change that.
We thought the ability to integrate the five senses with advanced cognitive abilities made us superior to animals. In reality, we are not. Unlike other beings, which kill for food, territory and mates, we have the dubious distinction of killing for sport and pleasure. Perhaps, having a complex brain is the issue here. Even brainless creatures like ants and bees live in complex hierarchical societies, ensuring proper defence and the survival of their progeny. Still, they fight only for food and space.
Maybe we are all cursed as we slowly move towards entropy and Armageddon.
Farouk Gulsara (asokansham@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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