Every War Sows The Seeds For A New War

This is it. This is “The War To End All Wars.” That’s what they said about the First World War. Over 40 million people died because of the war. However, I believe the numbers are much higher. Food shortages, unemployment, sorrow, hate and anger, lead to millions more dying.

And the First World War as we all know wasn’t the end of all wars, it sowed the seeds for the Second World War. Hitler used the shame and anger of defeat during the First World War to mobilize a new war. The Second World War was more catastrophic – over 85 million people directly lost their lives.

But millions more suffered.

Now that war sowed the seeds of many more new wars. Today the world is seeing new wars. The Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Palestine war, and every side thinks they will win, but they don’t realize there are sowing seeds for many future wars.

Imagine two countries fighting each other. One country drops a bomb and during the bombing a child loses his family. He somehow escapes, but he has lost his own family.

Now when this child grows up, in the next 15 to 20 years, he will have immense hatred and anger against the country that dropped the bomb. Deep within him, this anger and hate festers up.

And he decides to take revenge. And this child starts a new war.

And this is the same on both sides. In a war both sides sow the seeds for future wars. And the hate keep growing and growing and growing.

It doesn’t stop. Because the same thing happened on the other side too.

This is the vicious cycle of war. And in a war remember the people fighting don’t benefit. The soldiers don’t benefit. The civilians don’t benefit. The parents who lose their children don’t benefit. The children who lose their friends don’t benefit.

No, the only people who benefit are the people with vested interests. The ones who sell the warm machine and the political class whose own children are not the ones going to fight.

This is why we as humans need to become aware. To start, stop teaching hate to your children.

Wars will never end if you keep teaching your kids to hate. Whatever happened in the past is over. Let us start new. Let this be a new beginning.

For instance, my grandparents are from Sindh. During the partition, they lost all their material wealth. They had to leave their homes and wealth in Sindh and came to this part of India.

But they didn’t teach us to hate. Because had they taught us to hate, we would still be stuck in the cycle of hate. Hate would have stopped us to grow and learn and laugh and love and build a new life.

Imagine if Indians still hated the British because they had colonized us. It would be silly, because it would stop both sides from collaborating and working together.

Not just countries even in your personal life. If you hate someone, let go, research has proved that when you hate, that hate leads to many problems.

It could be physical ailments, disease, mental issues and that hate just takes away from the flow of life.

Life is meant to have a beautiful flow. A river flows that doesn’t have blockages. Hate is a blockage that stops the flow of life. It stops the flow of creativity and possibility.

May you let go of all your hate. This life is too beautiful to be wasted in hating.

Yogesh Chabria