If the world were a living body, it would be bleeding to death from fifty-four mortal wounds. Its survival would be nearly impossible. Fifty-four wars are currently ravaging planet Earth—none of them decided by the peoples themselves, but by the powerful, who—as we explore throughout this issue of the magazine—benefit both directly and indirectly from them.
If every person is endowed with infinite dignity, and we firmly believe this to be true, then war is undoubtedly one of humanity’s greatest failures and its gravest deception. The trail of victims cannot be measured only by those killed by cannons and missiles. Millions continue to die from hunger and entirely preventable diseases (for misery is the battleground of war), while millions more—children and adults alike—wander in exile, seeking refuge and a home far from their homelands.
Nearly one hundred million people have pitched their tents in refugee camps—more than after World War II—and another two hundred million are forced migrants searching for a land that might restore their dignity. The spiral of violence, the relentless struggle for existence, has its roots in structural injustice, which condemns the vast majority of humanity to misery—to the gutter of history.
“War is the continuation of politics by other means,” proclaims the famous maxim attributed to Carl von Clausewitz, the renowned 19th-century Prussian military theorist. Indeed, in the current logic of power—totalitarian, oppressive, and voracious for profit—politics itself has already become war.
It is no wonder that some long for the so-called Pax Romana, reminiscent of the situation Europe experienced after World War II under the protective shield of the U.S. emperor, who now demands his tribute. But everyone knows—or perhaps not—that a peace sustained by fear, deterrence, exploitation, slavery, disposability, and the cemeteries of countless nameless victims is nothing more than the fragile balance of warring powers.
We clearly and resolutely advocate for an unarmed and disarming peace.
To disarm peace demands a complete transformation of this economic and financial system that thrives on conflict, discord, and the plundering of the Earth and its impoverished peoples in order to grow ever larger and more powerful. This system has reduced nation-states, international organizations, and peoples—now degraded to “masses” or “populations”—to mere servants of its interests.
Unarmed and disarming peace begins with a commitment to justice that calls for concrete action: to cancel illegitimate debts and the usury mechanisms that sustain them; to end hunger and misery; to abolish and eradicate all forms of slavery; and to channel political will and resources into stopping every war. Let no one claim there are insufficient means for this, when we consider the colossal resources consumed by war.
To disarm peace also requires transforming the very logic of this system that has taken root in our bodies, our consciousness, and our souls (soulless, yet still armed). The system has invested vast resources to ensure that our souls, minds, and bodies are driven only by the pursuit of fame, success, money, and empty pleasure. The alienation of our being—body, mind, and soul—is its most strategic raw material and energy source.
There can be no unarmed peace unless we embark on a profound transformation of our being—a recovery of dignity and freedom that can never exist apart from others, for we are relational, interdependent, and solidaristic beings. Unarmed and disarming peace is an artisanal endeavor involving each and every one of us—our personal and collective growth, our active participation, our shared protagonism.
To disarm peace means practicing gestures of peace and reconciliation in the small things of daily life—in our relationships with neighbors, neighborhoods, cities, regions, peoples, and nations. It means cultivating welcome, encounter, dialogue, agreement, and forgiveness that opens the door to reconciliation. Not an easy task in a world of “every man for himself,” of “all against all,” of rampant hyper-individualism that has reduced human relationships to mere utility.
Peace is the way. It is not a rosy path, but a demanding journey that requires rekindling the flame of fraternity, trust, and hope. It is a commitment to what is good, true, and beautiful—a path that cannot be traveled without trial and error, without family, without friends, without “schools” and “islands” of peace where we can learn to welcome, protect, integrate, dialogue, forgive, and coexist.
The cry for peace must not be silenced by the rhetoric of war, hatred, or indifference. Unarmed and disarming peace is built by recognizing the common humanity that unites all human beings. If we truly desire an unarmed and disarming peace, we must build it—not prepare for war. It is both a personal and a political challenge—the two together.
