There is a famous quote by Erich
Hartman, “War is a place where young people who don’t know each other and don’t
hate each other, kill each other, by the decision of old people who know each other
and hate each other, but don’t kill each other.”
Erich Hartmann was a German fighter pilot during World War II. In the history Ariel Warfare, he was most successful fighter plane piolet, who flew 1,404 combat missions, apart from participating in aerial combat on 825 separate operations. In his credit he had shot a total of 352 Allied aircrafts which accounted 345 Soviet and 7 American planes. Interesting during the course of his career, he was forced to crash-land his fighter 16 times due either to mechanical failure or damage received from parts of enemy aircraft he had shot down; he was never shot down by direct during enemy assault!
I always cherish his quote since
I read it first. We should teach our kids and try to imbibe the feeling of
killing another human being for the sake of war of hatred.
If we look at world history a
complete subversion of rights and loss of freedoms not just under colonial rule
but also the brutal regime of Adolph Hitler, who had created a ministry to centralize
Nazi control of all aspects of German cultural and intellectual life. In the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment
and Propaganda, Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels as the Reich Propaganda
Minister. An unstated goal was to present to other nations the impression that
the Nazi Party had the full and enthusiastic backing of the entire population.
It was responsible for controlling the German news media, literature, visual
arts, filmmaking, theatre, music and broadcasting. The results of such a
ministry which aimed at spreading the Nazi ideology, are well documented.
While observing the war history
of 30 years in between Rwanda and the Balkans, Edward L. Glaeser from Harvard University, in his
publication, "The Political Economy of Hatred" Quarterly Journal of Economics
(Vol 120, No.1, Feb., 2005) concluded that much of human misery is due to
religious and ethnic conflicts!
He writes that Hatred is fostered
with stories of an out-group's crimes, but the impact of these stories comes
from repetition not truth. Hate-creating stories are supplied by politicians
when such actions help to discredit opponents whose policies benefit an
out-group. Egalitarians foment hatred against rich minorities; opponents of
re-distribution build hatred against poor minorities. Hatred relies on people
accepting, rather than investigating, hate-creating stories.
His interpretation is that hatred
declines when there is private incentive to learn the truth. Increased economic
interactions with a minority group may provide that incentive.
He concludes that this framework
was used to illuminate the evolution of Anti-Black hatred in United States
South, episodes of anti-Semitism in Europe, and the recent surge of
Anti-Americanism in Arab World.
Laura Dugan and Erica Chenoweth
in their publication in Criminology (Vol 58, Issue 4) in their publication
"Threat, embodiment, or both? The effects of Political Power on Violent hate crimes" observed the fact, the Center for the Study of Hate and
Extremism found that hate crimes reported to the police rose 12.5 per cent from
923 in 2016 to 1,038 in 2017 in the 10 largest U.S. cities, with the most
common motivations being anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and
anti-Latino. It was observed that hate
crimes had typically spiked during election years in the US.
It was also claimed and
documented that President Trump's hostile rhetoric toward specific groups has
emboldened individuals to perpetrate violence against those he targeted.
We have been following news about the disturbance from Syria to
Yemen and South Sudan to Venezuela, the political turmoil and war has caused human anguish on a scale unseen in a
generation.
In her article "Misery as Strategy: The Human Cost of Conflict", Caroline Flintoft, Senior Advisor, Humanitarian Fallout of Conflict discusses the issue in detail is a must read for every concerned human being.
These conflicts due to political
reasons have taken highest human death toll and refugee crisis. By 2016, the
number of people displaced globally has stood at 65.6 million, which is the
greatest number since World War II.
During the regime of President
Bashar al-Assad, the war in Syria also has seen horrendous human suffering as a
result of actions by all sides. It was reported that in his regime he repeatedly used
tactics that deliberately harm civilians for political and military gain. Just
to take back the areas occupied by
opposition he has been to drain them of resources, degrade infrastructure and
target civilians and rebels with same force
The government forces, backed by
Russian air power, have bombed civilians which included schools and
hospitals in rebel-held areas. The use
of chemical weapons against civilians was also reported.
On the other side, the rebel
groups too have carried out their own atrocities on civilians. The Islamic
State (ISIS) had used chemical weapons, though at much smaller scale than the
regime, and mass executions.
There was another conflict
between South Sudan and Venezuela. The stories of human suffering have been
flooded due to civil war among various parties.
The civilians are facing attack
from both Government troops and rebel forces apart from armed groups of all
stripes, leaving them without the means of sustaining their livelihood.
It is interesting to note from
the report of Crisis Group, that humanitarian crisis in Venezuela’s is not
resulted from the war, but from political crisis and political indecisions.
As a result, hundreds of
thousands of Venezuelans are fleeing poverty, hunger and deadly disease
epidemics due to economic disaster. It is pointed to know that the President
Nicolás government rejects economic reform, fearing such measures would
threaten its grip on power and resources.
We can easily conclude that all
the happenings of human sufferings is due to the greed of power and wealth. Whatever
the philosophies of leadership is being taught fails, when one cannot support a
healthy system of human life. There are many such examples all over the world that
how the hatred among different people has been used as a tool by leaders and
politicians to gain power. Please give me an example of a leader who has worked
for the betterment of normal human being and if any, tell me how many years he or
she has sustained?!
