Okay, before any of you actually read this, this is an essay that I wrote in gr10 last year. It was an assignment that had to answer a few questions:
Why does war start?
How do we prevent wars from starting?
And what does God think of war?
If you do not like reading anything about God, I suggest you leave, everyone is entitled to their opinion on that, but. My teacher was surprised that this essay and the opening quote, (which I hope all Gundam Wing fans recognize), came from a children's cartoon show on television. If you think about it, it is very much true. I hold no legal claims for the quotes from Gundam Wing that I have put in this essay, but everything else is my opinion, please review and let me know what you think. I decided to post it in remembrance to all of those who have suffered, died, and those who's lives have forever been changed in the events that took place in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
~*~ Diamond Wing Pegasus ~*~
History Is Much Like an Endless Waltz
Life is an endless waltz; the three beats of war, peace, and revolution are ongoing as history repeats itself. As long as there are humans, there will always be needless battles and wars. Most of these battles and wars are a result of greed, greed for money, land, and for power and total domination.
Wars happen because of disagreements or greed. It is within human nature to be dominant. Disagreements can be over, what some see as, petty things. Things like differences in social structures, politics even. Or, they can start because of disagreements over national borders, religion, ways of life, or culture. It is these differences that make all of our cultures and us unique, yet it is how arguments over what's more important and whose culture is better, begins.
Greed, it is in human nature for all of us to be greedy and lust for power. Power means domination, which also means absolute control of everything and everyone. Lots of wars are started because one person or one nation wishes for power and makes a move to achieve their goal of total domination. But where there is war there is and always will be retaliation. Always, in the past, present, and in the future, there will be people to stand up to these people and attempt to stop them, not always being successful, or losing many people and having high casualty rates.
"The War To End All Wars", that is the title for WWI, (World War One). However history has repeated itself many times over, resulting in many wars and battles since then, including WWII, (World War Two), the Vietnam War, and many others. It appears that there is no way to prevent a war from starting, we are all stubborn, and believe we are better to think otherwise. To run away from a fight, fights meaning from wars to simple fights at school, is considered to be a cowardly way to behave and act, so nations and groups of people do not want to be seen as cowards, so when a challenge is made, they don't back down.
An idea to attain peace is through total pacifism, where every single group, person, army, and nation discards all weapons. However, many people do not believe in this idealism of total pacifism, and rather believe that peace is attained through war. That showing people that war and fighting is wrong it will teach them to stop. In reality, both of these two groups of people are trying to attain a certain sense of pacifism and most important of all, peace.
Sometimes, battles are not started by nations, buy by people who want to prove that they are strong. These wars are next to impossible to prevent because these people are usually strong speakers and have great influence on powerful people who may give them support. The question now should be would we ever be able to prevent wars from happening? The simple answer is probably no, because as our knowledge and technology grow, so does our thirst for power and domination, which may, in turn be the down fall of the human race and the destruction of earth.
Justified war…is there such a thing? How can war be justified if so many people are lost? A justifiable war is like the Civil War in the U.S. Yes, many people were lost there as well but they were fighting for a purpose, one that was not based for power or greed. Not to say any other war that has been fought were not for good causes as well, but this one is definitely the most known of them.
Many people believe that there is no such thing as a justifiable battle or war, or a true peace as a result of war. Peace attained through death, war, needless battles, and chaos is not a true peace, rather it is a forced and fake peace. This is believed only because there can never be peace if we are forced to settle old arguments. The only way to true peace is to throw away weapons, national differences, and old grudges without being forced into it. Or it could be settled by the two people who started the battle, (wouldn't that be nice, but it's not likely to ever happen). It would turn out sort of like an old fashioned duel of honor between two rivals, a battle to the end. But that was then, and people fight differently now, and there would still be no true peace, there would still be a sense of loss, regret, and grudge against the victor.
God, he gave us the ability to choose for ourselves what we want to do with our lives. He must think that we have wasted this gift that he has given us. No one can really know what God thinks about us and the way we act, and our wars and petty battles. It could be that it is God's way to purge the human race of disease, greed, wars, and evil, but we honestly can't know, because we are not God. But the question that I think everyone in the world should think about is: 'Is this why God gave us our freedom?' All we know for certain, is that the war is far from over, it is in face just beginning.
~*~ Diamond Wing Pegasus ~*~
~ Wars are stared by people, and ended by people. ~ by: WufeiChang, Gundam Wing