Peace and war
- When wars break out, you can worry about the fate of the poor innocent victims and, above all, if the theater of military operations is relatively close, about your own safety.
Many Italians, who are always ahead of the pack, despite being relatively close to the mayhem, have decided to be anxious exclusively about the price of gas.
If the water — make that the kerosene — touched their asses, they'd finally understand what the real disasters caused by conflicts are.
Let's hope they stay in their blissful ignorance, since right next to their asses are ours, too. - It would already be something if the "armchair strategists of other people's wars" stopped hiding behind the word "peace" when all they're really doing is hoping their favorite wins.
Peace, the kind that allows for no armed confrontation and so has no winners or losers, is not an abstract ideal for Franciscans or Buddhists: it's a concrete condition necessary to live a life worthy of the name.
Peace is the only sensible goal of realpolitik. - But maybe the true value of peace is only fully grasped by the peoples or generations who have lived through war.
That's why, after eighty years without belligerence, Europeans' hands are starting to itch again, and instead of being horrified by the prospect of a conflict, they cheer for this or that warmonger.
When we take for granted what is in fact a precious achievement, forgotten crypts spring open in dusty corners of our psyche, and from them, like monsters, sinister ancestral impulses resurface. - Still, these tragic events serve some purpose: we're finally learning a little geography.
Hormuz and Kharg are a mouthful, sure, but the difference between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, at least that, may finally be clear.
Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.
