The unknown soldier
No matter how many flowers are places on the graves and no matter how beautiful the words recited in memory of the dead, few people would exchange social networks, or even street protests, for real combat. There is no lack of courage, common sense remains.
When the bloody War of Canudos came to an end, the soldiers marched victoriously to Rio de Janeiro where they discovered that they would have no more pay or a place to live. Ex-soldiers joined ex-slaves to occupy the hills, which would soon give rise to the first favela in Rio de Janeiro. A very different treatment than expected for “heroes”.
Among so many groups that formed Brazilian troops during the Paraguayan War were former slaves who gave their lives for their freedom. They fought for the hope of being poor and so dependent on their comperes, that the difference to the slave relationship was small. They offered their lives for a small achievement.
More than a century later, few, if any, children of US congressmen have enlisted to face the dreaded “axis of evil” exalted by Bush. Summary of the sad and inhumane convenience of waging war with the sacrifice of others, a relationship that Michael Moore exposed in his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
At first glance, the World Wars seem more admirable examples than the previous ones, because it was a question of facing the evil that haunted the Western world. It haunted the territories of the whites and the rich, since the powers do not usually care much about the atrocities carried out by genocides in the poor world. Hitler was terrible, but no less than Leopoldo II, responsible for the deaths of 10 million Congolese. Still, few have heard of the King of Belgium, who controlled the Congo from 1885 to 1908, and who recently had some of his statues removed.
In other words, if a war is to be justified, it must threaten the Western world. Only then do they begin to import values such as homeland and freedom, capable of uniting the world to prevent a greater evil. Congo did not meet this requirement and did not deserve international intervention.
Just war is a malleable concept that takes into account the most perverse objectives, legitimizing any form of massacre on both sides of the war, yet essential for the population not to lose the will to fight. Churchill, Roosevelt and even Hitler had to convince their citizens that they were fighting a just war, regardless of how tortuous that reasoning might be. In a just war, everyone is against the enemy.
It’s unbelievable to think that so many people consider the expectation of war to be natural. Almost all nations have armies and worship war through their “heroes” and military feats, often taught to children in classrooms. Feats that are nothing more than battles, not even remembered as a necessary evil or with the shame we should feel for an inevitable barbarism, on the contrary, they are worshiped as epic moments. So is the Battle of the Riachuelo, one of the most decisive moments of the Paraguayan War, and which is remembered as an honest victory in a just war.
With their museums and a patriotic teaching of history, nations perpetuate militarism, fear of foreigners and even imperialism itself. This means that, comfortably within the premise of just war, all nations are ready to send their young people once again to a violent and mediocre death. They manage to make even the simple idea of peace uncomfortable or ridiculous, after all, who will fight our wars if not these brave heroes?
Wars are inevitable, they say. We need to protect ourselves, that’s what they believe. Thus fear persuades nations to spend impressive sums of their wealth and taxes on weapons, ammunition and war machines. Equipment that must be renewed frequently, because other nations also invest, which completes the vicious cycle. Nations are handed over to large war corporations and their generals who live like kings, with useless pet submarines.
This is just another chapter in the stubborn, fruitless — and already exhausted — search for heroes and saviors. A need that seems greater every day, or more evident through social media that give voice to every little affliction and anxiety. Those who seek, do not find heroes among popular, political and religious leaders, and even in the academic and scientific environment, which has always been distant from the common reality. Closer to their realities, they find heroes in their daily lives, including doctors, firefighters and policemen. So they are convinced that doctors deserve higher wages than teachers or workers, that the policemen need to be violent and that the war against criminals really makes sense. War. They like that word because it refers to sacrifice and altruism, putting on top of this pantheon of common heroes, none other than the soldier.
It makes perfect sense to pay tribute to the soldiers and police who were in combat, who lost their sanity and perhaps their lives. People who sacrifice themselves every day for the sake of others, as the most selfless act. What we must not forget is that war is a romantic factory of martyrs and that few are willing to sacrifice it. We lay flowers on tombs, not in awe, but like someone who thanks the janitor for doing the dirty work we don’t want. Deep down, we all know that those who die in battle are not heroes, they are victims.
I already talked about military spending in:
And about military education in:
