Let's Wage Peace
The anti-war movement, health freedom movement, environmental movement and artist movement have a lot in common: We want a better world for The 99%.
Written by World Council for Health Steering Committee member Shabnam Palesa Mohamed.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” Most humans want a peaceful world. We care about each other, we want to help each other. We teach our children not to hate or fight, and how to use peaceful means to resolve conflict. We also teach them to speak truth to power.
War devastates lives, dignity, physical and mental health, homes, education, free speech, and other fundamental human rights and civil liberties. With at least 150 million people killed, war challenges infectious disease as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. It is for these reasons and more that most people are anti-war and pro peace. Peace through diplomacy, dialogue and mediation is possible. But it is up to us to reject division and warmongering by individually and collectively waging peace. To do that, the facts help.
War is devastating for the economies that the majority of people depend on. Millions are spent on defense and proportionately less on health care and education. Conflict is also also harmful to water, soil, flora and animals. ”Military vehicles consume petroleum-based fuels at an extremely high rate, with the vehicles used in the war zones having produced many hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and sulfur dioxide in addition to CO2. Air pollution from military vehicles and weaponry has adversely affected public health among civilians in the war zones and military members”. With humanity engaging in war, the biosphere is likely to continue to suffer.
Who are the war profiteers and how do they benefit?
Our world is experiencing and witnessing immense suffering. We run the risk of regional conflicts in several parts of our world, including the Middle East, Africa and Europe-Asia. These will affect all of us in one way or another. Who is behind wars and conflicts, how do they benefit from division and manipulation, and how are they connected to Covid-19?
The main industries that benefit from wars include banks, insurance, weapons, construction, well-funded thinktanks, corporate media, and captured political parties
The weapons industry made at least 5% more profit in 2023 than the previous year. Five of the top six global ‘defense’ corporations are Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics. All sell weapons that fuel conflict and harm people. They have an interest in unending conflict. These companies took in an astounding $196 billion in military-related revenue in 2022.
The top shareholders in these five ‘defense’ companies also came under spotlight during Covid 19. They largely consist of big asset managers, or big banks with asset management wings, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, Capital Group, Wellington, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Newport Trust Company, Longview Asset Management, Massachusetts Financial Services Company, Geode Capital, and Bank of America. It is imperative that we do not invest in them.
How does Big Phama benefit from war? Not only do they benefit from the captured poppy fields of other countries, but they also benefit from anti-depressants, anti anxiety drugs and sleep aid drugs sold to civil society, soldiers, and their families.
Who else benefits from conflicts and war? Please comment with your views
How can we wage peace as an act of resistance?
Our children are sent to war to fight for resources like land, oil, gas, gold and diamonds. They end up dead, disabled, suffering PTSD, and often cannot find work. Refusing to fight in offensive wars or conflicts is a powerful act of resistance.
Learn how to solve conflict in peaceful and constructive ways, and practice it.
Advocate for the school your child attends to learn mediation and meditation.
Mobilise with peace vigils, petitions, art, theatre, music, teach-ins and advertising
Boycott influencers, organisations and corporates that invest in or push for war.
Insist that your country not sell weapons for war, and make all financials public.
Attend meetings where warmongering is happening and speak up for peace.
Please share your ideas on waging peace in our communities and countries
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
“On February 15th, 2003, millions of people in hundreds of cities around the world gathered in the streets, shouting and chanting anti-war slogans, expressing their collective rejection of war in a global cry of defiance. What had only previously erupted in localized protests in selected cities emerged for the first time as a veritable political force with a truly global character: the global Anti-War Movement”- Waging Peace From The Brink of War.
“War is a racket. It always has been,” said war veteran Smedley Butler. Harry Patch, WW2 soldier who died in 2009, said, “War is organised murder and nothing else”. Philosopher and poet Paul Valery declared, “War is a place where young people who don’t know each other kill each other, based on decisions made by old people, who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other.” Activist and writer Arundhati Roy highlighted, “Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create markets for weapons?”
Roy also said, “Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
Better Way teacher Ruth Skolmli shared that “a sovereign state of mind is one that engenders peace because it restores us to our true power in the natural order”. Lets wage peace by stepping away from division and fear, and by standing with humanity. In the timeless words of President Nelson Mandela, “It is in our hands to make the world a better place.” Our core role as human beings is to create a peaceful world together. #WagePeace
If you find value in this Substack and have the means, please consider making a contribution to support the World Council for Health. Thank you.
It is written in THE BOOK that 'the love of money is the root of ALL evil'. In THE same BOOK it is also written, many times, 'do not charge interest on a loan to your brother, to a stranger or to a foreigner'. PERIOD!
Excellent article! Orwellian misnomers such as the US Defense Department, which should be the US War Department, and stupid old Britain with her Ministry of Defence, insult our intelligence as well as betray the sick world our so-called leaders are creating. And the MSM go along with it. The answer to why war? should be "because our donors demand it, and I stand to become even richer", and a proper journalist would call out the "building democracy" BS. And we can use the same template for the Department/Ministry of Health ie Sickness, where the same warped version of humanity also applies, and apparent indifference to the suffering they have unleashed. The very sad aspect of it all is that the majority of these criminals have simply been bought. We must fight the good fight, and give peace a chance!