War, War, and War
A scene from Armed Forces Day in Zaragoza, Spain. (Photo: Mario Antonio Pena Zapatería from Irun, Spain, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
This article was originally published by La Marea on 15 April 2024 and translated by John Collins.
I hear the news - the statements of a good part of the political class and some “experts” and professional opinion makers; I read the headlines of the main media outlets; I even perceive the distance with which a good part of the population contemplates - inactive, as if it had nothing to do with them - the warlike and militaristic environment that advances unstoppably; a supposed specialist in international issues adds more fuel to the fire and says that Russia won’t stop in Ukraine but intends to invade other European countries.
“This is the reality. Naomi Klein has already said it with clairvoyance: in critical moments, at the crossroads, the most reactionary interests impose their agendas with hardly any resistance. My question, simple and direct, is this: are we going to let them lead us to disaster? ”
It’s also striking how various European leaders are calling in a more or less veiled way for the resumption of compulsory military service because, according to them, we have to prepare the population for war, which they view as nearer every day and even inevitable. These same leaders, among whom I include the Spanish government, which insistently defends the need to increase substantially - allow me the license to use this euphemism - the “defense” budget, because this increase represents - we’re dealing with one lie after another - more Europe and a stronger Europe.
I hear and read all of this and I feel a mix of fear and impotence, and at the same time indignation. Above all, I think of my son and all the young people. In this shitty world that they are inheriting. But I also think of the poverty of the so-called first world, in the unemployment, in those who live poorly in permanent precarity, in those who can’t access decent housing, in those who have to endure long waiting lists in order to be treated by specialists and in hospitals, in the women who are victims and who suffer the daily violence of the patriarchy, in the poor people of the developing countries, in the millions who flee misery and war, in the destruction - I would say practically inevitable - of the planet.
NATO Military Committee in Chiefs of Defense Session (MCCS) at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 17 January 2024. (Photo: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Yes, I think about those little problems on which all efforts should be directed, and I’m invaded by sadness, impotence, and anger. Likewise, I am outraged that all of this, in fact, is being left off the agenda or reduced to the most lukewarm, insufficient measures, smokescreens behind which lies the complacency of a good part of the political class and the enrichment of the oligarchies and large corporations. Behind it all is pure and simple capitalism. I wouldn’t say that the world, this craziness that we are living, is out of control; let’s not fool ourselves, those in charge are the ones who make a business out of wars, those who seek to maintain and impose their privileges through those conflicts, those who, protected by the warlike climate, seek to assert their imperialist interests and, at the same time, relegate to a secondary level the struggle against inequality and climate change.
A very powerful coalition of interests, more powerful every day, which controls the main resources of economic and political power, and is imposing its agenda. A gift for the right-wing populists and for fascism. Not even in their dreams could they imagine a scenario so conducive to their interests. This is the reality. Naomi Klein has already said it with clairvoyance: in critical moments, at the crossroads, the most reactionary interests impose their agendas with hardly any resistance. My question, simple and direct, is this: are we going to let them lead us to disaster?
