Every time that someone talks about the madness of military spending and calls for its reduction there is always someone who leaps to its defence invoking international commitments, the reality that \u201cunfortunately\u201d requires the use of war and other similar reasons that end up criticising this idea as utopian.\u00a0 The tone is always arrogant and ironically compassionate towards the na\u00efve dreamers and idealists that obstinately ignore the hard facts of reality.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless so many things that seem monstrous or ridiculous to us today \u2013 slavery, the flat earth, the divine right of kings, the inferiority of women \u2013 used to be accepted as the norm and those who questioned them received the same treatment today reserved for those who oppose the logic of weapons and war.\u00a0 Moreover, often in the past the cost of rebellion was terrible and could lead to imprisonment, exile, torture and even death.<\/p>\n
The contrast between reality and utopia, between two opposing choices \u2013 acceptance of the established conditions, and rebellion in the name of new values and ideas and a world that is yet to be built \u2013 has spanned the entire history of humanity.\u00a0 With the prevalence of the former, resignation and darkness have reigned; when the latter has prevailed, cultural, spiritual, social and political changes of great magnitude have taken place.<\/p>\n
In general, \u201cwhat exists\u201d is set against \u201cwhat should exist\u201d and the apparent unscaleable distance between the two is used to support the former by force and to define the latter as unrealisable utopia, or rather it provokes a feeling of disheartenment and impotence in those who see the fulfilment of their ideas as too far away.\u00a0 This position should be radically reviewed, contrasting \u201cwhat is\u201d with \u201cwhat is not yet, but sooner or later will be\u201d.\u00a0 Of course, this change will not happen by itself in a mechanical way, but rather just as has happened so many times in history it will result from a discussion with the establishment and with what is generally accepted in a given moment.\u00a0 The commitment, ingenuity, hope, courage, kindness and compassion that has made humanity advance will surely in the future drive new changes.<\/p>\n
If we see things this way, so many apparently complex questions become simple: it becomes a question of defining the intermediary steps to reach the fixed objective. \u00a0But returning to our original point, a world without wars and without weapons is no longer an unrealisable dream because it is turning into a concrete possibility that depends on our efforts, on our creativity and the confidence that we have in humanity and its future.<\/p>\n
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Anna Polo: Active for years in the field of peace and nonviolence, she has coordinated the commission on this subject in the European Humanist Regional in 2003 (meeting in Prague) and 2004 (Budapest) and in the European Humanist Forum in Lisbon (2006) and Milan (2008). In 2009 she was part of the Relations Team for the World March for Peace and Nonviolence. She currently participates in World without wars and without violence.<\/em><\/p>\n