The womb of war

WARS should be stillborn. They enter the world and, like delinquents, they cause disruption, chaos, and mayhem. And when wars end, as they do so abruptly and painfully, survivors lament that such wars should never have been born.

- BY F.S. AIJAZUDDIN

Throughout the history of mankind — and man has fought more damaging conflicts than any other species on earth — wars have shown that they are inherently barren. They cannot birth peace. Peace is conceived artificially, through intellectual insemination. The Unesco constitution opens with this homily: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” With President Donald Trump, peace on earth, especially its rewards, have preoccupied his mind.

Trump is far removed from the orthodoxy of his mother, a Scottish Presbyterian. He describes himself as a “nondenominational Christian”. His is a milder version of “charismatic Christianity', tempered by Norman Vincent Peale’s credo of “positive thinking”. Trump’s followers view him in Biblical terms: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” [Matthew 5:9]. Trump’s detractors however prefer the verse which warns: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them” [Matthew 6:1].

In T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral (1935), Archbishop Thomas Becket is tempted repeatedly — first with temporal comfort, then temporal power, and the third time with militant power. It is the fourth temptation — martyrdom for the sake of eternal glory — that Becket regards as the most insidious. He rejects this because he realises “the last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason”.