24/02/2022
Opening news apps this morning made us feel like world history has turned a corner. Like the personal advisors to Vladimir Putin have taken the symmetry of the once in a lifetime date of the 22nd of the second month in the year 2022 very seriously for marking the calendars in planning their nation’s annexation of what they perceive to be rightfully theirs.
When events of this scale happen, and we cannot do anything but notice, sigh and go on with our silly little days, it’s easy to give in to numbness, powerlessness. It’s easier even to forget that this conflict, like all the violence of this silly little civilization, is man-made, is a choice, and arbitrary in that. It could have happened a week ago, or next year. But they chose this symbolic date. They chose the start of this war. What then if wars, this war isn’t thought about and reported on in terms of winners and losers, territories lost and re-acquired, opponents and underdogs, market reactions, divide and conquer-strategies, intricate weapons technology and military moves, but in terms of the scale of human tragedy they cause, it will cause?
What if today we took a minute to let our hearts roam with the terror and thoughts of the generational curses and traumas wars have caused in the last century, and for centuries before that? Would It make us angry then? Would we be able to let that anger move us towards connection and solidarity with survivors, the invaded, the wounded seeking refuge from war, towards putting our hope with how powerful people can be when beneath their anger and pain they make room for a choice? The choice that they and we have had enough and that today, with us, the terror, the violence, the curses, the traumas stop. That today, world history has turned a corner. And that in the future, we will make different choices. (Written by a dear friend in Berlin)