Sowing The Wind

- And Reaping The Whirlwind

The word “karma” (from the Sanskrit, कर्म ) is universally understood in our personal lives, as meaning that our actions determine the reaction that follows - good actions leading to good results; and bad actions leading to bad consequences. We know this (or claim to know this) for  ourselves as individuals. All the major religions teach it to their believers and all the world’s scriptures remind us again and again by example and exhortation that this thing called, “karma” is indeed real and true.

But this irrevocable law of the universe applies as much to the individual as to societies, nations and civilizations.

Although the law of karma applies across human behaviour, this essay will address the consequences, the “karma” of war and violence upon nations, societies, communities and civilizations.

Those who envisioned the exploitative, mercantile, violent and frequently murderous colonial enterprise as being unstoppable, inevitable and everlasting, were sowing to the wind. The whirlwind was the first world war which brought the project to a grinding halt. The second world war dealt it its deathblow. The neocolonial American project that started 80 years ago, can expect a similar end - and judging by military reverses and defeats in Vietnam, Ukraine and Afghanistan, its end is already gathering pace.

What about the war to stop Hitler and the mass murder of Jews, Poles, Slavs, gays and the disabled? Wasn’t that a necessary, “righteous” war?

Hitler of course, had to be stopped. But the rise of Hitler and the second world war also followed the law of karma - and specifically, the first world war and the humiliating conditions imposed upon Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. The German people, suffering a rapid and terrifying collapse of their currency, health, living standards and civil society, were looking for a saviour - and found one in Hitler. Hitler himself therefore, was a child of war, of “karma.”

The second world war led to its own set of generational, geo-political problems. It facilitated the expansion into half of Europe, of the genocidal Soviet regime and with it, in Churchill’s words, “the fall of an iron curtain” across Europe. The communists of course, killed many millions more across the Soviet Union, Europe (and China) than the Nazis. Half of Germany (East Germany) also came under the Communist yoke.

West Germany became a vassal state of America - and the German people were encouraged/forced to carry a generational burden of guilt (perhaps a good thing) but at the same time, also forget about the great accomplishments of the German people in music, science, architecture, literature, art and philosophy (a very bad thing). The latter perhaps explains the utter passivity and cowardliness of the present German government in the face of incontrovertible evidence that their natural gas energy lifeline from Russia (Nord Stream pipeline) was purposely blown up by the Americans at the start of the engineered Ukraine war.

An idea cannot be killed by mindless violence - no matter how fierce or comprehensive in its intent. The fire bombing of Dresden in the closing stages of the second world war by more than a thousand allied bombers led to the slaughter of 25,000 to 40,000 German civilians in a single night. There was no strategic goal for this act of mass murder. It was done simply out of vengeance and spite. Did it kill Nazism?

The rise of the “neo-Nazi” movement has accelerated in the last few decades and there are now vast philosophical and ideological as well as historical studies that claim that Hitler was actually good for the German people and the world!  Should these revisionists and neo-Nazis also be killed - by another fire bombing, another massive, ferocious war?

The law of karma asserts itself without fanfare, without propaganda, without having to explain itself. It is woven into the nature of reality. Victory in war does result in a period of “feel good” celebration and genial back-slapping - and people do seem to get a real “kick” from being on the “winning” side. But every time, time after time, this pyrrhic kick is followed by the “kickback” - and the kickback always has the last laugh.

My previous essay started with the obligation (under international humanitarian law and the Geneva convention)  to protect innocent civilians from the slaughter and mayhem of war. If the Geneva conventions are followed, the results will be obvious in the preservation of life and the gratitude of the world.  If on the other hand, civilians/children are indiscriminately slaughtered, for every civilian/child killed, the law of karma will ensure the rise of 10 (or more) warriors wedded to the ideology that (terrorism, Naziism, fascism, it matters not what it is called) spawned the conflict. A Russian General recently described this warrior - “ This terrorist was just another citizen and had no thoughts about terrorism. He rushes home one day, to see his wife and children killed or maimed for life, after a bomb is dropped out of the sky. He is then transformed and driven only by revenge - he lives it, dreams it and does not fear death, since he has nothing to lose. He also lives long - since survival is essential to revenge.”

You do not have to be a pacifist (I am not) to desist from the ruinous practice of cheering on the dogs of war. The endless cycles of violence and revenge follow the law of karma. The better way is the way of peace. In our imperfect world, there will probably never be the complete elimination of war. But if we are constantly looking and working for peace, war will be in continuous retreat.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus asked his friend and disciple Peter to put back his sword (Peter had just cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest, part of a company that had arrived to arrest Jesus). The Gospel account records that Jesus touched and healed the ear of the servant. He then proclaimed, “all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” History has been a commentary, across the centuries, on these words of Jesus.

As the great American missionary to India, E. Stanley Jones once said, “if war is right, then Christ is inherently wrong. If Christ is right, then war is inherently wrong.”