Is it possible to reverse the warmongering escalation?

There are more than thirty armed conflicts in the world, many of them silenced. We can talk about Gaza and Ukraine, but also Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Myanmar and many others. It seems that everything must be solved by force. They want to make us believe that there is no alternative and that we must increase military budgets.

But it is worth analyzing well what is happening, to try to overcome the state of mental militarization and single discourse to which they want to subject us. And the fact is that wars are nothing more than a violent, archaic and hypocritical way of dealing with conflicts, which is also ineffective, sexist and stupid. I argue briefly.

Wars are one of the greatest expressions of violence against people, who see how their entire living environment is destroyed and who in many cases end up losing their lives. A patriarchal violence that has led to say, from feminism, that all people are equally worthy and lamentable and that all wars are sexist.

And both wars and militarization and military escalation are hypocritical smokescreens to hide the business of the military industry, the arms trade and the protection of privileges as is being denounced from entities such as SIPRI, the Center Delàs and others. Because we know that our leaders are making wars to sell weapons, to control resources and to try to increase their geopolitical power by force.

The supposed armed solutions are also archaic and ineffective. Archaic because they claim to defend borders in an already global world in which the most serious challenges such as the environmental crisis and pandemics affect all of humanity. Ineffective because peace cannot be achieved through violent and destructive means. And because, in the words of Bertrand Badie, wars have not been won for decades. It ends up negotiating, agreeing and yielding.

But they are also stupid. They are because the current warmongering will end up seriously harming our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It will affect the populations of the Global South much more intensely, but also (remember Covid) it will end up damaging both the lives of our descendants and those of the powerful. It is being warned again and again by the scientific community, often silenced by politicians and the media. We know that the military escalation does not solve the problems but aggravates them, and that is why civil society must demand a radical change of priorities from warmongering politicians. We need to demilitarize and we need to reconsider disarmament treaties, among other reasons because we need military money to save ourselves as humanity.

Europe is in a dilemma. War or diplomacy. Or more weapons or more care for people, of all without distinction. Will we be able to demand that politicians stop promoting the criminal arms and war businesses, that they actively promote disarmament and that they redirect the money towards the real needs of the people? Do we raise our voices asking to transfer the money from armaments to living, while building a livable future for everyone? Can we banish masculinity and the weight of patriarchy? Will we be able to resolve conflicts through dialogue and empathy, cooperating to try to solve the great challenges that humanity will face this century?