To End War - Our Peace Proposal

We don’t care who did it. We don’t care which nation or group is to blame or care what weapons they use. Once again the world is faced by human tragedies. Once more pictures and accounts of victims of a war not of their making confront us daily on the TV and in the newspapers.

There’s only one thing people should address: Ending the cause and ending the suffering.

Both in the Gaza and the Ukraine (and many other places in the world), the international "community" and its leaders have been slow to interfere for fear of jeopardising their political and economic interests. The victims are pawns in a power struggle over resources, and the economic advancements these make possible. The population of Gaza have experienced some of the worst poverty and violence that humans have inflicted on another. Workers across the world experience poverty and violence to some extent on a daily basis – it is the common bond that transcends nationality.

All violence, from state to non-state to domestic varieties, all weapons, from small arms to nuclear bombs, and all industries profiting from human violence, from armament manufacturers  to your local gun and ammo dealer, have only ever resulted in  more violence, war, destruction and suffering all over the world.

 Capitalism breeds war, though most people would prefer to live in peace. Consequently massive propaganda exercises are employed by the state to stoke people's fears and anxieties that stem from their poverty and insecurity. This is because people have a healthy horror of war. They know war means death and destruction. Death not only of the soldiers on both sides, but also of women, children and old people as “collateral damage”. To abolish war and build a truly sustainable global peace, we require a plan in which we can all participate. Many people have been tirelessly working for peace but what is their actual plan to accomplish the objective? Many people's gut reaction is simply that war is crazy. Socialists share this anti-war sentiment. It is one of the reasons why we are  real socialists and propose a united world community without frontiers based on all the Earth's resources, natural and industrial, becoming the common heritage of all humanity and being used to satisfy people's needs instead of for profit. We have concluded that capitalism means war and that therefore to get rid of wars and the threat of wars – and the constant preparation for war represented by maintaining armed forces – you have got to get rid of capitalism.

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. ... It is the measles of mankind." Albert Einstein once said. Others would say it is more like Alzheimers. What sort of memories do people have? The real sickness in this world is caused by the rivalries of the ruling class who control all media outlets, and the ignorance of the masses who support them and the divisiveness of class, race, nationalism and religion. These are the factors preventing us from working together to repair our broken planet.

 Peace is in the hands of the workers. Sadly, all too many workers, who are sincere in their belief that war is an outrage, nevertheless unwittingly support capitalism's conflicts by simply voting for capitalist politicians at election time, by remaining within political parties which are out to defend the capitalist system in its various forms and guises. It is futile to try to remove an effect without removing its cause. Thus campaigning against war now, whilst not objecting to capitalism, simply means that you will be out again protesting when the next war breaks out.

Nationalism, like any disease, can be diagnosed, but there remains no immediate prognosis and past treatments have failed as remedies. Nationalism feeds on fear and insecurity, alienation and ignorance which themselves can lead to irrational passions and attempts at quick-fix and spontaneous violent attempts at remedy which always prove counterproductive and detrimental to all concerned. Nationalist conflict has raged for years. What, in all honesty, have any of the victors gained? What is the “independence” they yearn after, if it means being trapped within borders - artificial constructs, no, prisons - inside of the bigger prison of capitalism?

The only war that need concern us is the class war. We advocate a war on war, to be waged on the battlefield of ideas—for the hearts and minds of the world's people. And once we unite there will be no force that will stop us taking the Earth into our common possession.

As socialists we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation, not as members of nations or religions or ethnic groups, but as human beings, as members of the human race. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and we call upon the workers to organise consciously and politically to use the power at their disposal to bring the bloodshed to a standstill; and secure the space we need in order to build the co-operative world socialist commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. It is vitally important today to remember that socialists must be the standard bearers of civilisation - the defenders of the political democracy and the peace. Rubble doesn't make a good basis for building socialism. Voices raised against war shows that there is hope.

We place on record our horror that capitalism has once again provoked the orgy of death and destruction known as war. We extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers who have been designated as targets for destruction.
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