Cycles of Conflict

IN May 1922 I wonder how many pins could been heard dropping when the Rector of St Andrews University, J M Barrie, with Field Marshal Earl Haig sitting on the platform next to him, said:

“If you must be in the struggle, the more reason you should know why, before it begins, and have a say in the decision where it is to begin. The youth who went to war had no such knowledge, no such say; I am sure the survivors, of whom there must be a number here today, want you to be wiser than they were, and are certainly determined to be wiser next time themselves.”

These were tough words emotionally, but they were the right words to use in reflecting on the tragic losses of the Great War. The young men who went to the Western Front more than a hundred summers ago were told they would be back by Christmas, they were told that the sacrifice was worth it because it would be the “war to end all wars.” So the idea J M Barrie was proposing – that we be wiser the next time, know the reasons why and be honest with those who are placed in front of the guns, is not only noble, it is essential.

Young women and men do not choose war. Politicians and military leaders do that and in a day and age when it is almost impossible to identify the enemy and when we are choosing the least worst options, then the need for wisdom, reason and honesty is of paramount importance.

J M Barrie’s most famous creation was the forever young Peter Pan, but his reflection on the great loss of the First World War was for young people who never had the chance to grow old. They had made the supreme sacrifice and he was actually praying that the lessons learned would transition us into a new world with a different way of settling our disputes. We have tried and we have invented many international confederations which encourage dialogue and co-operation, but, in too many places in the world today, we demonstrate over and over again our capacity for endless repetition of the same cycles of conflict and the same struggles of one ideology against another, one political aspiration against another and of one view of God and of the world against another.

And then we fight.

Tim Marshall’s little book, Prisoners of Geography is worth reading. It is subtitled ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics, and it is a salutary lesson on how the seeds of conflict have found their way into the DNA of humanity in almost every corner of the globe. Reading this book, however, comes with a warning that it may not leave you feeling too hopeful about the prospects of world peace anytime soon.

Back to J M Barrie and his Rectorial Speech in 1922; he went on to express the hope that one day “war [would] not take the spring out of the year”. As we approach the season of Remembrance, in spite of all sorts of signs of division and unrest across the world, that must still be the prayer of all women and men of goodwill.

Studdert Kennedy, otherwise known as Woodbine Willie, served on the frontline as a First World War Chaplain. He gave dying men cigarettes for their physical agony and prayerful comfort as their souls slipped into the hands of God; he said all that is to be said about war in his poem, Waste:

Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,

Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,

Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,

Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,

Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,

Waste of Youth’s most precious years,

Waste of ways the Saints have trod,

Waste of Glory, waste of God, – War!