Quest for Captivity: Body, Land or Soul?

“The world tried to capture me but didn’t succeed”. – Gregory Skoda, an 18th-century philosopher-poet of Ukraine, requested this to be the epitaph on his tombstone, once he passed away.

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but WW IV will be fought with sticks.” Albert Einstein.

Hello friends, we have stepped into March, leaving the harshness of winter and the severity of the pandemic behind. Spring is in the air, but can we rejoice, when the leader of one of the most powerful countries, has threatened to use a nuclear arsenal to bomb a neighbouring country, if it doesn’tfall in line? Can we dare to dismiss the threat perception as mere rhetoric, when the person has already made his earlier threats effective by unlawfully and unethically attacking Ukraine?

Nobody is certain as to which countries are going to be sucked into this dangerous vortex of war. Because starting a war is easy but the ending is not. In the still freezing conditions, thousands of innocent citizens of Ukraine are forced to live in makeshift shelters or take refuge in underground metro stations while the death and destruction are ominously lurking around in the form of airstrikes.

What is the fault of the civilians of Ukraine to be deprived of their basic human rights, that is right to life and liberty? Is the world moving regressively? Will the prophecy of Einstein going to be true?

If we look back, the answer lies in the chapters of past wars, when a losing country tries to assuage the injustice done to her by the victor countries. Russia thinks it got a raw deal while the former USSR disintegrated, so did Germany during the first world war, which ultimately sowed the seed for world war number II, in the mind of Adolf Hitler.

War in any form is reprehensible. One war leads to another due to the mistreatment of the defeated by the victor. The act of revenge is an unending saga, a vicious cycle. The leaders must immediately draw a full stop now, to stop such destruction and loss of life.

The war should be fought, to win the hearts of people not over their physical self. Then only there would be real winners. As the poet of Ukraine aptly said that bodies can be made captive not souls.

Featured photo courtesy: Riya Mukherjee.

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