The 37 Wars

While researching the armed conflicts raging worldwide, it appears that, to the algorithm on my search engine, such research predicates an impulse to arm and protect oneself, targeting me with ads such as: 

	Cosplay CS Shaped Protective Face Mask ($13.04)’ free shipping; 

        alternatively four interest-free installments of $3.26.

	Non-Slip Thickened Tactical Gloves ($16.19)

	Outdoor Tactical Hidden Holster ($4.94)

	Outdoor Army Fan M88 Camouflage Helmet ($13.94)

        According to the algorithm, war triggers an impulse to arm and defend yourself.  The Beat Generation (1958-1968) and their successors in the counterculture had markedly different reactions to the horrifying realities of war. Their impulse was to create art, spread awareness and protest in creative and peaceful ways. They responded to bloodshed and a loss of human decency with pacifism. One of the few things the Beat Generation-including ruth weiss, Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti among others-were intolerant of was war.  It is essential to face facts and learn about large-scale conflicts that lead to the loss of human life in the endeavor to end armed conflicts. Below is a comprehensive look at the scale and scope of armed conflicts across our globe by the numbers. 

        Sixty-four nations are involved in at least one war without including any of the European states supplying arms to Ukraine. The nation of Nigeria has four active conflicts going on within its borders (and sometimes outside its territory) currently. The insurgency within the Maghreb affects people living in eleven different nation-states. Ukraine out distances anywhere else in lives lost per hour. Since February 2022, the Russo-Ukraine war has killed people at a rate of thirty-three lives lost per hour. These numbers paint a sobering picture. (1)

	Continuing with the census of current wars, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela make the antipodean list. Just a handful of countries in Africa are at peace. Looking for a surcease in Asia? Don’t go to Papua New Guinea, South Korea, or the Southern islands of the Philippines.  Haiti and El Salvador are rife with death and destruction. It’s a rather bleak picture.

	The effects of war ripple out like a proverbial stone in a pond.

	War is expensive. The New York Times estimates, “The cost of the Gulf War was approximately $76 billion. Vietnam cost $500 billion; the Korean War, $336 billion; and World War II, almost $3 trillion. Put another way, the Gulf War cost each person in the United States $306; Vietnam, $2,204 per person; Korea, $2,266 per person; and World War II, $20,388 per person. At its outset, estimates for the cost of the Iraqi War were $50 to $140 billion, and an additional $75 to $500 billion for occupation and peacekeeping, or from $444 to $2,274 per person.” That’s just America’s bill. (2)

	Some of the greatest accomplishments of mankind have crumbled under bombs and torches: the Library at Alexandria; Great Zimbabwe; The Walls of Istanbul; The Iraq Museum; The Buddhas of Bamiyan, etc., etc., etc. This kind of mindless destruction is ongoing. Warring parties in Ethiopia are destroying countless heritage sites dating back thousands of years. The Jerusalem Post reports, “Precious medieval manuscripts have been burned and vandalised. Thousands of artifacts have been looted and smuggled for an international market.”  Future generations will have to go without. (3)

	Non-combatants pay a price in every war. According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, “The U.S. post-9/11 wars have forcibly displaced at least 38 million people in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria. This number exceeds the total displaced by every war since 1900, except World War II.” (4)

	Children are the most vulnerable. They may lose their families, their homes, their sense of security, and even their lives. Of the six million killed in the Holocaust, 1.5 million were children. The few who survived were mostly parentless. For millennia, combatants have targeted children to destroy future generations of their foes. 

	This is enough to make hearts sink and eyes well with tears. Just one conflict seems insurmountable. Thinking about all of them at once induces feelings of hopelessness in our species. These numbers are tiring to read and easy to look away from. 

        ruth weiss refused to look away from hard truths. Instead, she synthesized her own experiences as a child of war and used them to fuel her activism. Her voice would not have rung out so affectingly, so assuredly, had she looked away. ruth stared down the marred complexion of the world she lived in and found beauty. She found hope. The Beat's outrage about the state of the world fueled their poetry. Drops of fervency turned into waves that eventually changed the current, creating an anti-war movement people showed up for.

An excerpt from ruth weiss’ memoir Can’t Stop the Beat: The Life and Words of a Beat Poet sums up the whole matter caustically:

killing is release

So they’ve said for centuries

why not a few more

what’s a human life

razored by all the others

blood alone will tell

trip trap trample thrice

who will shake the devil’s dice

i will you will he

such fun to play god

after all he really ain’t

kill kill kill kill kill

have stone rope gas shock

will do in the name of the law

to protect revenge

seed of every crime

is in our dreams to blossom

water well with blood

											1960

looks like a rerun. Now in 1993. (5)

To add your unique poetic voice to the discussion, please consider the prompt for the ruth weiss Foundation Grant Competition, “War is bad for children. What is good for children?” and submit your poetry here.

1. “Alternative Estimates for Death Tolls.” Internet Archive: Wayback Machine, archive.org/web/. Accessed 5 June 2023.

2. “Ethiopia’s War in Tigray Wiping out Centuries of the World’s History.” The Jerusalem Post - Christian World, www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-702676. Accessed 5 June 2023.

3. Hedges, Chris. “‘What Every Person Should Know about War.’” The New York Times, 6 July 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html.

4. “Human Costs.” The Costs of War, watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human. Accessed 5 June 2023.

5. Weiss, R., & Spandler, H. (2011). Can’t Stop the Beat: The Life and Words of a Beat Poet. Divine Arts. https://books.google.com/books?id=14q4cQAACAAJ Excerpt from “I Always Thought You Black” pg: 50-51