03/06/2022 14:47 What’s the motive?

What is the motive? A slang term often thrown about in social interaction these days but the question I’m asking isn’t ‘what are your plans for the weekend?’. The question I am asking is what is the motive for war?

Many people would say that war is a means to an end, and this end almost unspokenly is peace. Apparently, war may lead to peace although peace never seems to lead to war. Dichotomously war and peace must exist as opposites of one another and therefore both are only a tiptoeing across a line where any slip can fall into either category.

Peace, the supposed end of war and yet I am here to beg the question: is what we have within our state or between our nations really peace before or after war?

This weekend marks Queen Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee, 70 years on the British throne. All the while the British government are allocating (some) Ukrainian refugees to refuge in the UK. For the past century wars have been fought across the globe, we would never ascribe any of these areas as being in peace whilst there is a war. Then still, does that not affirm in inexistence of peace in our society, for our planet?

What about ‘state violence’ that is marginalisation, austerity, police brutality, can any of these phenomena be regarded as peace or that we are existing within a peaceful society. I believe not.
For if war is the pinnacle of violence and violence still exists from the state powers against the people then we are not at peace. Regardless of wars happening in other lands, and whether we keep our hands clean of them or not there is no peace in war.

That being said, if we are not at peace and we are in war, what is the motive? What is the motive of a war against the people? We are often bombarded through the media narrative with pro-austerity rhetoric that all the ailments of our current society are to fix some kind of deficit in the economy. The same people who impose financial hardship and state violence upon us being the same people who landed us in this borrowed-debt in the first place. So what truly is the motive?

It can be argued that power is an end in-itself. I disagree. If the means are what justifies the end then how can the end only be a further means. Power is a means not an end. Although some argue that power is for powers sake. War is for the powerful fought by he people. Peace is for the people fought by the powerful.

When will there come a day, when we can all agree that power is for no one and yet peace is for all.

What is the motive?

Mine is peace.