Unarmed Old Peace Warriors

Hey world, here’s a suggestion.
Seek a more peaceful way to limit, limit warring!
Push, perhaps for a century or two, to eliminate all wars.
King and Gandhi showed us a lot better, more peaceful way
use forceful, idealistic conflict resolution — unarmed!
Use variations of their ideas and ideals to unite man-un-kind,

to handle change, revolutions and wars.
Problem: A series of riots and uprisings causing deaths —
perhaps ignited by the local government.
Serious enough to awaken the gods of war with its intensity.
What to do differently?
(1). Now it must be a world not a national problem.
(2). A Neumann solution:
Partially isolate the problem area with peace warriors.
Send in these old — drafted, unarmed peace warriors —
sixty-year-old grandfathers and grandmothers,
dressed in white robes and pants,
selected by a yet non-existent world parliament,
carefully trained in non-violence and mission,
to persuade the defiant and refuseniks
in the name of yet-to-be-written world laws.

No longer risk just kid soldiers or police in murderous situations.
“We say nada, nein, no world-govern-too-much! Nyet!
No? You wouldn’t obey! Historic/religious values?
Peaceful resistance you say? Okay! Okay!
Peace warriors are here to sway, by right and by law

— now or maybe in a decade — we’ll argue and march.
Counter-march? That’s okay, we can and will push on for decades!
World Marshals will act as policemen — unarmed and as peace guides.
They will lay out the pathways for change and enforce the rules as they
can arrest anyone as officers of the world court system.
Peace professionals and diplomats, created and maintained by the world
government, will lead these massed movement of 100,000’s
of peace warriors to solve the problem and bring about change.

But, but if and when the shooting starts in a major way,
then the peace warriors and marshals
must pause and totally isolate the area,
because of mankind’s dear, sweet nature.
We can kill by the 100,000, now by the million,

and can do so again and again and yet again
with nature’s handmaiden — WAR!
It just may be a sad part of our basic animal nature
and history’s documented lesson — wars —
fought for o’ so many emotional or stupid reasons.
Ancient Homer’s Iliad sings in old Greek poetry that the
kidnapping of the most beautiful woman, Helen,
launched a 1000 Greek ships to war with Troy to free her!
Princely rivalries and fighting for plunder are the heart of this
old, repeated, ordinary tale of invasion and warring.
All wars seem to be simply justified with a emotional, noble theme
like “make the world safe for democracy” in WW I & II. Democracy?
Most of the Allies (England, France, Russia, the U.S.) held colonies or
territories with millions of non-voting, non-citizen souls. Detail!
Our sad ability to be leader-sure, God-sure or cock-sure as an emotional
rationale to fight to the death will probably always tempt us toward war!
So still a need for a separate, over-muscled world army
to shoot back, in the hideous, old tradition of killing.
Armed with the heaviest, most bad-ass weapons of war.
They too would have to be highly trained as peace-mongers
to accept victory as but a stepping stone to peace;
warring we know, peaceful change is the hard part!

When the shooting halts, even for half a day,
the old peace warriors nobly step forth
to persuade by talk and action for change.
While the world army forms a moving fortress
to where the peace warriors can rest
to lick their wounds, mourn their dead.
The warring area should be totally isolated,

like we do for a highly contagious disease!
Make them totally dependent on the peace warriors,
for food, drink and even communication.
Perhaps for decades. Globally isolated! All borders,
all trade, all world contact cut off!
If you war, we will control everything else and
be in your face daily as our right by world law!

World society should hold the warring individuals
responsible for war crimes, not nations.
Try them in world courts for crimes against humanity;
yet adjudicate no death penalty for transgression,
seek public reconciliation and/or long exiles.
Gandhi and King’s work took decades to partially
accomplish their goals — almost peacefully —
a lot of blood was spilt and lives wrecked;
so we have much to learn on how to do better.
Persuasion and change would be the new war games
a world peace department would have to learn!
? HOW ?
My wild-ass-idea demands a world government,
a democratic critter, peacefully voted in —
not warred in — a non-violent revolution.
Perhaps only possible when we are hard-pressed,
like right after a world war,
like when we up and formed
the unworkable League of Nations in 1920
or the almost useless United Nations in 1945
after tens of millions of world war dead and dying.
Neither offered a set of world laws or world government.
They both offered intense hope that we could do better than
war and solve world problems peacefully.
This vague, voluntary uniting to common goals and meetings
were to bring peace between sovereign nations
with voluntary compliance to agreed upon rules.
“Love thy neighbor, trust thy neighbor, help your neighbor,”
were given up domestically in all nations for laws, police
and courts centuries, centuries ago as the only way!
Domestic law, done fairly, equals domestic peace — historically!
Historically, no real effort to create a world government with powers,
elections and enforceable world laws.
An unready world? One can always argue that!
Many, many sincere, clever people argued to Dr. King to go slow,
go slow. Society is not ready for these civil rights!
It is a rude, difficult question — readiness.
Perhaps now we can create an “Earth Federation” — a single
entity — from 195 slightly demented nations,
who have warred for only 10,000 generations.
We must go a bit beyond what we think is possible!
It is a handy, but stupid illusion that we cannot change.

Like slavery and kings, warring nations have got to go!
Their noble days are dangerously outdated by nukes
and yet more hideous future, cheaper weapons,
we dearly hope haven’t been invented yet.
An elected world government would have the taxes from 195

ex-militaries, political power in law and global out-
look in composition to deal with world problems

— like global warming — and begin to solve so many
other worldly griefs like hunger and pollution.
Pass and enforce laws to limit warming and move beyond fossil
fuels — lift up the down-trodden, etc.
Here would be a sweeter role for peace warriors — a worldwide
Peace Corp — when not “talking down” warring.
Make happen the old, dumb belief in man’s goodness by
ending man-un-kind’s reliance on war and brute force.
War can and could be curbed, controlled, slowly changed.
We’ve overcome feuding and feudal, kingdoms and empires,
slavery and serfdom in the last 200+ years;
sadly, all too often by violence and war.
Now, we must rely more heavily on the sweeter, more peaceful
aspects of human nature through democracy and law.
O’ yes, more difficult and tricky than science or engineering!
Change through war and violent revolution is just becoming too
dangerous for mankind. We have to experiment!
Old peace warriors could be the heroes of tomorrow!
We must learn a willingness to peacefully engage, change
minds; push and demand for years if necessary!
Gandhi and King’s work took decades to partial accomplish
with great difficulty their goals without the world’s
people demanding or helping much.
Today the reach of smart phones, pictures, social media, etc,
could better marshal and focus world opinion to
at least occasionally rise above the daily chatter!
Warring and 193+ sovereign nations are rapidly becoming just
too dangerous, outdated and seem daily unable to deal
with a growing list of worldwide problems.
Hey world, we can do this
if we have a mind too,
before, before the next man-made
holocaust or worldwide war!
© 3/2/18 by Bob Neumann. 1368 words