Monday, December 23, 2024

Against capitalist wars

The Russian army's invasion of Ukraine has once again set off alarm bells. Humanity is still barely emerging from the pandemic caused by Covid-19 when it is already facing possible wars, which revives the old concern about mutually assured destruction.

In the press and on social media, each side tries to impose its narrative, justify the war and "force" society to take sides, as if there were two positions.

Experts in geopolitics and international relations talk about the rise of "Nazism" in Ukraine, about "neo-Tsarism" in Russia, about NATO and US interventionism, about the crisis in the European Union, about the importance of gas and oil, about the rise in food costs, about the role that China will play, about the repercussions for Latin America and about many other things.

Amidst so much information, noise and propaganda, little space is left for people's lives, for displacement, for refugees, and when this appears in the news, it is always with the aim of moving people and then saying which side is the "good" one.

Amidst all this noise, the simple and honest word emerges, that of the Zapatista people who say "Stop the war," and remind us: "Those who win in this war are the big arms consortiums and the big capitals that see the opportunity to conquer, destroy/rebuild territories, that is, to create new markets for goods and consumers, for people." How much truth there is in the words of those people who have lived and are living the war firsthand.

In an interesting text written in 1999, the then spokesman of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) - Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos - explained that the constant characteristics of the world wars are: 1) the conquest of territories and their reorganization, 2) the destruction of the enemy and 3) the administration of the conquest. Likewise, Marcos pointed out that there were four world wars: the first (1914-1918) and the second (1939-1945), known by all; the "Third World War or Cold War" (1945-1989), which he described as "a great world war composed of many local wars" and the "Fourth World War." This