World War II: Born Out Of A Passive, Denying World

Yesterday it was 70 years ago since World War II started. A war that we still haven't learnt much from. Denial and passivity seem like constantly present deceases for human kind. I have always been amazed of the lack of self reflection, and admitting our own mistakes, shortcomings and part of problems. It is convenient and easier to blame and point fingers at others, but not very constructive if you want to find a path forward.

I really do wonder why it is so hard to admit it. Maybe it is pride. Maybe it is fear. Looking around the world right now there are several wars going on, many of which the fundamental root has very little to do with the internal politics or the people there. We have these marionette wars which acts more as a playground for the big in some sense invisible players.

The war on terror has - from both sides - meant that the war has moved from the "battlefields" into our own back yards. It is close to us. It is amongst us. The irony here is the absolute majority has nothing to do with the war nor want to have anything to do with it. The same can be said about the drug cartels in for instance Mexico. Yet in so many ways we are passive in questioning why and putting pressure on the few that gain from this.

Hitler actions the September 1st 1939 didn't come out of the blue. He provoked the entire world during the 30's. Yet we remained passive and denied it. The complete irony here is that the Versaille peace in so many ways provided the seed for World War II. It was doomed to happen. If the alliance in World War I wouldn't have unproportionally punished Germany economically, the chaotic Germany would never had becomes bad as it did. This was the ultimate foundation for Hitler to create a supporter base. He also did the universally known trick to point finger at who's to blame - the Jews.

The situation in Germany during the 1930's was colored by a huge unemployment, economical crisis (recession, astronomical inflation) and political instability. The perfect foundation for a "saviour" coming in and telling people who to blame for it. Wait a minute! This sounds familiar. We see this today in many of the troubled areas around the world, and maybe in particular in the war on terror. It is astonishing we do not realize this more often. External and outsiders creating chaos, shutting down the aid and even creating the violence. Too often this is driven by greed. Shouldn't we have learnt our lesson? But then again when the war and chaos is far away it feels like a movie or a computer game. You conveniently shut off the TV and the war is gone. You are back in the living room. It's peaceful. Unfortunately for the people living there, the war is very much present. (In all honestly there are issues closer to us, but hey most people do not even see those either.)

And...

It still affects us. Constantly. The main lesson from 9/11 should have been that if we shy away from the real issues. We can not passively look away from suffering and poverty around the world. It is really like fighting off weeds. Squash the root and it disappears. Cutting it off will in many cases just make the situation worse. Bombs and violence doesn't really solve the main issue which is too many cases is simply lack of education, poverty and disrespect of ethnicity, religion, culture etc.

Bombs, violence or terror will not solve anything here. It usually just makes the root of the issues stronger and you create a downward spiral. It takes a lot of political courage to attack the real problem and the solution will be multi-facetted. Most likely violence play a very little part in all of this.

I wish we could learn from history once. A close person to me once said: "It seems to be the curse of human kind to make the same mistakes as our predecessors" A bit cynical maybe, but what have we done to prove him wrong?

A big step would be for us all to always self-reflect on our own contributions to the situations around the world and around you. World War II is a monument of our shortcomings here, and we are yet to learn anything from it.

Do we really wanna relive the same nightmare as World War II in a different scenario, different actors but still with the same type of roots?