Never again” we say every time we fall again, knowing that it will be a difficult promise to keep. No more violence, no more repression of human rights, no more fascism and Stalinism, no more impunity for criminals. Not anymore . This was the title of the report on the abuses of the last Argentine dictatorship. "Never again" said the liberators of Europe at the end of the Second World War. Never again to barbarism, to the extermination of the Jewish people. "Never again" could be read on Sunday at the anti-Semitic demonstration in Paris and "Never again" was written by an Israeli soldier a few days ago with a Star of David on the column of a building in Gaza. "Never Again Is Now" was projected over the Brandenburg Gate on the 9th, the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Never again, however, never comes. Wars erupt and perhaps Nietzsche was right when he argued that violence purifies.
The University of Uppsala, a world reference in the field, counted 55 armed conflicts in 2022, more than ever since the end of the Cold War in 1989. Fighting lasts an average of eight to eleven years, and then they fall asleep. It has been ten years since the last peace agreement. It was in South Sudan. They fell silent, but few families returned home. There are still 4.5 million displaced people and refugees. 65% are children.
Conflicts are frozen and then microwaved again. Palestine is the most emblematic. Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen have been at war for more than a decade. Sudan is sinking into civil conflict. Six coups have shaken the Sahel since 2020. The last one was in Niger in July. In September, Azerbaijan wrested the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. Since then, around 150,000 Armenians have fled there, from their homes and properties. A quarter of the world's population – 2 billion people – live in conflict zones. At the beginning of the year there were 108 million displaced people, more than ever before.
There are more numbers, just as tragic. Many come from the United Nations, the organization that is no more than our consciousness. The Security Council neither solves nor sanctions. Peace missions have lost effectiveness and legitimacy. We are left with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Secretary General António Guterres' repeated request for a truce in Gaza.
We live in the time of Sparta rather than Athens. We prepare for war rather than democracy. Military budgets grow. Investing in defense is big business.
Never again, the will on which Europe was built, loses strength. The soft power of their values is not enough to protect what we have achieved so far. From 1618, when the Thirty Years' War broke out, to 1945, when the Second World War ended, 68 million people have died in Europe's conflicts. Three centuries of human sacrifice to get to this day and not being sure if we will move forward.
Conflicts are no longer resolved. They are only managed. Israel is criticized for not having a future strategy for Palestine, but Prime Minister Netanyahu does not think it is needed. As soon as he proclaims that the mission is accomplished and that Hamas is no longer a threat, Gaza and the West Bank will return to the freezer, that is, to the status quo imposed by the dominant force, to limbo, the state of neither war nor peace that spreads like a pandemic across half the world.
Will the Arab countries intervene, will they pressure the United States, will the European Union finance, will the international bodies do what they have to do to restore peace and justice, security in Israel and Palestine?
We could ask the same about Ukraine and Russia, or about any other conflict.
Wars multiply because there are more weapons and enough money to buy them, because there are more intersecting interests, because it is difficult for them not to become international, for social networks not to spread the hatred they generate.
Today there are so many barriers to the resolution of wars that all we can aspire to is a ceasefire, to build a wall, to send aid.
Peace needs much more. It needs dialogue between all parties, restorative justice, political, administrative, social, economic and military tools to extend the truce and ensure security, to end the impunity of terrorists, coup plotters and invaders. Which country or institution wants or can get involved?
Certainly not the United States after Afghanistan. Nor the UN, hostage to the vetoes of Russia, China and the USA. Hopefully Europe will do it to save itself by saving Ukraine.
In the trenches of any military front you hear of torture and death with inhuman indifference and wonder how we can live up to the perversity of the world.
The children who have to make peace between Israel and Palestine have not yet been born and it is very difficult for their parents to be the children of today, but children will continue to be born and we have no choice but to continue educating them in the Not anymore .
