The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast for Sunday 21 October 2001

The topic of today’s broadcast is: Strategies for viewing operations of war

It is hardly surprising that the operations of war in Afghanistan are the most frequently reported international issue at present in Australia.

It would be nice if we had some strategies for viewing operations of war.

Many commentaries are appearing on the events in Afghanistan, trying to identify the fundamental issues that the global community needs to engage. The first of these is the linkage between terrorism and fundamentalist anti-democratic regimes.

The familiar trick of deflecting international attention from a domestic aberration on the plea that a nation's domestic affairs should not be interfered with is said to no longer remain a dogma.

A second commentary suggested is that a credible global front against terrorism can include military dictatorships and theocratic dispensations, simply because they are opportunistic enough to fall in line for the time being.

Operations of war have effects that directly and indirectly affect everybody in the world. The operations of war can result in panic. Viewing things correctly allays panic.

Some knowledge about the effects of operations of war in the twentieth century was documented by a top team of historians selected from many nations by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, in a series of volumes entitled History of Mankind.

This series aimed to embrace the past in its entirety and to sum up what we know about the past, reducing events to their significance in a universal frame of reference, explicit or implicit. The UNESCO team reported:

The second world war was a far more total war than its predecessor also in the involvement of the civilian population. In addition to the fuller incorporation of industry and science into war production and the greater regimentation of life through rationing, price and wage controls and the direction of labour... The impact of Modern Warfare could hardly be exaggerated.

Its terrible destructiveness was only the first aspect.

The indirect effects of total war were no less far-reaching.

Modern warfare was no cheap game; it involved the entire financial resources of a state.

Modern war did much to determine the direction and shape of economic activity, not only during the actual war when the economies of the belligerent countries were directly organised and oriented towards the war effort, but in non-war years when the burden of armaments continued to be great.

Thus modern war and its echoes tended to make all states more authoritarian and to exact a greater measure of conformity from their citizens, lest divergence from the nationally established path or challenge to the wisdom of those in authority give aid and comfort to the assumed enemy.

The impact of modern warfare on social structures was immense. Though the bases for many or most of the social changes which occurred during the first half of the twentieth century were present in the societies where they took place, the shock of war played a major part in loosening custom and breaking down existing structures.

The demands of war and the total involvement of peoples placed individuals and groups in new positions from which they did not entirely retreat when more normal conditions returned.

Wartime experiences changed the relationship of classes, altered the role of women and gave new opportunity to minority groups.

Finally, modern warfare entered the psychology of people, to distort their values. Historically, military virtues have always been associated with personal prowess and valour. Modern war left few opportunities for this type of conduct.

When warfare meant not a contest of skill but the weight of destruction, it tended to dehumanise those who waged it - not merely the bomber whose target was a city full of people going about their daily lives, but the total society, as it became inured to destruction, suffering and violence.

This effect may be seen in the changed attitude towards destruction between the two world wars. The exigencies of total war threatened all social values.

The UNESCO team’s account of the economic effects of the first and second World Wars and understanding of these cause and effect relations can help us to see things clearly.

If you view things correctly by holding a complex set of operations of what is happening in the war and why then there is no need to panic because the relative outcomes towards peace can be seen - some good - some bad.

Ross Gittins in the Age Newspaper on 6 October 2001, warns against viewing the terrorist attack as the perfect scapegoat for the downturn in global economy.

Gittins writes that our memories are "selective and defective". He recalls the Wall Street crash of October 1987 and how persons often viewed it as having led to the severe recession of the late eighties.

"But this “memory” of events leaves out about three years: the recession didn’t start until the second half of 1990 and, in the interim, we had a huge boom in residential and commercial property."

He writes that "in our minds, that’s what share market crashes do: cause recessions", having pointed out the common view that the Great Crash of October 1929 caused the Great Depression of the 1930s.

So why is it that we have this bad habit of viewing economic history incorrectly?

"Partly because we are suckers for one of the great logical fallacies: post hoc, ergo propter hoc - because C was preceded by B, therefore B must have caused C. Because the global recession came after the terrorist attack, the attack must have caused the recession.

“But it doesn’t necessarily follow. C may have been caused by A - all the things we know had weakened the US economy and other major economies, before the attack..."

Gittins writes that to explain this odd phenomenon it is necessary to look at what behavioural economists call, ‘availability heuristic’.

“This simply says that the more vivid an event the easier it is to recall - the more available it is to us when we search our memories... And there aren’t many events more vivid or sensational than a share market crash- unless its the horrific events of September 11.”

The argument presented by Ross Gittens makes sense as there is no single (in pali eka) cause for any effect.

Accordingly, the idea that one thing, such as love operating alone, will save the world, is a fallacy.

In Chinese Buddhist literature, the Buddhist virtue of love and compassion is generally expressed by a compound of two words that mean compassion and commiseration, rather than the singular term 'ai', which means love.

The reason for this is that the term 'ai' was used to represent one of the twelve members of Buddhist causality, i.e. dependent origination. This eighth term within the series of twelve was translated as 'ai', or love. The term denoted an innermost blind force of 'craving', like thirst, which triggers 'attachment' (or upadana), first to 'existence' (or bhava), then to the mass of sufferings represented collectively by 'birth and death', namely, grief, lamentation, misery, detachment and despair.

The force of 'craving' is said to arise from the 'feeling' (or vedana), of external contact through the six-fold sensory and mental faculties in the context where 'name and form' ('nama-rupa') are dualized within 'consciousness' (vinyana).

This conscious moment is said to arise from a configuration of multifarious inner workings of Karmic (essential mental) propensities within the subconscious domain, triggered by ignorance about the foregoing process.

Thus, Buddhist writers refrained from using the term 'ai' to express the sublime virtue of love, but instead resorted to either a compound of compassion and commiseration, or another compound consisting of compassion and love.

"Love" is an effective word for the purpose of communications, because it has been commonly used by other religious traditions among English-speaking peoples. However, an active wishing for the welfare and happiness of others is not, in and of itself, sufficient to bring about an end to the operations of war.

Love alone will not save the world. It must operate with other good things such as love with wisdom or love with compassion.

This logic accords to Buddha’s dictum that nothing can come from one single cause only, it always comes from multiple causes.

There are more horrific events in terms of death toll than the September 11 event in New York.

What has happened to the so-called 'war against AIDS'? It has faded from most persons' consciousness in Australia.

In 1985, actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS. The actor's cause of death was covered up at the time. Much later Freddie Mercury of Queen and Rudolf Nureyev (the Russian ballet dancer) also died of AIDS. The cause of death in these two cases was also covered up at the time. We must promote the culture of breaking down the silence on this and similar issues.

In the 1990s, tennis player, Arthur Ashe died of AIDS after a transfusion of HIV-infected bloods. Noerine Kaleeba, Director for the AIDS Support Organisation in Uganda lost her husband Chris through AIDS; former Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda, lost his son through AIDS and Fela Kuti, world-renowned Nigerian musician and political activist died from AIDS.

At the same time, many thousands of nameless people were dying from AIDS through heterosexual transmission. One name, Nkosi Johnson, became well known through his brave campaign after he became infected through mother-to-child transmission.

This illustrates that HIV/AIDS knows no boundaries of class, status, race or sexual preference. Both the powerful and powerless in every society are caught up in this vicious epidemic and it is now estimated that 36 million have been infected world-wide.

In South Africa, it is estimated that about 40% of the adult deaths aged 15-49 that occurred in the year 2000 were due to HIV/AIDS and that about 20% of all adult deaths in that year were due to AIDS. It is estimated that AIDS accounted for 25% of all deaths in South Africa in the year 2000, and has become the single biggest cause of death. Five to seven million cumulative deaths are expected in South Africa by 2010.

The relative costs of the operations of war in Afghanistan currently being expended, both covert and overt, would exceed the annual cost of treating HIV/AIDS world-wide.

This present imbalance ought to be held in mind as one factor for describing the operations of war within the foreseeable future.

If we deal with events arising from past cases appearing in the world in a rational manner, we must remember we are in human birth at present and we ought not react without restraint of our feelings. To let our feelings gallop like an untamed horse bolting, in other words to panic, is not correct.

We ought to restrain our feelings about the operations of war like a horse brought to an even canter.

We ought not try to stop our feelings because this cannot be done with sanity.

The fact is we do have feelings as long as we live - they are part of what we are. Feelings are associated with mind states and can arise prompted or unprompted.

They are in three forms, pleasant, unpleasant and neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

We ought not prompt and play with unpleasant feelings about operations of war.

May you come to the right view of war.

May you come to understand cause and effect.

May you be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes, Lisa Nelson, Vanessa Macleod, Pennie White, Leanne Eames, Julie O’Donnell and Rilla Oellien.

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References

Agnivesh, Swami & Thampu, Rev. Valson, "e-PRAXIS - Afghanistan: A Watershed in History", post sent to "Inter-religious E-mail Conference", p 2 of 4, October 17, 2001.

Leonard, Rev. G., Ed., "e-PRAXIS - South Africa: AIDS Mortality Report", post sent to "Inter-religious E-mail Conference", p 3 of 9, October 17, 2001.

Gittens, Ross, (2000) 'Terror becomes the Excuse', Age, Melbourne, 6 October 2001, Section 4: Business and Money, p 3.

Ichimura, Shohei, (2001), Buddhist Critical Spirituality--Prajna and Sunyata, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, p 77-8.

UNESCO (1966) History of Mankind Cultural and Scientific Development, London; George Allen and Unwin Ltd., Volume I, pp. xi-xvi.

UNESCO (1966) History of Mankind Cultural and Scientific Development, London; George Allen and Unwin Ltd., Volume VI, Part One, Chapter XII, pp. 337-351.

Document Statistics

Total:
Words: 1909
Sentences: 91
Paragraphs: 62
Syllables: 3064

Averages:
Words per sentence: 21.0
Sentences per paragraph: 1.5

Percentages:
Passive Sentences: 24

Readability Statistics
Flesch Grade Level: 13.1
Coleman-Liau Grade Level: 11.9
Bormuth Grade Level: 10.6
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 49.6
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 11.2

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Bormuth Grade Level: Indicates the grade level of the document based on the average number of letters per word and per sentence. These scores indicate grade levels ranging from 6.3 to 11.6.

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