War is an ugly part of the human experience. Everything about it is hideous. War is most obviously the act of invasion
and the brutality that goes along with its operations. No war is precise; every war hurts civilians. Each act of
bombardment sends a neurological shudder through a society.
World War II demonstrated this ugliness in the Holocaust and in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From
Hiroshima and the Holocaust rose two mighty movements, one for peace and against the perils of further nuclear attacks,
and the other for an end to the divisions of humanity and for a nonalignment from these divisions. The Stockholm Appeal
of 1950, signed by 300 million people, called for an absolute ban on nuclear weapons. Five years later, 29 countries
from Africa and Asia, representing 54 percent of the world’s population, gathered in Bandung, Indonesia, to sign a
10-point pledge against war and for the “promotion of mutual interests and cooperation.” The Bandung Spirit was for
peace and for nonalignment, for the peoples of the world to put their efforts into building a process to eradicate
history’s burdens (illiteracy, ill health, hunger) by using their social wealth. Why spend money on nuclear weapons when
money should be spent on classrooms and hospitals?
Despite the major gains of many of the new nations that had emerged out of colonialism, the overwhelming force of the
older colonial powers prevented the Bandung Spirit from defining human history. Instead, the civilization of war
prevailed. This civilization of war is revealed in the massive waste of human wealth in the production of armed
forces—sufficient to destroy hundreds of planets—and the use of these armed forces as the first instinct to settle
disputes. Since the 1950s, the battlefield of these ambitions has not been in Europe or in North America, but rather it
has been in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—areas of the world where old colonial sensibilities believe that human life
is less important. This international division of humanity—which says that a war in Yemen is normal, whereas a war in
Ukraine is horrific—defines our time. There are 40 wars taking place across the globe; there needs to be political will
to fight to end each of these, not just those that are taking place within Europe. The Ukrainian flag is ubiquitous in
the West; what are the colors of the Yemeni flag, of the Sahrawi flag, and of the Somali flag?Return to Peace, Return to Nonalignment
We are overwhelmed these days with certainties that seem less and less real. As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, there
is a baffling view that negotiations are futile. This view circulates even when reasonable people agree that all wars
must end in negotiations. If that is the case, then why not call for an immediate ceasefire and build the trust
necessary for negotiations? Negotiations are only feasible if there is respect on all sides, and if there is an attempt
to understand that all sides in a military conflict have reasonable demands. To wit, to paint this war as the whims of
Russian President Vladimir Putin is part of the exercise of permanent war. Security guarantees for Ukraine are
necessary; but so are security guarantees for Russia, which would include a return to a serious international arms
control regime.
Peace does not come merely because we wish for it. It requires a fight in the trenches of ideas and institutions. The
political forces in power profit from war, and so they clothe themselves in machismo to better represent the arms
dealers who want more war, not less. These people in the blue suits of bureaucracy are not to be trusted with the
world’s future. They fail us when it comes to the climate catastrophe; they fail us when it comes to the pandemic; they
fail us when it comes to peacemaking. We need to summon up the old spirits of peace and nonalignment and bring these to
life inside mass movements that are the only hope of this planet.
It is not merely sentimental to reach back to the past to breathe life into the Non-Aligned Movement of today. Already
the contradictions of the present have raised the specter of nonalignment in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Most of these countries voted against the condemnation of Russia not because they support Russia’s war in Ukraine, but
rather because they recognize that polarization is a fatal error. What is needed is an alternative to the two-camp world
of the Cold War. That is the reason why many of the leaders of these countries—from China’s Xi Jinping to India’s
Narendra Modi to South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa—have called, despite their very different political orientations, for a
departure from the “Cold War mentality.” They are already walking toward a new nonaligned platform. It is this actual
movement of history that provokes us to reflect on a return to the concepts of nonalignment and peace.
Nobody wants to imagine the full implications of the encirclement of China and Russia by the United States and its
allies. Even countries that are closely allied with the United States—such as Germany and Japan—recognize that if a new
iron curtain descends around China and Russia, it would be fatal for their own countries. Already, the war and sanctions
have created serious political crises in Honduras, Pakistan, Peru, and Sri Lanka, with others to follow as food and fuel
prices rise astronomically. War is too expensive for the poorer nations. Spending for war is eating into the human
spirit, and warfare itself increases people’s general sense of despair.
The warmakers are idealists. Their wars do not settle the major dilemmas of humanity. The ideas of nonalignment and
peace, on the other hand, are realistic; their framework has answers to the children who want to eat and to learn, to
play and to dream.
This article was produced by the Morning Star and Globetrotter.
Roger McKenzie is a reporter for the Morning Star. He is the general secretary of Liberation, one of the oldest UK human rights organizations.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is
the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.