anti-war?

Transfered from old site

.............The planetary manifestation..................
 

 
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
 
And Heaven in a Wild Flower
 
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand
 
And Eternity in an Hour"
 

 
...William Blake
 

 

 
After seeing on the internet so much reports about "the public demonstrations against war" that are taking place, let's try to understand better what is happening.
 

 
The word "manifestation", by itself, perhaps isn't enough to represent the whole dimension of the protests. Because never before in the history of mankind has there been a series of simultaneous demonstrations like these ones:
 

 
Millions of people; in hundreds of towns; from all the continents; protesting against war.
 

 
In order to put this process in words we would need another name (or a metaphor).
 
But we will, in the meantime, define it as:
 

 
"Great manifestation of people all around the globe"
 

 
…
 

 
Besides that, we can also say that it isn't just an "anti-war" manifestation.
 

 
Since it is clear that one of the main reasons behind this clash is economic power: for oil control and exploitation or for the profit of the war industry.
 

 
And, if we realise that it is a conflict involving people that dispute financial and political power, it’s possible to say that the conflict is a visible symptom of the unease about the social, political and economic system by which we are all ruled.
 

 
A system which is founded on competition and accumulation. That, given enough time, inevitably generates inequality, misery and suffering.
 

 
Or, putting differently, a system where the capital has priority over the human being: Capital-ism.
 

 
…
 

 
As this system has prevailed in all regions of the planet for centuries, we got so used to it that it seems natural. Which is the same as saying that capitalism is within each one of us.
 

 
From this statement, we can see why it’s so hard to have large dissemination of criticism and wide realisation of protests.
 

 
Nevertheless, with this country invasion happening in a certain area of the planet, an explicit symptom of capitalism makes itself very clear in time and space, and, because of that, humanity is mobilising for a great collective manifestation.
 

 
…
 

 
And, if the part may represent the whole, (like, for example, when science shows that each cell contains the whole genetic code of an organism);
 

 
Then, in an analogy (which is more from poetic than from pure rational logic) we can say that manifesting against the symptom (war) is also manifesting against the system (capitalism).
 

 
Going further, if we can see Earth as an organism (with some help from the Gaia theory), we may say we are cells of this huge and wonderful living being.
 

 
So, using a similar analogy, it is possible to say that "a manifestation of millions of people all around the globe" is also a manifestation of the planet Earth itself.
 

 
…
 

 
Therefore, with this “poetry logic“ we may conclude:
 

 
- A manifestation of Earth for the end of capitalism.
 

 

 

 

 
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text by Marcos Menezes, copyleft 2003
 
marcos@rbc.org.br
 
http://www.feijao.org
 
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