 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
4
PREFACE
Imagine you are an extraterrestrial, have just crossed uncountable light-years and
are now approaching the planet Earth. It is your mission to reconnoiter this planet, to
establish contact with its inhabitants to exchange information and knowledge of any kind.
If
this proves positive and you are convinced of the sincerity and peacefulness of the people,
Earth could be accepted into the Intergalactic Federation.
Then it would be possible to have
open contacts with inhabitants of other planets which would cause a rapid development of
the earthlings’ consciousness and in their technology and health service.
After entering orbit you switch on your monitor to receive eventual signals. You get a
news station reporting on what’s happening on Earth.
Thus you recognize that this is a
warring planet where for thousands of years people fought, maimed and killed, not, as you
would at first assume, enemy planets, but EACH OTHER.
You soon realize that there is no concept behind these wars, because some fight for
their religion, others because of the color of their skin.
There are some who are unsatisfied
with the size of their country and others fight just to survive, as they have no food. Some
have only financial gain in mind, but on the whole, everyone is mainly concerned about
himself. You realize that this planet is not at all ready for the information and the technology
that you have to offer. No matter which country you would choose to land in, your gifts
would certainly not be used for the good of everyone on Earth, but again just for the selfish
interests of those leading that country.
Perhaps you will think back to your home planet and the time that there were still
wars there. But since this has been overcome thousands of years ago and you have no
inclination to relive that scenario, and since you found that a few “missiles” had been fired in
the direction of your space cruiser, you quickly decide you’d rather go visit another planet.
Have you ever wondered why people are always warring upon each other?
The Swiss scientist Jean-Jacques Babel found that during the 5,600 years humanity
fought 14,500 wars with three and a half billion dead. That is half of today’s world
population. In the 1991, for example, there were 52 wars or warlike crises upon Earth.
This
means that in the very year, after countless wars and clashes on this planet, among them
two world wars in just one century, there are 104 opposing ideologies facing each other,
with concerns that apparently weigh heavily enough to justify the killing of further millions of
human beings.
What purpose could be served by war among them?
For centuries, peace organizations and philosophers alike have deliberated
about
this and found that almost all human beings upon Earth fight from time to time over territory
and food. But aggressive behavior among animals cannot be compared directly with the
behavior of human beings because the latter also have intelligence, consciousness and
ethics. Just think of the difference between two predators fighting over the prey and
multinational arms companies living off the sale of weapons and therefore off permanent
war.
That the “fight for survival” can also be a source of entertainment is known from
ancient Rome, when under the motto “panem et circenes” (bread and circus games)
gladiators had to fight on another to delight the plebes and to distract them from their own
powerlessness. The same principle today applies to televisions, videos and mass sports
like football, which are all used to enable the superficial citizens to escape from the
oppressive void of their existence.
What are the media diverting from?
