An illustration from H.G. Welles' "Little Wars" Imagine for a moment that you have a beef with your neighbors. But this is no ordinary beef. It’s a long-standing one because the houses and properties where you and your respective families live have been part of your heritage for generations, from your grandparents or great-grandparents down. There have been attempts at reconciliation, mediation, lawsuits, and so on down through the generations, and nothing has worked. In the meantime, the enmity has quit being about property lines or privacy fences and has gotten personal. Those on both sides of the feud—because, by now, it’s a feud—have decided the problem isn’t the original one (by now it’s hard to remember what that actually was), but that your neighbors are simply enemies, with whom you have nothing in common and never will. You don’t share the same race, religion or creed. You’re not of the same ethnic or national background. Your politics are diametrically
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Author Roberto Vivo comments on wars past and present, on the world’s great peacemakers and on the pathway to global peace. His basic philosophy: In a world where 9 out of every 10 victims of armed conflict are civilians, war is no longer a viable political alternative. Indeed, it is the ultimate crime against humanity. If rising generations are to have a future, the key will lie in world peace. War is the pathway to oblivion.