“All is fair in love and war”

Apr 12, 2022 Letters

---

Dear Editor,

Today, 12th of April marks the 77th death anniversary of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who passed away days before the allied victory in Europe on the 8th of May and the surrender of Japan in August 1945, signaling the end of a vicious World War II, which destroyed billions of property in many parts of the world and took several millions of lives.

This murderous war began in 1939 as a typical European conflict and escalated with the entry of a reluctant Unites States of America after the Japanese bombed US Battleships and other facilities at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 killing over 2,400 American Servicemen, described by President Roosevelt as a day of infamy.

Mr. Editor, why note the sudden passing of F.D.R. in 1945, it is because I believe that if there are cordial relationships between persons whether it be the family, the community but in particular Leaders of great nations, then much of the difficulties, wars and hardship would never take place. Thomas Carlyle in his influential lectures of 1840 contended that, “history is no more the biography of prominent personalities.” This is so true unto this day and hence I draw attention to the passing of FDR and my belief that his passing changed the course of history in particular the confused but critical conditions we witness in Europe today.

While in London, I had the opportunity to peruse available records of Meetings among the big-Three (Churchill-UK, Roosevelt-USA and Stalin-Russia), and I am of the view that Roosevelt, even as they met at Yalta in February 1945, appreciated the fact that the Russians made the greatest sacrifice in terms of human lives and materials to defeat Germany, and was therefore prepared to offer concessions to Russia, as the Big-Three sought to literally divide the world, in terms of spheres of influence, control and the realignment of nation states.

The Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 is a good example.

The Germans tried to take Stalingrad in what has been described as the fiercest battle in modern times. There were two million casualties and over eight hundred thousand fatalities in a seven month campaign from August 1942 to February 1943.

Of course, it is now history that by April 1945, Adolph Hitler and his mistress were hiding in a bunker and it is reported that faced with a weakened Germany, Hitler died on 30th April, 1945. It is my view that the cordial and perhaps friendly relationship between Roosevelt and Stalin served as a sort of cushion for the aggressive stance of the British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. I hold the view that Roosevelt’s successor may not have shared that kinship developed between Stalin and Roosevelt. So it was that when the Big-Three met again at Potsdam in late July that Stalin was faced with two new conferees.

Harris S. Truman was the new President of the United States; Churchill had to pack his bags and return to London when the news came that he and the conservatives had lost the Elections in the UK. He was replaced by the new Labour Prime Minister of the UK, Clement Atlee.

It is not clear whether at that Big-Three Conference in Potsdam, that US President, Harry Truman informed Stalin and Atlee that the Manhattan experiment was a great success and the US had up its sleeve this powerful nuclear weapon we know as the atomic bomb.

On his return to the US, Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima on 6th August, a major city in Japan and three days later in spite of the massive and unbelievable destruction of Hiroshima, another atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese City of Nagasaki killing within ninety-six hours over 200,000 thousand – men, women, children and infants, medical and other facilities that make up a typical City.

The majority of children were on their way to school when the bomb exploded, sometime after 8’o clock in the morning. The first nuclear weapon to be used on innocent people in human history.

At a church service, which I attended last Sunday at the Guyana Veterans Association, some of us gathered after and discussed war issues and of course, the present conflict in Ukraine.

Many of us listened to reports on the Ukraine issue from the BBC and Western Media. As one who has lived through the struggles here and elsewhere and the recent Int’l Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on 25 March, 2022, I listen to these stories from CNN and BBC cum grano salis.

I said to my friends at the post-service exercise at the Guyana Legion that Guyanese must be careful and cautious before picking up the cudgel of either side in what is essentially an European Civil War that we are thousands of miles away from and may not fully understand.

Our position ought to be while expressing a grave concern for the loss of life and destruction of property to urge both sides to sit and talk, talk and talk and tell those who seem addicted to war and who have for generations benefitted from a destructive and all-consuming arms race to provide humanitarian aid and facilitate constructive and civilized dialogue and as it now appears to be the case – not fan flames of fury and fire.

For that reason, I support President Ali’s explanation for Guyana abstaining on the resolution at the UN last week calling for the expulsion of Russia from the Human Rights Council.

A modern media, which has developed all of the Hollywood techniques making it difficult for those of us, the consumers, to differentiate between propaganda and the reality of facts. This generation remembers for example, how we were led to believe that Saddam Hussein, Leader of Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. After his trial and execution, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found.

Of interest, no one is talking about the carnage inflicted on many parts of Africa by the French and other European colonizers holding billions in European Banks, from the Continents’ Natural Resources and today we hear little while in parts of Africa, notwithstanding the substantial natural resources, there is starvation.

I therefore support the position taken by President Ali on this situation that we should have waited for the results of an independent investigation into these allegations, including reports that Ukranians pushed Africans off vehicles heading for areas of safety. They had to walk.

The challenge for the UN is to identify an investigating team that is truly neutral and not influenced by preconceived notions.

We should also know that everywhere East, West, North or South that nation states with military muscle have tended to employ brute force instead of having the patience to exhaust avenues of diplomacy, discussion and shared decency.

In other words, they all, and I repeat all without exception, seem addicted to war. It is this that has created so much pain and punishment on the innocent worldwide. The Korean war took 10M lives, the Vietnam war took millions of lives including American Servicemen who were dispatched to the battlefields in an unwinnable war. Today, the Red Cross is concentrating in Europe while many thousands are starving elsewhere, when we are spending billions on weapons and arms, instead of materials to produce food.

For me, white lives matter, black lives matter, brown lives matter, all lives matter and we must try to change this culture of believing that war must solve our problems.

I end with this thesis, that everywhere, Africa, Asia, America, Europe, Pacific, Antarctica, we must learn the value of discussion and patience and learn that none of us is ever one hundred percent right nor one hundred percent wrong.

I am reminded of school days, when two bullies squared off, instead of trying to keep them apart, we urged them to fight and this seems unhappily to be the curse of centuries of human history among tribes, caste and nation states. I hope that this may not be the case but that every nation subscribes to clear codes of conduct and behaviour, irrespective of their military might. Let there be peace and let that peace begin with each one of us or are we all doomed and condemned to journey through our planet with the sentiments expressed in the poem written by John Lyly which determines that ‘All is fair in love and war.”

I pray and hope that we overcome this curse on humanity and that John Lyly is wrong very wrong. Let us work to fulfill the aspirations outlined which remind us that peace and the absence of conflict will not happen by prayers alone, but as in the Book of Isaiah 2:4, we beat our swords into plowshares. Let this be our Tribute to the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who passed away on this day and yearned for a peaceful world.

Hamilton Green,
Elder

---

---