In a speech at an armoured vehicle conference on Wednesday (24/01), UK army chief General Sir Patrick Sanders sent the British media into a frenzy when he alluded to the very real prospect of world war three breaking out.

Where power and greed is concerned (Putin’s trademarks), if Russia ‘wins’ the invasion of Ukraine, the concern is that Putin won’t stop there, hence the worry that a war is coming.

Referring to us as the “pre-war generation”, in Sander’s speech it was made clear that we are under threat of a large scale war for which we are in no way prepared, owing to cuts to the armed forces (the British army stands at 73,000, vs the Russian military which comes in at 1.15 million)…

Because of how poorly equipped we are in the UK, Sanders, and this is the part of his speech which really got people scared, suggested that the UK should train a “citizen army” (i.e., regular people) ready to fight a war on land in the future.

One only has to scroll on TikTok to see all the memes off the back of this suggestion, Gen Zers poking fun at themselves- the sensitive, ‘snowflake’ generation, ‘and you expect us to go to war?! No chance.’

Behind all the jokes and ‘memes’ regarding the comments made on Wednesday though, is frustration, anger (at least, from me there is), towards the state of society- the fact that we are being told that we should be prepared to fight in the army for a war which we don’t even want… The fact that our lives will be sacrificed, whether we join the army or not (as civilians in a war on land country, we will be at risk either way), all because of the greed of a few* power hungry people.

*32 people, to be exact- the 31 leaders of NATO countries, and Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia. 32 people deciding the fate of the 746.4 million people who reside in Europe… How is this fair? When a few people have the resources, and even more scarily, the greed, to obliterate us all if they wanted to, (a nuclear war could be declared tomorrow and there would be absolutely nothing we could do about it), our very existence rests in their hands.

And it’s the same with the climate crisis. This too is a war, albeit, not a war against countries, but a war against the world…

The Power hungry elite

Our lives are sacrificed for the ever-elusive thing that is power. ‘Ever elusive’ because the fact is that power is nothing more than a social construct… With no reality to any of it, power is merely an illusion designed to control and invoke fear and thus compliance from people.

If Russia were to ‘win’ the war against Ukraine, for example, whilst they could claim to now have control, they wouldn’t really have any, for everyone- every person, every country- is one and the same, and you can’t be lesser than or better than, or in control of or being controlled by, something that is universal- one and the same. 

Like trying to roll a six on a dice with a one on each side, defying the laws of the universe, it just wouldn’t work. We could draw dots on each side to give us the illusion that some sides are of a higher value than the others, but it wouldn’t be real, for if we rubbed the dots, reverting the dice back to it’s natural state, there would still be a one on each side, every side of the same value- one (pardon the pun) and the same. 

And the same is true of us. 

Our natural state, that of our souls, is oneness. It is only when we get caught up in the rat race of society where money and power and greed clouds our judgement that we forget this, and start believing in better than/less than, superiority/inferiority (social constructs which divide and serve to, as we are seeing in Russia/Ukraine, Gaza/Israel, exasperate conflict).

If only our world leaders recognised the illusionary nature of power and control then we would at least have a shot at securing world peace but, whilst ever the physical is prioritised over the metaphysical, surface over depth, hate over love, conflict over peace, we* will continue to suffer.

*’We’ because, where one person suffers, we all suffer, for we are all one and the same… Separation an illusion, power a delusion, one and the same.

It’s frustrating when people are ignorant to this but the fact is that we live in different levels of consciousness where some people are awakened to the fact of our oneness, while others are still blindsided to it, the latter unfortunately being quite evidently the case with our world leaders-
blindsided.

How worrying that the people who are ignorant and blind to reality are in charge of our lives (and not even under a system of democracy, I wish to add)… Where the definition of democracy is, ‘the belief in freedom and equality between people’, yet the government control our lives/there is no freedom and equality between people, where is the democracy?…

I would argue that the only real democratic system in the world is anarchism, where power is decentralised to prevent the ‘hauling’ of power by a tiny minority who make decisions affecting the lives of the overwhelming majority.

When the government can create laws that restrict us simply because they ‘don’t like’ something- remember that homosexuality in the UK was a crime less than 60 years ago… When they can decide to go to war simply because they ‘feel like it’… When they can turn a blind eye to the destruction of the planet simply because it’s ‘too much hassle’, is democracy an illusion? Is everything that has a power dynamic at play (religion and class and money and any and all authority) an illusion where all is one?…

Just cast your mind back to 2020/2021 when the covid pandemic struck and the world all but stopped to see the lack of freedom we have over our own lives in our so called ‘democratic’ society… With laws being imposed during the pandemic to restrict our lives, (in the UK we were only allowed out of our homes once a day for exercise, and if we were found to be breaching those laws, we would be liable to a hefty fine of up to £10,000), I can remember being pulled over by the police on my way home from dropping some shopping off at my Grandmas house, ‘just to check where you’re going.’ Showing the officer the receipt to prove that we had in fact been to the supermarket, all the while the people who were imposing these very rules were at Downing Street ‘living it up’, using us as pawn pieces, saying all the right things (lies) to make us believe that they cared-, when all they really cared about (/care about- the same still applies) is power… Proof that where power dynamics are concerned, corruption rules (as is inevitable when power itself is a source of corruption/non-existent where all is one)…

The only way that we can move away from all the corruption is through the abolition of power structures, something which can only be achieved through anarchism, the abolition of authority. Despite the stereotypes of anarchism being all about chaos and crime, violence and disorder, anarchism is the most peaceful system there is/the greatest way to organise society under direct democracy.

Providing an alternative way of life whereby, instead of having our lives governed by (fake) authority, we govern our own lives, anarchism gives power to the people, not people to the power.

Getting rid of all the power-hungry leaders who trigger all the wars and conflict in the world and giving the ‘power’ (freedom) to the people, this is how we can achieve world peace.

One can but dream.