When we seek to win, we end up losing.

The President of Sri Lanka is claiming victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or, as we Western folk know them, the "Tamil Tigers". Many are hailing this as a victory for humanity - after twenty-six bloody years, the forces of good have finally rid the world of these awful terrorists. We can now sleep more easily knowing the righteous forces of the Sri Lankan government have the situation under control, and that those evil Tamil Tigers will no longer bother any of us decent folk.

If you asked most of the Western world for their views on the situation, they might just tell you what I have illustrated in the above paragraph. Sadly, too many people think this way; without putting forth any effort to investigate further, we accept what is fed to us by our authorities, and usually, they conveniently omit the perspective of the other side of the conflict. Of course, I cannot lay blame on anyone for their ignorance - after all, they're only playing their bit parts to perfection - for how many of us have ever been taught to think critically about anything? The lesson is always to accept whatever comes our way at face value, never judge for ourselves. Is it any wonder why so many of us lack confidence in our own reason? That we're constantly seeking validation?

This is why wars are allowed to manifest as they do. Ignorance bestowed upon generations and subsequent generations results in our hating and seeking to destroy one another. The lesson being taught here is that "we" are good and "they" are bad. What do you think the Tamil people are telling their young about the Sinhalese? Do anyone even care to ask why the LTTE even exists? Or is it convenient for us to tell ourselves they're simply "bad" people? Do we not bother to think that, just maybe, the LTTE feel the same way about their Sinhalese counterparts: that they're inherently "bad"?

Time and again, we've been seeing the same bullshit production on display in our "theatre of terror" (I forgot who coined this phrase, but thank you). Right now, one of our hot topics is the ongoing strain between Israeli and Palestinian people, and the constant denouncement of Hamas as "terrorist". Imagine me gathering my friends together to lay a stomping on you, and the moment you strike back at us, we tell the world what a "terrorist" you are for daring to fight back. Imagine we continue to beat you on a daily basis. How long will you take this lying down? Do you feel good about it? Do you reckon you'll gather your allies and lay a good old-fashion ass-kicking on my comrades and me? Will I have to kill you and your allies for this to end? Will your allies not have allies? Will their children not grow up looking for the people who killed their parents?

Are we serious about ending this horrible practice of war? If we think we need to fight wars to end war, I'm afraid we're deluding ourselves and paying a monumental price for our error. If I haven't said it enough, violence begets more violence. We cannot kill a people and expect violence to end because the violence is not just within them but ourselves as well. Through might, we do not prove we are right; rather, we prove we will smite you to tell ourselves we are right. Do we wonder why the Sinhalese-controlled government of Sri Lanka does not allow the press into the war zone? Is it because it is "too dangerous", as they tell us, or because there is something they do not want the world to see?

In that geographical region where no journalist is allowed to venture, there is indeed something they do not want us to see, something they are afraid - nay, something we are afraid to see, though we need not travel to that part of the planet to see it. To see what is really happening in Tamil Eelam will frighten us to no end, for we will be seeing ourselves, and that is something we seem to fear more than anything. How many times have we been offered glimpses into ourselves and have quickly pulled down the blinds? We saw ourselves in the photographs from Abu Ghraib. We saw ourselves in the images from Viet Nam. We saw ourselves in Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment. We saw ourselves on board the Enola Gay as it dropped that first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. We saw ourselves in World War I, supposedly the war to end all wars. Somehow, we continue to do what we do, we continue to blind ourselves to ourselves. Still, we do not wish to believe we are capable of killing, of behaviing with no regard for our fellow human being, for the community around us.

We can end all of this very quickly and easily once we stop being afraid and look into ourselves. Perhaps we are beginning to do so; in part, we have our sisters and brothers from the Tamil and Palestinian communities to thank, for their actions have shown, to the rest of us, that these people are not the bogeymen we perceive them to be. I don't know if any of these people would stand up and speak out on behalf of evil; if we listen, we learn that they think and feel just like us - I can't believe I'm actually using this line in 2009, a time when we have supposedly overcome our own racial prejudices - that they believe a wrong is being done to them and are determined to do something about it.

I can delve into the wrongs being done to the rest of us - the most obvious being this robbery we call an "economic downturn" - but I feel that, over the course of my writing, I've made the message clear. Sooner or later, the rest of us will have to stand up, else drown in the river of shit that will come at us after we can no longer flush away the crap with which we are too afraid to deal. The ones we call "authority" would rather we not see ourselves, and as such, are quick to perpetuate the "Us versus Them" fantasy. All dreams come to an end; do we desire a rude awakening adrift in a current of shit?

The cracks in the foundation are propagating faster than the masons can fill them with mortar. Why fill them with mortar, you ask, when it serves as a mere bandage? Well, that's what a reactionary solution is, my friend: a bandage. Our approach thus far has been to slap one on any and all wounds and hope the bleeding stops. I'm afraid that won't happen this time; the cracks are too many and too great, and the palace is on the verge of collapse. It's time to let it go and face ourselves, for when all is said and done, we are all we will have.

Everything we think about the world, every belief we hold will come tumbling down very soon, and there won't be a thing we can do about it.

When we seek to win, we end up losing.

Let go.