My vet husband, Jim, and daughter, Chloe, on a long ago arms are for hugging peace march in Central Park. photo ©copyright Carol Bergman
IMAGINE
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace…
-John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Released 10/11/71
***
Dear Professor Freud,
Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?
It is common knowledge that, with the advance of modern science, this issue has come to mean a matter of life and death for civilization as we know it; nevertheless, for all the zeal displayed, every attempt at its solution has ended in a lamentable breakdown…
-Albert Einstein in a letter to Sigmund Freud, 30 July 1932
When the war in Ukraine began, I imagined myself on the frontlines, my family on the train to Poland. I imagined myself fighting, my family fleeing. Often, as a child, I asked my mother why she had fled the war zone, that soon became a genocide, and left her parents—my grandparents—behind, a child-centered question. The complexities of invasion from an imperialist power cannot be answered by one, afflicted refugee escaping bombardment and atrocity. I had no humility and said, bluntly, "I would have stayed and fought in the underground."
Many imaginings will surface in this blog post. I can't imagine, for example how my questioning made my mother feel, how it might have intensified her survivor's guilt and grief. I can't imagine how Peter Zalmayev, Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative, based in Kyiv, will feel when I talk to him on Thursday and ask the questions: Do you see an end to this war? Is there any way to make peace and stop the slaughter? Who is profiting—governments, arms dealers, both—from the arms pouring into Ukraine?
Is it fair to ask these questions of someone only recently surfaced from a bunker?
It isn't only the deflection of resources in a world still in the midst and/or recovering from a pandemic, it's the realization that the NATO alliance is on a war footing and has revved up its war economies; it's the sadness of the frailty of peace, the seeming impossibility of a peaceful world, the continuing futility of diplomacy. Consider Israel and Palestine, for starters. Consider the pushback of migrants, their flights from despotic, impoverished regimes while the rest of us worry about the price of gas and food and whether or not we'll be able to go on vacation this year.
I am old enough now to remember peace marches, peace signs and John and Yoko's iconic song. It's a utopian lullaby, an incantation, embedded in my psyche. I hope it helps.