Solneman
(Kurt H. Zube)

Even the tiger in the wilderness lives mainly on vegetables, i.e. on the stomach contents of its vegetarian animal victims. But it is none the less wholly a tiger according to its nature, i.e. it cannot give up aggression and killing as a beast of prey. So it is too with the State. By its nature, it leans towards domination and aggression, internally as well as externally. Its ultimate argument is force. Even though external aggression today seems to be largely restrained through fear of nuclear weapons, this means a "peace" which may be broken at a moment's notice by any fool or unteachable ideologist. Moreover, the super-powers have created their smaller war scenes, as e.g. was the case for a time in Vietnam and as is happening still in the Near East and Africa, where they are industrially rehearsing for the first and final performance of World War III.

The mad arms expenditure all over the world would suffice, if reasonably used, to cover all material pent-up demand, especially in developing countries, within a short time. 

Some people consider world-government to be the best guarantee of peace. But this is an illusion originating from a misunderstanding of the essential nature of the State. Even within the individual States, their principle proves to be not a peace-promoting but rather a war-mongering one. Their principle consists in putting the management of all the affairs of human beings into the hands of a few and in aggressively forcing this management upon all their opponents. The aggressiveness of this action does not lose its character by being practiced in the name of an alleged majority. On a world-wide scale there are still greater differences in character, temper, custom, habit, ideology, religion and race. Therefore, any attempt to unify thoughts and actions world-wide must fail. Consequently, such attempts would at best lead to civil wars instead of the national wars we have had so far. A new conflict would be added to those already existing.

What is, after all, the aim of national as well as civil wars? Nothing other than:

1. to subject opponents forcefully to one's own interpretations,

2. to maintain privileges and prerogatives, monopolies and oligopolies,

3. to establish or maintain a condition of unequal freedom, and

4. the principle: "Get up! - so that I can sit down in your place!"

Everyone wants to rule (note the revealing component "Gier''- greed - in the German word for ruling: "regieren" - "govern"), not only to live according to his own concepts and wishes, but also to be able to compel all others to live as he does, without bothering about their totally different concepts and wishes.

This does not always happen because of greed for power but often merely due to the naive identification of one's own wishes, interests and concepts with those of all others. One even thinks one is doing them a good turn when one forces them to accept these notions. This is done out of the equally naive habit which induces most people to forget that the articles of their own faith are not provable knowledge by which one can convince others but mere assumptions and hypotheses that are advanced, while the others swear by quite different assumptions and hypotheses. Seeing the enormous variety of views, general agreement upon a single one is impossible.

Thus the only chance to avoid dangerous conflicts as far as possible, lies in compromise: in respecting the other with all his differences, and not only to the extent that he is of no interest to us, but even when we cannot understand his actions and thinking, or even despise them, in order to negotiate, mutually, his readiness to tolerate us. The limit must always be where the one demands privileges over the other and tries to inflate his own sphere of freedom at the expense of the other. But the standard for this limit of the equal freedom of all has finally been found and can be applied quite precisely.

Nowadays most people have been captivated by the fixed idea (i.e. an idea that has become so habitual that its falseness no longer strikes us) that within a territory there can be only one government with a monopoly claim which determines the affairs of the whole population in a uniform way. Why should there not exist, e.g. in Ireland, Israel, Rhodesia or any State for that matter, two (or more) governments of autonomous protective and social communities whose authority embraces only those among the population who want to belong to these communities voluntarily? This would be similar to the present arrangement between religious communities. Then every one of these autonomous protective and social communities would have the State of its dreams, without opposition, and could live according to its wishes without being hindered in this by others. As soon as they have fully realized the advantages of the principle of the equal freedom of all, its consequences will be no problem either. Of course, none of the various autonomous protective and social communities must claim prerogatives or privileges against the others, any more than individual members may raise such claims against others (without the others' approval). What conclusions have to be drawn in order to abolish all prerogatives, privileges and monopolies, especially regarding land and money, has been explained by the anarchists. Upon this basis, and only upon this basis, an agreement between different points of view is surprisingly simple.

Anybody can understand that Israelis do not want to be dominated by Arabs, as little as Arabs want to be ruled by Israelis, Catholics by Protestants and vice versa, Communists by dissidents, etc. Once this principle of mutual independence and nonintervention, of the equal freedom of all, is clearly understood, then an agreement upon the consequences becomes easy: No privileges any more for some over others - and thus peace!

There is only one possible way to avoid warlike conflicts permanently: the realization of the principle of the equal freedom of all, of the strict abolition of privileges - world-wide.

This means, among other things, the elimination of all conflicts resulting from the territorially separated States with their monopoly claims to natural resources which happen to lie within their frontiers, and their discriminating economic policies against "foreigners." It means the abolition of all monopolistic and aggressive organizations, as represented to the highest degree by the States. Without such organizations, national wars as well as civil wars are inconceivable. There will then be only one world, in which the Earth no longer belongs to the States but to the real totality of all individuals, with every individual, without exception, having an equal claim to use it.

The peace movement therefore has to change its way of thinking and can base itself for the first time on a clear and uniform program within the whole world.

There is also offered for the first time, in place of numerous earlier criteria which are mutually irreconcilable, an indubitable and objective standard for the whole world.

Of course, there is nothing to be said against a world organization whose principle and purpose is the realization and defence of the principle of the equal freedom of all, a world organization which arises from the free association of individuals or of autonomous protective and social communities which also make this principle their basic law. Such an organization could, at the same time, also make those "international" arrangements which correspond to the requirements of a world-wide protection of the environment and which are today already partly agreed upon internationally. But such an organization would be something fundamentally different from what is conceived nowadays under a world government, following the examples of previous State governments. Quite contrary to the endeavors of the State, its main effort should be directed to the strict observance of the limit of the equal freedom of all, individually, while at the same time the equal freedom of all groups will also be guaranteed.

With the abolition of internal aggression, aggression against the outside also automatically ceases! As soon as the principle of the equal freedom of all is realized in the individual States, then there will no longer be any States in today's sense left, and with their rivalries all conditions for warlike clashes will also disappear.

It must become clear to all that religions and ideologies (regardless of their validity within the limits of the equal freedom of all) can never form the basis for relations between individuals, groups and entire peoples but are, if they are used as such, nothing but camouflage for aggressive force. Only when the simple truth (which as such is exactly provable) has been recognized that there is only the inescapable choice between aggressive force and understanding (whereby the latter is possible only on the basis of the equal freedom of all) can there be lasting peace between the peoples of the world, too.

Peace aspirations without respect for the principle of the equal freedom of all must remain illusory - for the same reasons as make peaceful conditions among individuals impossible without the realization of this principle.

This insight offers for the first time in human history an unshakable basis for peace, a perception upon which all human beings of all races and nations, of all religions and world views, can really agree. It is fundamental for all peace actions.

Peace activists of the world, unite!