The editorial
written by Abel Gropius
War is one of the darkest paradoxes of human existence . Despite technological and cultural advances, war persists, leaving behind a legacy of death, pain, and destruction. But what does war really represent? And above all, is it possible to conceive of a world without it?
War isn't just a military event. It is a collective failure, an extreme manifestation of our inability to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. At its epicenter, we find not heroes or brilliant strategies, but human beings—civilians, children, families—reduced to numbers in frightening statistics.
Yet, isn't their very pain the loudest cry against the inevitability of war?
As long as there is war, it is useless to talk about any rights. Power tolerates no truth about war. The only truth about war is the victims.
Gino Strada
Philosophers like Kant dreamed of a " perpetual peace ," a project based on reason and morality . Yet the utopia of peace seems elusive, like a mirage in the desert. But perhaps the problem lies not in the impossibility of utopia, but in our courage to pursue it . Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to transform conflict into dialogue, resentment into understanding .
If we conceive of war as a " cancer Gino Strada suggests , we must treat it with the same rigor with which we deal with an illness .
The tragedy of war victims is the most eloquent testimony to the urgency of this commitment. Every wounded child, every grieving mother and father, every destroyed community is a warning that asks us to rethink our relationship with violence . We cannot continue to relegate peace to the realm of the impossible : we must imagine it, desire it, build it .
Honourable Members of Parliament, honourable members of the Swedish Government, members of the RLA Foundation, fellow Prize winners, Excellencies, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honor for me to receive this prestigious award, which I consider a sign of appreciation for the exceptional work carried out by the humanitarian organization EMERGENCY over these 21 years, in favor of the victims of war and poverty.
I am a surgeon. I have seen the wounded (and dead) in various conflicts in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe. I have operated on thousands of people, wounded by bullets, bomb fragments, or missiles.
In Quetta, the Pakistani city near the Afghan border, I encountered landmine victims for the first time. I operated on many children injured by so-called "toy mines," small green plastic parrots the size of a cigarette pack. Scattered across the fields, these weapons are just waiting for a curious child to pick them up and play with them for a while, until they explode: one or two hands lost, burns on the chest, face, and eyes. Children left armless and blind. I still have vivid memories of those victims, and witnessing such atrocities changed my life.
It took me some time to accept the idea that a "war strategy" could include practices such as targeting children and the mutilation of children from the "enemy country." These weapons were designed not to kill, but to inflict horrific suffering on innocent children, placing a terrible burden on families and society. Even today, those children remain for me a living symbol of contemporary warfare, a constant form of terrorism against civilians.
A few years ago, in Kabul, I examined the medical records of about 1,200 patients to find that less than 10 percent were presumed to be military personnel.
Ninety percent of the victims were civilians, a third of them children. So, is this "the enemy"? Who pays the price of war?
Over the past century, the percentage of civilian deaths has increased sharply, from around 15% in World War I to over 60% in World War II. And in the more than 160 "major conflicts" the world has experienced since the end of World War II, costing over 25 million lives, the percentage of civilian casualties has consistently hovered around 90% of the total, a level very similar to that seen in the Afghan conflict.
Having worked in war-torn regions for over 25 years, I have witnessed this cruel and sad reality firsthand and have perceived the scale of this social tragedy, this carnage of civilians, which mostly occurs in areas where healthcare facilities are practically non-existent.
Over the years, EMERGENCY has built and operated hospitals with surgical centers for war victims in Rwanda, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and many other countries. It has subsequently expanded its medical operations to include pediatric centers and maternity wards, rehabilitation centers, outpatient clinics, and emergency departments.
EMERGENCY's origins and founding in 1994 didn't stem from a series of principles and declarations. Rather, it was conceived on operating tables and in hospital wards.
Treating the wounded is neither generous nor merciful, it's simply right. It must be done.
In 21 years of operation, EMERGENCY has provided medical and surgical assistance to over 6.5 million people. A drop in the ocean, you might say, but that drop has made a difference for many. In some ways, it has also changed the lives of those who, like me, have shared the EMERGENCY experience.
In every conflict we've worked in, regardless of who fought against whom or for what reason, the result was always the same: war meant nothing but the killing of civilians, death, and destruction. The tragedy of the victims is the only truth of war.
Confronted daily with this terrible reality, we conceived the idea of a community in which human relationships were founded on solidarity and mutual respect.
Indeed, this was the hope shared throughout the world in the aftermath of World War II. This hope led to the establishment of the United Nations, as stated in the Preamble to the UN Charter: "To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small .
The indissoluble link between human rights and peace and the mutually exclusive relationship between war and rights were also underlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed in 1948. "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" and "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world" .
Seventy years later, that Declaration appears provocative, offensive, and patently false. To date, not a single signatory state has fully implemented the universal rights it pledged to respect: the right to a dignified life, to work and housing, to education and healthcare. In a word, the right to social justice. At the beginning of the new millennium, there are no rights for all, but privileges for a few.
The most abhorrent, widespread, and constant violation of human rights is war, in all its forms. By eliminating the right to life, war denies all human rights.
I would like to emphasize once again that, in most countries ravaged by violence, those who pay the highest price are men and women like us, nine times out of ten. We must never forget this.
In November 2015 alone, over 4,000 civilians were killed in various countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, France, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Syria, and Somalia. Many more were injured and maimed, or forced to flee their homes.
As a witness to the atrocities of war, I have seen how the choice of violence has—in most cases—brought only increased violence and suffering. War is an act of terrorism, and terrorism is an act of war: the common denominator is the use of violence.
Sixty years later, we still face the dilemma posed in 1955 by the world's leading scientists in the so-called Russell-Einstein Manifesto: "Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall humanity renounce war?" Is a world without war possible to guarantee a future for the human race?
Many might argue that wars have always existed. That's true, but that doesn't prove that war is inevitable, nor can we assume that a world without war is an impossible goal. Just because war has marked our past doesn't mean it should also be part of our future.
Like disease, war should be viewed as a problem to be solved, not a fate to be embraced or appreciated.
As a doctor, I could compare the war to cancer. Cancer oppresses humanity and claims many victims: does this mean that all medical efforts are in vain? On the contrary, it is precisely the persistence of this devastating disease that drives us to redouble our efforts to prevent and defeat it.
Conceiving a world without war is the most challenging problem facing humanity. It is also the most urgent. Atomic scientists, with their Doomsday Clock, are warning humanity: "The clock is now just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to carry out their most important task: ensuring and preserving the health and life of human civilization .
The greatest challenge of the coming decades will be to imagine, design, and implement the conditions that will allow us to reduce the use of force and mass violence, ultimately eliminating these methods entirely. War, like lethal diseases, must be prevented and treated. Violence is not the right medicine: it doesn't cure the disease, it kills the patient.
The abolition of war is the first and indispensable step in this direction.
We can call it "utopia," since it has never happened before. However, the term utopia does not indicate something absurd, but rather a possibility not yet explored and brought to fruition .
Many years ago, even the abolition of slavery seemed "utopian." In the 17th century, "owning slaves" was considered "normal," physiological.
A mass movement, which over the years, decades, and centuries has gathered the support of hundreds of thousands of citizens, has changed the perception of slavery: today, the idea of human beings chained and enslaved repulses us. That utopia has become reality.
A world without war is another utopia we cannot wait to see transformed into reality.
We must convince millions of people that abolishing war is an urgent necessity and an achievable goal. This concept must penetrate deeply into our consciousness, until the idea of war becomes taboo and is eliminated from human history.
Receiving the Right Livelihood Award encourages me personally and EMERGENCY as a whole to redouble our efforts: caring for victims and promoting a cultural movement for the abolition of war.
I take this opportunity to appeal to all of you, the community of fellow Award winners, to join forces in supporting this initiative.
Working together for a world without war is the best thing we can do for future generations.
Thank you.
— Gino Strada, Stockholm, November 30, 2015
IN OTHER WORDS..
Looking back through history, wars have always had one constant : the most vulnerable pay the price . Yet, in today's discourse, this point often seems overlooked. When discussing armies and weapons, we tend to talk about strategy, power, and geopolitics, forgetting that behind every statistic lie lives cut short, families destroyed, and dreams shattered.
A disturbing aspect is the way sacrifices are perceived. When we praise the reintroduction of compulsory military service or advocate for a stronger army , we assume that it will always be " others " who suffer. But who are these "others"? They are our children, our friends, the young people full of hope and a future who will be sent to the front, often for causes they don't fully understand or have never chosen. Thinking that the pain of war concerns exclusively "others" is not only a conceptual error, but an act of dehumanization.
So where is the reflection? Where is the awareness that true strength lies in the ability to avoid conflict, rather than fuel it? Pacifists, too often targeted with sarcasm and derision, are instead a necessary voice in a society that risks succumbing to a militaristic mindset.
Policies based on armed force seem to obscure the understanding of what it truly means to live in a just and humane society. It's not just about opposing war, but about reminding everyone that behind every decision there is a face, a life, a story . The real challenge is to make people understand that peace is not just an unattainable dream, but a conscious and responsible choice that requires collective commitment.
The greatest risk is not just war itself, but the normalization of its rhetoric . If we don't begin to consider the weight of our words and our choices , we risk erecting a future in which conflict is not the exception, but the rule. And this, for anyone who believes in human dignity, is too high a price to pay.
Perhaps it's true that a world without war is a utopia . But as history demonstrates—from the end of slavery to the achievements of civil rights— utopias become reality only when humanity decides to no longer tolerate the unacceptable .
IN-DEPTH FEATURE: Julian Assange, Trial of Journalism - August 30, 2021
Presadiretta reconstructs and tells the story of Julian Assange , founder of the WikiLeaks . The Australian journalist and publisher brought to the world's attention the secret videos and reports on war crimes committed by the United States during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , as well as many other sensational news stories. A man who had the courage to reveal the secrets of Power. Some have called the trial against Julian Assange the biggest judicial scandal in history, the trial of a man who lost his freedom for telling the truth. But isn't this the job of every journalist?
Every human being is born immersed in a sea of perceptions. Consciousness is the first shore we touch: a fragile landing place that allows us to say "I" to the world. But consciousness is not a fixed point: it is a movement, a flow that renews itself every moment. It is the ability to recognize that we are alive and that...
Not all artists seek to arrest the flow of time : some chase it like a wild animal, others pass through it like a raging river. Thomas Dhellemmes belongs to this second lineage: his photography is not an act of fixation, but of movement. He doesn't freeze the moment, he sends it fleeing. He doesn't preserve it, he...