Scientists once flirted with the idea that the first internecine warfare was between Homo Neanderthalis and Homo Sapiens and that Neanderthals were exterminated by the Cro-Magnons. The latest scientific research has shown many modern human beings share DNA with ancient Neanderthals. What happened is that two closely related strains of our hominid ancestors were able to mate. They were different, but they made love instead of war. Since that happy conclusion, differences - in ethnicity, religion and territorial ambitions - have resulted in the organized violence of warfare.
Warfare has its symbols - flags, insignia, medals, martial music - which induce youths in every land, rich but mostly poor, to risk their lives for the greater glory of their nations. The tragic element is that nationality is an artificial construct. As an example of this, during the First World War, ethnic Germans who came to Canada from Russia were not enemy aliens, but ethnic Ukrainians, who were reluctant citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Great numbers of Ukrainians were interned.
Religions have their symbols and conflicts. During the Crusades young men fought against each other for the Cross and the Crescent. The leaders of Christendom, both religious and secular, called upon young men to take up the holy mission of expelling the heathen Saracens from the holy places of Christianity. There is plunder to be taken and profit to be made in a military adventure in distant lands. Very little of it came into the possession of the base-born youths who fought the battles.
This is the insidious backdrop that continues to characterize warfare. In whatever individuals power resides, elected or not, is the capacity to create the international discords which lead to war and, through the manipulation of symbols, to make the newest war into a noble purpose. Wars are fought for power and profit. Very little of either comes to the individuals who do the fighting and dying.
Terms can also be symbols. In the United States, the constitution is a second Bible. The Boston Tea Party as a symbol enshrines the right of free Americans to resist government meddling in what they consider to be their private affairs. The Second Amendment of the Constitution establishes as sacred the right of adult Americans to go out in the streets and other public places as walking arsenals.
What every citizen everywhere needs to know is the purpose that is hidden behind the symbol, what it is intended to accomplish and who has hidden it. None of this is meant to claim symbols are always used for nefarious purposes. The most hopeful symbolism of our times comes from Rome where a new pope has chosen to call himself Francis. St. Francis of Assisi was born to wealth and was eager for the glories of battle until he underwent a miraculous conversion. For the rest of his life his concern was for the poor and powerless and for the beauties of the natural world. He gave his love to both the oppressed and the oppressor because he saw all life as a gift from God. He even preached a sermon to a flock of birds.
If from his elevated position, Pope Francis perseveres in trying to elevate the downtrodden by following the precepts of Francis of Assisi, he deserves the prayers of the prayerful and the good will of those who never pray at all. He is no longer young, but he can make a beginning in healing the wounds of his own church and spreading good will among believers and non-believers everywhere. He may be setting us on a path to the realization that we are all descended from the two different species that made love rather than war. He may have begun charting a course that will bring the whole human family into a society that is free from the contagions of violence, greed, deception and disrespect for each other and for the planet that is our home.
