'What's the point of taking prisoners? They allought to be shot. No mercy. Dance among the corpses. All thecivilians of Serbia should be burnt to a man and the childrenfinished off with the bayonet...'
'Preparations for the slaughter of mankind havealways been made in the name of God or some supposed higher beingwhich men have devised and created in their ownimagination.
Before the ancient Phoenicians cut a prisoner'sthroat they also performed religious ceremonies just as solemnly asdid new generation some thousand years later before marching to warand destroying their enemies with fire and sword.
The cannibals of the Guinea Islands and Polynesiasacrifice to their gods and perform the most diverse religious ritesbefore ceremoniously devouring their captives or unnecessary peoplelike missionaries, travellers, agents of various business firms orpersons who are just inquisitive. As the cultural vestments have notyet reached them they decorate the outsides of their thighs withbunches of gaudy feathers of forest birds.
Before the Holy Inquisiton burnt its victims, itperformed the most solemn religious service - a High Mass withsinging.
When criminals are executed, priests alwaysofficiate, molesting the delinquents with their presence.
In Prussia the unfortunate victim was led to theblock by a pastor, in Austria to the gallows by a Catholic priest, inFrance to the guillotine, in America to the electric chair by aclergyman and in Spain to a chair where he was strangled by aningenious appliance. In Russia the revolutionary was taken off by abearded Orthodox priest etc.
Everywhere on these occasions they used to marchabout with a crucifix Christ figure, as if to say: 'They're onlycutting your head off, they're only hanging you, strangling you,putting fifteen thousand volts into you, but think what that chapthere had to go through.'
The great shambles of the world war did not takeplace without the blessing of priests. Chaplains of all armies prayedand celebrated drumhead masses for victory for the side whose breadthey ate.
Throughout all Europe people went to the slaughterlike cattle, driven there not only by butcher emperors, kings andother potentates and generals, but also by priests of allconfessions, who blessed them and made them perjure themselves thatthey would destroy the enemy on land, in the air, on the seaetc.
Drumhead masses were generally celebrated twice:once when a detachment left for the front, and once more at the fronton the eve of some bloody massacre and carnage. I remember that oncewhen a drumhead mass was being celebrated an enemy airplane dropped abomb on us and hit the field altar. There was nothing left of thechaplain except some bloodstained rags.
Afterwards they wrote about him as a martyr, whileour airplanes prepared the same kind of glory for the chaplain on theother side.
We had a great deal of fun out of this, and on theprovisional cross, at the spot where they burried the remains of thechaplain, there appeared overnight this epitaph:
What may hit us has now hit you.
You always said we'd join the saints.
Well, now you've caught it at HolyMass.
And where you stood are only stains.'
...So runs the story of the Good Soldier Svejk,written shortly after World War I by the Czech humorist JaroslavHasek. It is a classic story of the 'little man' fighting officialdomand bureaucracy with the only weapons available to him - passiveresistance, subterfuge, native wit and dumb insolence. Entangled inred tape, pushed around by police, doctors, clergy and officers, andever obliging, the good soldier (once discharged as a certifiedidiot) proceeds toward the crowning achievement of his militarycarreer -- to be captured by his own troops.
'Only two days remained before Svejk would have toappear before the draft board.
During this time Svejk made the necessarypreparations. First he sent Mrs. Müller to buy an army cap andnext he sent her to borrow the wheelchair from the confectioneraround the corner - that same one in which the confectioner used towheel around in the fresh air his lame and wicked old grandfather.Then he remembered he needed crutches. Fortunately the confectionerstill kept the cruthches too as a family relic of his oldgrandfather.
Now he only needed the recruit's bunch of flowersfor his buttonhole. Mrs. Müller got those for him too. Duringthese last two days she got noticeably thinner and wept from morningto night.
And so on that memorable day there appeared on thePrague streets a moving example of loyalty. An old woman pushingbefore her a wheelchair, in which there sat a man in an army cap witha finely polished Imperial badge and waiving his crutches. And in hisbuttonhole shone the fresh flowers of a recruit.
And this man, waving his crutches again and again,shouted out to the streets of Prague: 'To Belgrade, toBelgrade!'
He was followed by a crowd of people whichsteadily grew from the small group that had gathered in front of thehouse from which he had gone out to war.
Svejk could see that the policemen standing atsome of the crossroads saluted him.
At Wenceslas Square the crowd around Svejk'swheelchair had grown by several hundred and at the corner ofKrakovska Street they beat up a student in a German cap who hadshouted out to Svejk: 'Yes! Down with the Serbs!'
At the corner of Vodickova Street mounted policerode in and dispersed the crowd.
When Svejk showed the district police inspectorthat he had it in black and white that he must that day appear beforethe draft board, the latter was a trifle disappointed; and in orderto reduce the disturbances to a minimum he had Svejk and hiswheelchair escorted by two mounted police all the way to theSharpshooters' Island.
The following article about this episode appearedin the Prague News:
Yesterday afternoon the passers-by in the mainstreets of Prague were witnesses of a scene which was an eloquenttestimony to the fact that in these great and solemn hours the sonsof our nation can furnish the finest examples of loyalty and devotionto the throne of the aged monarch. We might well have been back inthe times of the ancient Greeks and Romans, when Mucius Scaevola hadhimself led off to battle, regardless of his burnt arm. The mostsacred feelings and sympathies were nobly demonstrated yesterday by acripple on crutches who was pushed in an invalid chair by his agedmother. This son of the Czech people, spontaneously and regardless ofhis infirmity, had himself driven off to war to sacrifice his lifeand possessions for his emperor. And if his call: 'To Belgrade!'found such a lively echo on the streets of Prague, it only goes toprove what model examples of love for the fatherland and the ImperialHouse are proffered by the people of Prague.'
The above is an offering of food for thought tomen and women, and especially to the young generation of Europeansand Americans, reminding them of the horrors that humanity had tosuffer in World Wars I and II.
The out-of-all proportion attack on the peopleof Serbia is truly tragic, and one can only hope that this latest warin Europe will not turn into World War III.
May the young people across Europe join thegrowing demonstrations against this insanity.
May they clearly tell these would-be butcheremperores -- Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kanzlers and the assortedgenerals that this time they will not allow these manipulators tosend them to be slaughtered like they did to theirgreat-grandfathers, grandfathers, and fathers in World Wars I andII.
March 27, 1999
TheGood Soldier Svejk, by Jaroslav Hasek
Primerfor Those Who Would Govern, by Hermann Oberth
Eumeswil,by Ernst Jünger
Rigadoon,by Louis Ferdinand Celine
North,by Louis Ferdinand Celine
LostLhasa, by Heinrich Harrer
The Expulsion in Europe -A timely reminder
The Genocide by China inTibet - Interview with brother of the Dalai Lama
Mahatma Gandhi - The Pursuit ofTruthfullness and Non-violence