I Am Thankful to Live in A Peaceful Age, A Place Without War

Remember what history taught us

Someone in the neighborhood kindly posted a full-day planned outage list on Facebook for pole replacements next week. Luckily, the area where I live wouldn’t be affected.

Nowadays, for many of us, daily life without electricity/power would be unimaginable. You would feel like you abruptly lost contact with the outside world if both your computer and mobile phone don’t work. Soon you would also get worried about the food in the refrigerator, and what’s worse, you could be out of running water as well.

I have experienced outages (no power or no water) now and then. Even though it has just lasted minutes or hours, it bothered me a lot.

Whenever I see reports about various natural catastrophes or wars in the news, I can’t help but think it would be a nightmare for the people who struggle to survive and meanwhile have to face the days of food and energy shortage.

How terrible is such a hopeless life full of fear!

If natural catastrophes are inevitable for human beings, then wars are pure man-made disasters. It is a pity to see that this kind of tragedy has never stopped, from world wars to regional disputes, from terrorist attacks to suicide bombers.

It seems people forget the pain easily once their scar has been healed.

“A nation that forgets its past has no future”

― Sir Winston Churchill

When I studied in Germany, I noticed that the German media has always been flooded with documentaries about the Auschwitz massacre, especially around the anniversary of World War II.

This phenomenon has puzzled me for a long time. Why are Germans entangled in the past? Why can’t they let the past go? Don’t they feel like losing their faces by talking about the atrocities of their ancestors over and over again?

Looking back, I realized this practice of constantly altering the next generations is of great significance.

Human beings don’t cherish what they have. People who live in a peaceful time often think it should be like this. Most of them cannot or will not understand the suffering in wartime. As a result, they are easily incited to be used and become the victims of new wars.

That’s why the media in Germany kept displaying the harm caused by war to the public. The cruel pictures brought people back to the war years and stimulated their empathy. In this way, the next generations gradually understand the nature of wars.

No one benefits from wars except for arms dealers and war madmen.

History lets us remember the past and reminds us to not repeat the same mistakes. Only by seeing the price of ancestors paying their lives and blood, people would truly resist war from the bottom of their hearts.

Therefore, war can be avoided.

On the contrary, any country or nation that tries to conceal the truth of history will inevitably repeat the same mistakes and fall into disaster again and again.

I am thankful to be able to live in a peaceful age and place.

I expect that peace and stability will last.

I pray for a world without war.

Thank you for reading and all of your support!