Today I read on the news about Mikhail Kalashnikov letter to to Russian Orthodox Church head Patriarch Kirill.
In the letter he stated that ‘
he felt sorry for the fact that millions of people had been killed by the weapon he created, a news report said Monday.
“My spiritual pain is unbearable,” Kalashnikov wrote, Izvestia reported, citing a copy of the letter. “There’s one insoluble issue: since my rifle killed people, am I … an Orthodox Christian, responsible for the deaths of people, even if they are enemies?” ‘
Amazingly we believe that it is alright to make this difference in human lives, or any lives for that matter, ‘thou shall not kill’ only applies to friends, family and our pets, and yet who are ‘the foes’? Those that someone stated were different from us, wanted something else, prayed to someone else, ate different food, wore different clothes and above all, wanted something we wanted as well, like their land, their resources, their ‘freedom to exist’.
Kalashnikov was a soldier first, he was wounded during the second world war and designed a weapon in response to the fact that they had been battling the armed-to-the-tooth Germans with the equivalent of toy guns. He never became rich, he just became infamous for his creation. Our weapons industry has grown just this way, you would not believe it, as we tried to up one another in the best and most vicious weapons we could come up with – an industry all driven by Fear -when it is not driven just by money like the Koch Empire, something to be really proud of.
If we were not in captivity through a Privately Owned Money and Economic system, we could travel the world and discover that our alleged ‘enemies’ are just people like us, driven by the same Fears, weeping for the same losses, wishing for a better life, a safer country, food on the table, dignity, basically a Life that makes some sense vs this gold rush that we have set up to make sure we get to the limited resources of the Earth First, so we won’t have to share, so we will be able to sell the right to live to others who were less lucky, had less arms, were less ruthless to come at us for the same reason.
Dr. Kalashnikov repented, no matter what he had been told throughout his life, he just could not excuse himself out of this world as an ‘arms designer‘, something ate him, the doubt, what if I was responsible, what if WE are responsible for the way this world is, what if we could change it, just by disconnecting from the narrative of how things have always been, what if we put down all guns to Create instead of Destroying, what world could we come up with if all our efforts were directed to Life and the Living and not to Death?
What is the payback of keeping up the paradox of ‘the owner responsibility’ when it comes to weapons. I wonder, what ELSE Could One do with an AK 47, machine guns, bombs, boobie traps and nuclear arms if NOT HARM and KILL?
To restore dignity to this world we need to put everyone in condition to have a Life, that doesn’t just mean to stop senselessly killing people with ‘tools designed specifically to do that‘, it means to put an end to the way this system works, because we can and because we don’t want to have to regret not having done so when it’s too late.
Everyone has a right to Life, if they didn’t they would not be alive, we can change the way this world barely survives into a world where everyone’s basic needs are taken care of, we end the death sentences and return the money invested in wars and weapons to the Living, it’s called a Living Income guaranteed, it will cross borders, races and even the insanity of religion that excuses killing as long as it is the killing of those on the wrong side of our imaginary divisive lines’.
Consider repenting as Kalashnikov imagined,
“You see,” said the elderly wolf, “all these feelings come about because one side wants to liberate itself with arms. But in my opinion it is good that prevails – it will be after I am dead. But the time will come when my weapons will be no more used or necessary.”
repenting as in re-painting this world, no one has to live this way unless we say so, but we can say we no longer accept this world as it is, we can say NO to using weapons to make a point (come on, what are we children, knocking each other around because we lack the ability to speak and use words to come to agreements?) for ourselves and those that will come after and we can start our walk to correct the world and realign it to something that works for all.
And that won’t include weapons no more. It’s possible. Join us.
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