There are always many wars raging around the world, between countries, as well as civil wars and conflicts within countries. They are devastating to countries, families and individuals, to soldiers and civilians, to people and infrastructure, and to whole communities, towns and cities. Innocent children are victims, getting injured and killed, losing parents and other loved ones. They grow up and live in constant fear, suffering devastating psychological injuries and scars that will never heal because of wars, which are human-made disasters.

When we consider individual cases, they tell us more than statistics and broad media reports. Therefore, to feel empathy with victims of wars, including the soldiers of the aggressors, it is important to try to understand and feel for each individual and case. If we did that, I believe that wars and armed conflicts would have been less prevalent than they still are, carried out in as cruel ways as they have always been for thousands of years. We should realise that each person’s feelings are the same, at all times, in all places. We don’t need to have personal experience of wars and conflicts to realise the devastation, but we need to learn about the individuals and the situations to feel empathy, and through that, we will become less willing to accept wars as unavoidable. We would engage more in peace efforts and pacifism, as we commemorate the end of WWII in Europe on 8 May 1945.

The Scottish-Australian singer and songwriter Eric Bogle (b. 1944) wrote the sad epic song, ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’, in 1971, after he had watched the Memorial March in Australia’s capital, Canberra, sitting on the porch watching the old men march by, proud but a bit unsteadily and slower than before, as they grew older. And the young people, whose knowledge about WWI and WWII was less, would ask: what are........

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