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I have to confess that in the PEACE argument, I would classify myself as PEACE cynical. In some ways, what the Pro-PEACE and anti-PEACE argument is about is like a debate of ideology. A kind of debate that is scarily familiar.

Time for a history lesson.

After the ending of the Second World War, the western allies merged together their 3 parts of Germany to form West Germany, while the Russians made their part into East German. And then the Cold War started between the “Western Countries” lead effectively by the US, and the Soviet states lead by the Russians.

The US and Russians at that point had two fundamentally different ideologies. The US favoured Capitalism, while the Russians favoured Communism. For those who don’t know the difference, a really simplified explanation is as follows:

Capitalism relies on people trying to better themselves and to enjoy the benefits from their actions. Those with a talent would get rich, spend their money which would create jobs for the less naturally talented who would then have money for housing, food etc. The Achilles Heal was that the richest wanted to get richer and had no social conscience leaving the poorest even poorer and in poverty.

Communism’s ideology was that everyone was equal and no one should own anything but should work for the society on the whole. Communism always sounded the most noble in theory don’t you think. The Achilles Heal was that people realised that they didn’t need to work hard as the state would take care of them and as a result productively generally fell and left everyone generally not very rich. Except humans being human, some animals were more equal than the rest and those given the power to organise enjoyed the riches of the masses.

Both ideologies sounded great in theory but had their problems. This is where things got slightly more sinister. In the US, Senitor Joseph McCarthy launched an anti-Communist which hunt.



Anyone who had ever attended a meeting of any society with left wing thinking, part of a union or simply highlighting problems with a capitalist system were accused of being Communist spies and found themselves unemployed or imprisoned. The term McCarthyism lives on to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries. Luckily in the eUK, none of the pro-PEACE politicians have ever resorted to McCarthyistic behavior. Stop sniggering back there. For more information, read this Wiki Article. Anyone who read the excellent book “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller will be aware it was referencing McCarthyism.

Of course, things were no better in Russia. People who saw they were working harder than others and who asked in an Oliver Twist type of “Please sir, can I have some more?” were sometimes known to disappear in the middle of the night and never to be seen again. Of course, as a west European myself, it is impossible to say exactly what happened behind the Iron Curtain since whenever you knocked on the door asking if everything is ok after hearing a lot of crashing and banging, you always heard a call back of “Yes we are fine in here in Communist land and we don’t have the problems of you capitalists. Now go away.”

So you might be asking “Is PEACE soviet Russia or the US ?” in which point you’ve missed the point. Those who are the leaders of pro-PEACE are as defensive as to their pro-PEACE ideology and the greatness of it that in their mind, there cannot be possibly any other way. It is common for a PEACE cynic to be accused to being pro-ATLANTIS/EDEN/insert here and in some way demonised for not approving of the current politics. Luckily, our current leaders don’t have the power of the CIA or KGB to come around our houses to take away our PCs and make us conveniently disappear.

PEACE itself is not inherently evil. Both Capitalism and Communism had their logical advantages, but it was the actions of those at the top in the name of the ideology that caused the problems.

99.99% of those who were found guilty or suspected in the witch hunts considered themselves patriotic and would never dream of turning traitor. They believed the changes should be internal and by public opinion and not by betraying their country by passing secrets to 'enemy' governments or by deliberately sabotaging things. As in eRepublik, those who question PEACE do so in order to get things changed by public opinion and not in pass on governmental secrets to non-PEACE citizens.

It is generally clear that the current crop of leaders have made their mind up and aren’t really interested in debate – the typical response is “we are better off under PEACE” and we’d be worse off in another alliance. When the Berlin wall fell, we got to see the state of East Germany and could clearly see that the state of the country and the pretty utopia picture painted by the East German government didn’t match up. Tony Blair said trust me and back me to go to war in Iraq as we know beyond doubt he has WMDs. What politicians say and reality isn’t always the same thing and things aren’t always hunky-dory just because our leaders say it is – a bit like the manifesto of PEACE and some of their recent actions. I certainly don’t expect PEACE to fall under the weight of own size right now, but one day.