Introduction

It starts with 1945, and is expressed in a poem by Hatto Fischer as to what takes place in civil life after the soldier has returned home and become again a father. Certain things are not so easily shed as if merely a laying down of weapons. Alone the command in the voice remains, or military like movements which have literally steeled the body are made even during such innocent times as the habitual Sunday walks turning out to be for the children more like following marching orders. While Germans promised 'never again war' in 1945, reunified Germany has sent soldiers to Afghanistan and is ready in 2014 to sent weapons into Iraq. Despite the constitution forbidding to sent weapons into regions of conflict, this latest move is justified by what chancellor Merkel calls 'Völkermord'. She refers to what the Islamic State fighters are doing to anyone not ready to obey immediately their religious belief, namely to execute them. That contradiction is made evident in the poem by Gerhard Zwerenz when speaking about the fourth, fifth, indeed sixth lost generation, for their lives are wasted if there is war. As for Germany, he describes the position taken as a deeply cynical one, for what matters is merely to be in demand due to a need for weapons while everything else is forgotten. Likewise Philip Meersman describes a dialogue between father and son in relation to the Iraq war in 1980, for the son has become a mine sweeper. No wonder then when Sam Hamill, founder of the movement 'Poets against the War', reminds what war really means: body counts, or those bodies which come home in plastic bags. They come from Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and they keep coming as long as young men are sent to war. And even if they return at all alive, then with scars often not seen on their bodies, but deeply engraved in their psyche. It is this invisible something which poets wish to make visible. They write what they see and feel about scars which do not go away so easily, especially not if society wishes to mourn one day, but then return quickly the next day to business as usual and an enjoyable life. However, the business with war is anything but usual; rather it is in reality deadly and harmful to peace. Also there can be no real joy in life as long as people are dying or forced to flee their homes due to war. Here then prevails the danger since people are ready to blend out the reality of the others as long as they are not affected directly themselves by war. That leads in turn to a loss in ethics of seeing reality, or rather to a schizophrenic life, which in turn breeds new forms of aggressions and explains losses of chances to live together in peace. The latter is done best by a kind of world governance made possible by people staying in touch with one another, and this especially through an imaginative dialogue made possible especially by world poetry. It speaks about the scars of war resulting out of having entered conflicts on the basis of many unrealistic assumptions about the chances for peace. Above all, it seems as if the world is seemingly bent more to follow the principle of permanent war rather than seek perpetual peace (Kant) only to be sustained by civilized, non violent behaviour out of love for life and in realizing gaining in knowledge on how to preserve and to respect human dignity amounts to the greatest aspiration to live together with others.

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Introduction