With respect to the current SMP, this has to be a rhetorical question!
The last post confirmed in my mind just how hurtful things can get between men and women.
Whether it is intended or not, people get hurt.
Badly.
News agencies all over the world recently reported on the 20th anniversary of the Bosnian war.
The one that saw the end of the country formerly known as Yugoslavia and replaced by new countries (Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia and Croatia).
I knew a few Croatian people back then.
If you mentioned the word 'Serbia' to them, you could face a serious threat to your own life.
Goran Ivanisevic, throughout his Wimbledon career talked of his love for Croatia, never Yugoslavia. So when he won Wimbledon as a wild card in 2001, it seemed poetic justice that he should whip out the Croatian flag to celebrate his 10-year old country.
But even then, I am sure there were Serbians in the crowd who rejoiced for and with him.
One of my favorite pieces ever, comes from British composer Karl Jenkins and is called 'A Mass for Peace'.
Composed with the Bosnian war in mind, it is a masterpiece that had me gobsmacked the first time I heard it.
Here are some excerpts below (in no particular order - certainly not in the usual 'Order of Mass'!):
The Benedictus:
Better is Peace:
Agnus Dei:
Kyrie:
I never heard a Mass which contained this, but this is kinda the point of this post.
And why Karl Jenkins' Mass for peace is so special to me.
The Muslim call to prayer (Adhaan):
In one of the 'sessions' the visionaries of Medjugorje had with Our Lady, one of them asked Her: 'Who is the holiest person in the village?'
Our Lady gave the name of a Muslim woman who lived in the village.
In a village full of Catholics (98%), the holiest person was a Muslim.
Get me a hijab, now.
:-)
And finally, my favourite, The Sanctus:
(I love the distinctly - and unusual - military feel to it).
Twenty years after Goran Ivanisevic burst onto the scene, it is now a Serb at the helm of tennis glory. And Novak Djokovic can now play a tennis match with Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia without fear.
In fact the two men hugged at the end of the match.
Why?
It was Ljubicic's last match before he retires.
Some wars can never be won. I know that.
Israel/Palestine comes to mind.
But most can be negotiated to a point that no more bloodshed is necessary.
When the battle-weary are nursing their wounds and the defunct bodies are being cleared off the battlefield, what then?
When the cost of war is being tallied up and the innocent bystanders are being coached back to normality, what then?
I have never been in an actual war of course.
But I know that a few readers here have.
This is in fact an appropriate occasion to welcome Dogsquat into the asylum that is Gendersphere blogland :-)
Welcome, but even more than that, happy to see you here!
The 'war' we all face is that with the opposite gender whether we are single, married, divorced or widowed.
In war, there are many casualties.
Intended and non-intended.
This post is dedicatd to all the wounded.
Intended and non-intended.
Can peace ever be achieved?
This of course requires civil behaviour from both parties.
With that achievement, the peace itself is but icing on the cake.
15 comments:
You are asking to learn of things that you shouldn't know. That you don't want to know.
I wish I could erase the horror i've experienced. Don't seek to understand it. Just realize it exists and move on.
Let guys like me and Dogsquat deal with the burden of war. Stay away.....far far away.
@ Danny,
Somehow I get the distinct impression that you are not kidding.
So I back away from the barbed wire, hands in the air.
Thanks for the tip-off.
Maybe I don't really need to put my hand in fire to know it's gonna burn.
But I guess it makes sense to at least wonder about it.
For the curious among us it is perhaps inevitable :-)
Spacetraveler:
The 'war' we all face is that with the opposite gender whether we are single, married, divorced or widowed.
My reply:
Interesting. I can see all of those people in those categories as being "at war," but in different ways. The single, divorced or widowed, yes, if they are trying to date.
The married, if they have people in their lives they are concerned about, ie., children, or if they are concerned about their prospects if they were to fall into one of those types of "single" categories in the future.
The warriors commit some atrocities on the battlefield, and so they worry--what will happen to those coming behind, what might happen to me?
The happily married get annoyed when the warriors tell them they might as well be unicorns: "you're lying, you're unreal," and then see all women as narrow caricatures: "Career women/carousel riders/Christian whores."
And so it goes...
PVW
@ PVW,
Oh yes, I have absolutely no doubt that even the married are at war of sorts.
In this sense I am a realist :-)
No blinkers on whatsoever, when it comes to marriage.
But I agree with you that the 'war' for the married is slightly different, and perhaps even the opponents are different in the sense that the opponent for a married person is not necessarily their spouse.
But I think the happily married should recognise that they won the war already (at least an important battle) and not listen to the other warriors at the frontline
:-)
If it ain't broke, it don't need fixing, no?
Not to say that 'maintenance work' is not required, of course.
And you are right, as each generation is different, it is always worth 'watching out' for the next in line, i.e. one's children.
Obviously, we have all learned that things can get pretty freaky pretty quick. A few years down the line, and the SMP is totally unrecognisable...
Never, ever ask. My wife of 20+ years still does not know, and knows not to ask.
Someday, someone might actually tell you about their experiences. I hope not, for your own sake. But, mostly for their sake. No offense towards you, but many MANY things are better left alone.
Best that you just learn that war is bad, and there are no words.
The Navy Corpsman
@ NC,
"Never, ever ask."
OK. I won't.
I shall stick to the 'SMP war' from now on.
Danny and Dog saw it up close. I was only a Navy staff officer on a carrier in Viet Nam. Close enough. No one who experienced a real war would call the SMP, or politics for that matter, war.
Senior Beta,
Gosh, if you were on a carrier in Vietnam, it seems to me you were definitely up close.
I do not mean to cause offence by this post. I hope you can forgive me if I already have.
I use the 'war' analogy because for many women (who have no aspirations to get into the military), the one seriously distressing issue (among others, of course) they will face in their lives is their relationships with other people, especially men.
For us, much more than men, the SMP/MMP is the closest we will ever get to a battlefield. Because 'connection' with other people is our raison d'être.
Not very PC, I know, and any ardent feminist reading this would want to shoot me, but it is true.
I have a great job, I have everything in life which is conducive to a happy life, but until I am in a committed union (marriage) with a man of good character and worth, (who says 'ditto' about me!) I suspect my life would be less fulfilled. (Not unfulfilled, mind you, just less fulfilled). I can't imagine a man feeling exactly like this. Variations thereof, yes, but not exactly like this.
But alas, that is because we have different brain wiring. And of course different bodies.
Vive la différence and all that.
So, to a man who has been to a real war, the SMP is but a catfight.
To a woman who has never been to a real war (like me), ( and I daresay some men who feel strongly about relationships) the SMP feels exactly like what a real war would seem to you. Complete with strategies and casualties and such like.
So your last sentence is true, yes, and I am agreeing with it.
Thank you for making that point, because it allows me to state my intentions for writing this post much more clearly than I have previously.
I don't take offense. And with all due respect, I know you don't know the subject. I'm very over it now in talking about this stuff with civilians.
The nightmares stopped about 5-6 years ago. I've been drenched in blood and heard stories first hand if victims of the Serbian conflict. No combat experience, so I won't dishonor those that have. What I saw was from being in EMS and surrounded by Marines and salty bastards.
Spacetraveler:
But I think the happily married should recognise that they won the war already (at least an important battle) and not listen to the other warriors at the frontline
:-)
If it ain't broke, it don't need fixing, no?
Not to say that 'maintenance work' is not required, of course.
My reply:
And when they listen to others, they start to treat their own spouses as though they are war: on the conservative end, he might demand that she be overly submissive in a way that disrespects her, or she brings certain combative feminist ideologies into her marriage when it is not appropriate.
PVW
@ PVW,
"...on the conservative end, he might demand that she be overly submissive in a way that disrespects her, or she brings certain combative feminist ideologies into her marriage when it is not appropriate."
Exactly!
I have actually seen this happen! A perfectly good marriage ruined because someone listened to people they shouldn't have...
A a single person, I sometimes think to myself: 'Marriage is wasted on the married'. Hahahaha!
In the same way that old people say 'youth is wasted on the young'.
:-)
Although, truth be told, I am plain and simple jealous.
(To some degree. When I hear of marital woes I suddenly think, hm, it's not so bad being single afterall...)
*grin*
@ Danny,
"I don't take offense."
Good.
And thanks.
The little I know about this war comes from interacting with its victims.
In the aftermath of this war, I happened to be living and working in a small town by the sea, in England. One summer we were suddenly innondated with refugees from this war who came by boat, it seems.
And strangely enough most of them spoke French, and not English (I still don't know the connection to this day - anyone knowledgable as to why Bosnians and Serbs and Croats would be French-speaking??).
Anyhow, given that I was a known francophone, my usual work was often interrupted as I was asked to translate for them a lot. So I got a little bit of education on what it was like being a civilian in this war. But I still don't know anythng about being a military person in this or any other war...
I am sorry you had PTSD. Whatever its origin, I know it is not a nice thing to have gone through.
Good to hear your nightmares have stopped.
War in the sexual marketplace... or war between men and women? Fifty years ago, it was a dance, heck, even 25 years ago. Now... it's more a war between rights of gender than a war between genders.
It no longer matters who fired the first shot... only who will stop the madness.
The Navy Corpsman
P.S.
Once you have PTSD, you ALWAYS have PTSD. It cannot go away, it can only be dealt with. The doctors found that older vets from World War II started suffering severe issues after they retired during the 80s and 90s, because those vets had worked like dogs to keep themselves from thinking about it.
I once knew a man who had nightmares about Iwo Jima for four decades, every single night. Every single night. He killed himself with a Japanese pistol he kept as a memento, in 1997.
Semper Fidelis, Mr. Randal.
The Navy Corpsman
@ NC,
"War in the sexual marketplace... or war between men and women?"
Hm, now you mention it, I am not actually sure! I thought I was specifically addressing war in the SMP, but it seems to me that there is an unhealthy undercurrent between men and women in general, also...and I am not just referring to The Manosphere.
"It no longer matters who fired the first shot... only who will stop the madness."
Amen to this.
I am sorry about that military man you mention...
How tragic...
I wasn't aware that PTSD could last forever.
Horrible thought.
Thanks for educating me on this.
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