The Consequences of Classified Perspectives

There was one time when I had a discussion with a lecturer of my international law class in my university. The topic of the discussion was the introduction to international law, so as the lecturer addressing concept about international law, there was an unexpectedly significant topic. He mentioned about war. Subsequently, he argued that there are two kinds of war. The first one is illegal war and the other one is legal war. As usual, my instinct worked out and I had to ask him a question.

"By legalizing a war, doesn't it also means justifying and give a reasonable way of a country to invade another country?"

He replied "I know exactly what you meant, what you are stating is completely has a very similar idea and view with Mahathir Muhammad (Former PM of Malaysia), which is views belong to the idealist whose believe that every war is illegal at any cost, BUT, we live in a real world, and we should acknowledged our circumstances. Why do you think every country possessed arms and weapons?"

I replied "For money?"

He replied "For security"

He went on to address his view as a realist, and in my opinion, he taught us to think about everything in politics through a perspective of a realist. Personally, I didn't have any desired to refute his opinion, but as far as I'm concerned that wasn't the perfect answer to counter my question.

I know that my comeback wasn't relevant, but the truth is, arms and weapons are completely materials that only advantaged the businessman and manufacturers and make them wealthier. For instance, let’s look at USA, this powerful country has many businessmen who manufacture weapons in substantial scales. These wealthy people have the power to influence the politics of USA, moreover, its government. Another reminding is that USA has been selling weapons to another country such as Saudi Arabia, in addition to that, USA has also been supporting opposition forces through weapons in every country that typically constitute a revolution against its own government. It is absolutely makes sense to think that a country might be making profit from a war.

I am not personally against country that possesses weapons for its security, nor believed that there should be disarmament in every country. My concern is that the consequences that probably emerged by using these weapons towards its civilians. I also live in this real world, I am perfectly awared that war is undeniable. The principal part of the problem is that, how we as a human should at least protect those innocent people from the impact of armed conflict or warfare. Furthermore, how at least we should change this view of war is undeniable to war is deniable.

Subjectively speaking, my definite reason to major in political science was to study on how to stop the seemingly continually destruction and devastation around the world made by warfare. I always have teary eyed every time I watched news about the impacts of war, in most instances, the complete destruction on infrastructures as well as the people that were killed, and the recently very crucial news about people fleeing their country. In this term, I would like to declare that there is a very significant distinction between refugees and immigrants. Refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. Contradicted with Refugee, Immigrant is a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.

By studying political science, I want to learn how to contribute in the future to undermine these issues. Instead of studying only on theoretical way of thinking whilst succeeding previous like-minded people approach toward warfare, we should at least learn from every war that there will not be any benefit and nothing to gain from it. Furthermore, as a major in International Relation, I concluded that diplomacy between countries should be the first and only most necessary way in approaching conflicted views of countries.

I went on to think that I should have opposed his opinion by addressing the discussion through this view:

"I'm really sorry to challenge your opinion sir, but I neither want to be classified myself as an Idealist nor a Realist. In my opinion, sir, by categorizing myself into an absolute view will not only give me a narrowly strict point of view, but apparently, it would bound my way of thinking to find a solution due to the prevailed point of classified view. By considering myself as one of the classified view, it would developed an ignorant notion towards the opposite view and whereas will also bordering myself to approach another beliefs."

For me, in my own perspective, my view is emerged from humanity, there should not be any reason for human, especially children killed by weapons because of the political conflicts. This human nature should be the view that every human should follow. Every human has compassion, this one true feeling should be the necessary way in approaching this kind of issue.