Weapons

The Secretary-General of the United Nations stood up and said solemnly:

• Today I respectfully invite the General Assembly to listen to a speech by Dr Schneider Fruss on the question of weapons.
  Everyone saw a man walk with a limp up to the lectern. After a few words of greeting, Dr Schneider Fruss came to the substance:
• Twenty years ago I was a military doctor taking part in the United Nations peacekeeping force in Yemen. On one rescue mission, my medical team fell into an ambush by local rebels. Although we explained at length that we were only performing the medical duties of the UN peacekeeping force, the rebels did not understand, or deliberately ignored it, and opened fire on our team and coldly walked away.
  Everyone died, leaving only me, badly wounded. I was rescued, but I lost a leg and have many scars. You cannot probably imagine the pain I endured for more than two months. And the after-effects have still not gone to this day. The wounds on my body did not hurt as much as the pain in spirit and feeling when my family broke apart and separated afterwards.
  I left the army and went on to take a doctorate in medicine, teaching at many universities around the world. But for a long time I have persistently fought for a truly civilised world in which CRUEL WEAPONS THAT INJURE AND KILL do not exist. After many years of campaigning, today with the consent of the Secretary-General I have the honour to stand here and present to you my dream. This dream is not the American dream, not the Chinese dream, but a dream of a world with no more pain that people inflict on one another.
  You also know that in ancient times, when people were not yet civilised, the punishment for criminals was often to violate the body and cause pain: cutting off hands, cutting off feet, gouging out eyes, slicing flesh... When humankind became civilised, punishment was only to detain, depriving freedom. If there was execution, it was made as painless as possible. Clearly, the more civilised people become, the more reluctant they are to cause bodily pain to others.
  Today, with even higher civilisation, people have begun to campaign for animals not to be made to suffer pain either. Animal rights are being raised everywhere. People have replaced food meat with meat cultured in laboratories in order to gradually abandon meat obtained by killing animals.
  But running contrary to that civilisation, weapons manufacturers still develop new kinds of weapons that kill more, with no concern for the victims' pain.
  I am not calling for weapons to be abolished. People still need weapons for self-defence, but the weapons of the time of foolish, wild humankind differ from the weapons of a civilised, advanced time.
  We must be clear that the aim of a weapon is to make the opponent unable to fight. But in ancient times technology was weak, and to make an opponent unable to fight one had to kill the opponent, or at least inflict some injury. Naturally both cause the opponent pain. After a battle, those on the battlefield suffer bodily pain, and families in the rear suffer pain in spirit.
  Now, with science and technology advancing so far, to still use the old thinking of making the opponent unable to fight by inflicting casualties on him is both stupid and cruel. Today we can perfectly well make an opponent unable to fight by other means, without having to inflict painful injury or death on him.
  Today I stand here, with the support of the Secretary-General, and solemnly call on the conscience of humankind: change weapons. If we still have to fight, please stop at the true aim, which is making the opponent unable to fight, and do not add the infliction of painful injury or death. Behind each of them are so many loved ones waiting.
  We still have to move towards a world with no more war. A civilised planet must not have war. If there must be war, let us take each other out to a football pitch to find the winner.
  Please make haste to build non-lethal weapons that only make the opponent temporarily unable to fight, because we still have many chances to negotiate peace with one another...
  Dr Schneider Fruss spoke until the several thousand people in the General Assembly were all in tears. 🤺

If our skin is scratched even a little, it stings and is uncomfortable. Thinking of those who are cut and stabbed, who lose arms and legs, is truly pitiful. The world cannot yet live in peace and love one another as those with ethics dream, but we must limit as far as possible the infliction of pain on one another. Even at this hour we still have to witness scenes of people shooting each other, skulls shattered and legs broken, guts spilled and lungs torn. Bombs still explode, flinging flesh and bone in all directions. Cruelty has not ended; on the contrary, it is fiercer than in the past.

Are we advancing or going backwards? Civilisation is the reduction of cruelty. So if weapons that injure and kill are stronger, it means the level of civilisation has declined.
The world today has become small and close, countries communicate and talk with one another all the time, so how can we bring ourselves to turn our faces and shoot and kill one another, spilling blood and severing heads?
If we cannot yet live in peace, if we still have to fight, then let us think of the time when we shall make peace with each other without anything to regret. Many countries fight to their hearts' content and afterwards sign a treaty of peace and friendship, shaking hands and embracing warmly; but having already killed several thousand of each other's people, the joy of peace is strained and less joyful.

We wish that the United Nations would issue a resolution requiring weapons that have no function of injuring and killing, only the function of making the opponent temporarily unable to fight. After that the parties could sit down and negotiate, whoever wins or loses, but the soldiers would return to their families in one piece.