If you're in the historic centre of Berlin, and you stroll through the beautiful Tiergarten park, you're bound to notice a landmark statue, a golden figure on top of a column called Siegessäule (The Victory Column). The figure is called 'Victory' but local people call her 'Goldelse' – 'Golden Lizzie'. Lizzie was put on her plinth in 1873, to commemorate the series of military victories by the Prussian kingdom that culminated in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1. This caused the end of the French Second Empire and unified the German states under Prussian leadership. At that time, this conflict was the most recent in the various wars that had been going on since the tenth century after Charlemagne divided his empire into three. Nowadays we have the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France, but for centuries it was a fluid collage of territories, much like much the rest of Europe, in which shifting borders defined areas of influence and relationships rather than embracing distinct nationalities.
If you walk down the straight boulevard from the Victory Column past the Brandenburg Gate along Unter den Linden for about 10 minutes, you'll come across a single story building on the left hand side with Greek Corinthian columns. It's called the Neue Wache, the memorial to the war dead. It's a simple building, consisting of a grey tiled hall, with grey walls and light descending from the ceiling over one black statue – which is the sole item in the room. At first glance, the statue seems to be of a sack, but you quickly realize it is the figure of a seated hooded woman. Look more closely and you see she is cradling a skinny male. It's a statue by Käthe Kollwitz called 'Mother with a Dead Son'. Kollwitz was a committed and outspoken pacifist all her life and she created this statue in 1937/8 in memory of her son – who had died in the First World War. Ostracized by the Nazis, she died a few weeks before the end of the last pan-European conflict, the Second World War. Now the statue has been deliberately placed as a reminder – and the straight line of the boulevard that links it to Golden Lizzie amplifies the message: victory means that one side is crushed, and on that side, the mothers and wives are in mourning and the nation is shattered.
The victory paradigm is however showered with lustre and glory. In fact history is depicted in terms of its conquering kings and emperors: Alexander the Great, Genghiz Khan, Tamerlane, and, in Europe, by the would-be conquerors of its heartland: Charles V, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler. The scenario played out with one side achieving domination and crushing the other, then a reversal of the process. This went on for centuries with increasing devastation. And then as the conqueror fell and the empires crumbled into dust and pain, ordinary people picked themselves up, raised their kids, fed the chickens and got back to work. The daily history of people the world over.
Thankfully it seems that this particular zone of conflict has cooled down – due to the post-war determination to found the EU, soften the borders and increase cooperation. What will it take for the borders of Russia to follow suit? Is it even possible for there to be a more cooperative relationship between Israel, the Palestinian statelets and the Arab world around them? Maybe this could begin with a collective day of mourning... then a day when the women of all sides grieved together... "Mother with Dead Son' presents a more realistic image of war than Golden Lizzie. Through such a mutual acknowledgement of our common pain and fear, the current devastation could have a similar effect as the Second World War and urge a peaceful resolution.
This year as always, the dominator model is in full swing. The headline focus is on Ukraine and Gaza, but let's not forget, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan and a number of conflicted states in Africa. China is arising as a dominant power, much to the irritation and concern of the current chief dominator, the United States, where a classic dominator candidate for presidency is gaining support, even though he's on trial for a range of criminal offences – including supporting insurrection. Domination, with its simplistic logic, is a popular theme: the strong man will 'fix things', quickly. How? By the use of military and financial power. This is supported by an increasing polarisation of 'us and those outsiders', that relies upon religious, ideological or mythic 'nationalist' views. Resentment and blame for those who have been deemed to be on the 'other side' (even within the nation) are stirred up, and that supports heavy policing and overriding of the constitution, and of course, ethics. It was a strategy popularised by Hitler, but it has not gone out of date.
Domination is in fact the thing that needs to be fixed. It's based on an unawakened response to uncertainty and diversity: the ignorant citta reacts by demanding hard and permanent solutions, fixed boundaries, and simple strategies that will defend it against changing conditions that it can never control. Based on the incapacity and insecurity that ignorance brings, the citta projects 'the other' out there as being the source of its own problem. Losing touch with its ability to be fluid, heartful and ethically secure, the citta concocts various distorted messages: 'They'll take over, they'll take your livelihood, rape your women, defile your national identity.' The narratives of resentment and prejudice present some other group as depriving or threatening you. Even when the opposite is true. As an obvious example, throughout the history of what was called 'Christendom' one of the fall-back strategies has been to blame, kill or expel the Jews whose industry and intelligence supported trade and finance, and whose culture formed part of the rich fabric of Europe. The Islamic Ottomans could hardly believe their luck when the medieval Spanish monarchs expelled a Jewish population that had lived in Spain for 700 years – those damnable Turks promptly welcomed the Jews as a means to revive their failing economy. Meanwhile, there is no record of Jews ever presenting a threat to a nation; in general, they have contributed to it.
As another example, take Brexit and its slogan 'Take back control': European centres of finance have prospered as London was shot in the foot by this outbreak of British nationalism. (The fact remains that most of the 'national' UK wealth and resources continues to be controlled by non-British entities.) But facts are useless in the face of the blend of insecurity and the lust for supremacy. Hence indigenous people, women, Brussels Eurocrats, negroes, Communists - any identity can be created to justify the fear, insecurity and consequent reactions that are founded on the bedrock assumption that we have to conquer and subjugate to survive. But get this: humanity thrived, thrives and is fulfilled by working together; otherwise, our species would have been exterminated during African prehistory.
The case is that, the dominator (and their team) themselves represent a greater threat to their supine population because (Mao or Stalin are supreme examples) they have to dominate everyone – including their erstwhile supporters. The reality of other people being much like me is blocked by the fantasy-projections of the other that the dominator despises or feels threatened by: fantasies born of their own psychological afflictions and trauma. These are self-glorifying, identity providing – and insatiably addictive. In this way domination becomes a drug. You can see that play out in politics (no-one can own any territory, why harden borders and seize more land?) and in financial terms ( when you have $10billion, why do you need more?).
Security? How can aggression and inequality create a world free from hostility, fear and resentment?
Supremacy? In our attempt to conquer Nature, we mangle the delicate biological mechanisms that maintain life. We exterminate bees with pesticides although we have no way of pollinating plants to produce fruit. Our negligence and stubborn resistance to acting in harmony with the biosphere is generating climate and environmental changes that threaten to heat the planet to a point that profoundly challenges our survival. Supreme arrogance: it's the problem of self-view.
So in the long run, domination defeats itself. The empires crumble. So far the Russia-Ukraine conflict has only served to unify the diverse Ukrainian peoples and draw them closer to the European heartland, and to ramp up support for NATO. The Israel-Gaza conflict has isolated Israel, added to the trauma carried by Jews the world over and increased support for the Palestinian people - despite the atrocities committed by Hamas.
Is there a solution?
'Cultivate; investigate, purify and release the citta from self-view,' has to be the starting point. When you enter your true territory, the domain of heart-consciousness, you get the message. In your intimate territory, control and domination don't work. You can't even control your thoughts and emotions. You don't even own this body. Here there are no hard borders - everything permeates you from the air you breathe to the memories that well up in your mind. You have to co-operate, forgive and allow inner changes that defy your identity. You learn to give up craving for simplistic, 'me and my group' solutions and fixed positons. Instead there can be an acceptance of life’s uncertainties and frustrations rather than feeling threatened by them. As we stop projecting our personal failings and dissatisfactions outward, we see otherness as a basis for increased understanding and even wonder. A love based on the miracle of sharing life gets born, and a relationship based on harmony rather than coercion.
The great conquest then is the conquest over self-view. This has always been the teaching and the Way of the supremely awakened ones.
