By Roshan Jayasinghe
In a time when one nuclear-armed nation can warn another that a world war “would not be confined to European borders,” we must pause, not out of fear, but out of remembrance.
Not remembrance of wars past, nor of the ideological doctrines that divided continents, but of the simple, inconvenient truth that all governments are abstractions composed of people. People who are born, who bleed, who bury their parents, and hope their children will live better than they did.
This is not a political critique. This is a human reflection.
When language becomes a weapon
Russia’s recent statement, declaring that a third world war may erupt if Ukraine continues striking Russian soil with Western supplied weapons, is not just a foreign policy position.
It’s a symptom.
A symptom of a species that has grown so used to performance and projection that it can no longer feel the absurdity of threatening life to protect the idea of a nation.
How does language, once meant to connect, now serve as a tool of intimidation?
We are told this is the way of nations. That deterrence requires dramatics. That power speaks in ultimatums.
But underneath this rhetoric is a forgetting.
A forgetting that war is never waged by governments alone. It is waged by sons and daughters who have birthdays. By mothers who pack school lunches. By elders who survived one war and now wonder if another will end their lineage.
The performance of patriotism
If you’ve followed my writing, you’ll recognize this theme: we have become performers in a system we no longer question.
We perform strength by funding militaries.
We perform leadership by drafting threats.
We perform loyalty by choosing sides in arguments we didn’t create.
Just like the child who learns to shout before he learns to listen, our systems reward escalation over inquiry. Posturing over presence. Reaction over repair.
We have become so fluent in the language of power that we’ve forgotten the grammar of humanity.
Is my silence a kind of agreement?
Every time a headline says, “Russia warns of World War III,” it assumes we’ve agreed to this kind of world, where fear is currency and peace is fringe.
But did you agree?
Did you, an ordinary citizen of the Earth, sign a document stating that when power is threatened, life becomes expendable?
Or have you simply been trained to nod along, thinking:
“This is just the way things are.”
Ask yourself:
• When did war become acceptable background noise?
• When did we normalize politicians threatening extinction in the name of protection?
• When did we stop asking: Who benefits from our fear?
If it happened elsewhere, would you care?
If tomorrow the warning became action, and missiles struck a city you’ve never been to, would you care?
What if it were your child’s school?
Your grandmother’s hospital?
Your friend’s street?
Why does it take proximity to make suffering real?
When we only empathize with what’s close, we surrender our humanity to geography.
The root of every war is a mistaken identity
No war begins because people know who they are.
War begins when we forget.
When nations believe they are separate.
When leaders believe they are superior.
When people believe they must be protected from one another.
But what are we actually protecting?
Land?
Legacy?
Or is it the ego of an illusion, that one flag is more sacred than another, that one story is more righteous, that one form of pain is more justified?
There are no villains when you remember even those who make threats were once babies, held by mothers who didn’t yet know their sons would inherit broken systems.
The only real threat: collective forgetting
The true war is not out there.
It’s here, in the mind of each person who forgets that war is not natural.
It’s not inevitable.
It’s not righteous.
It’s not the consequence of “just how the world works.”
It is the result of the world forgetting what it is made of:
Not borders. Not power. Not strategy. But breath. Skin. Grief. Hope.
What kind of world are you consenting to?
The world is not changed by politicians. It is changed by perception.
Ask yourself:
• Who taught me to accept war as inevitable?
• When did I first believe that violence was a form of strength?
• Do I know the name of even one child in a war zone?
Do I question these headlines?
Do I talk to my children about peace?
Do I teach myself that peace isn’t passive, but the most courageous stance in a culture addicted to conflict?
The correction doesn’t start in the capital, it starts in the conscience
We do not need to start a revolution.
We simply need to stop performing for systems that have no soul.
• Refuse to amplify stories that thrive on fear.
• Question the language of war as if it were spoken about your own family, because it is.
• Speak to those around you not in sides, but in senses.
What do you feel when you read these threats?
Do you feel safer? Wiser? More connected?
If not, the story needs rewriting.
The final war is not between countries, it’s between consciousness and conditioning
If this cycle ends, it won’t be because of leaders.
It will be because enough ordinary people refused to play along.
Because someone like you read a headline and whispered to themselves:
There must be another way.
And then chose to live as if that were true.
So let us remember:
We are not nations.
We are not borders.
We are not flags.
We are life.
We are breath.
We are human.
And nothing, no threat, no warning, no weapon, can erase that.
About the Author
Roshan Jayasinghe is a humanist thinker and emerging writer based in California. With a background in administration and a deep passion for social equity, he explores the intersections of politics, identity, and compassion through a lens grounded in nature’s own self-correcting wisdom.
Roshan Jayasinghe
Rooted in the belief that humanity can realign with the natural order where balance, regeneration, and interdependence are inherent. Roshan’s reflections invite readers to pause, question, and reimagine the systems we live within. His writing seeks not to impose answers, but to spark thought and awaken a deeper awareness of our shared human journey. Roshan will be sharing weekly articles that gently challenge, inspire, and reconnect us to what matters most.
