“I’m writing a book about the war… Why about the war? Because we are people of war – we have always been at war or been preparing for war. If one looks closely, we all think in terms of war. At home, on the street. That’s why human life is so cheap in this country. Everything is wartime.”
- Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize Winner for Her Documentation of War
It was the 1991 Gulf War that heralded another era of war across the world. They had announced that the Cold War had ended but war, like termite, returns. There was Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Serbia-Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan starting in 2001, and Iraq again from 2003 and then Ukraine and Palestine and Syria, again.
Africa has its own timeline that never gets punctured with peace or a pause.
Outlook’s anniversary issue is about who we become when we are at war and we have almost always been at war with each other.
The world is a timeline of wars and this issue is an act of remembrance of endless wars.
Chinki Sinha writes.
Produced by Divya Tiwari.
Edited by Ehraz Zaman.
#NeverEndingWars #ContinuousWars #EndlessWars #PerpetualWars #Outlook #WarAndPeace #Palestine #Ukraine #Syria #Sudan #Nigeria #Congo #Cameroon #Gaza #Yemen #Burma #SriLanka #Africa #Iraq #Afghanistan #SerbiaKosovo #Bosnia #Haiti #Somalia #GulfWar
- Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize Winner for Her Documentation of War
It was the 1991 Gulf War that heralded another era of war across the world. They had announced that the Cold War had ended but war, like termite, returns. There was Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Serbia-Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan starting in 2001, and Iraq again from 2003 and then Ukraine and Palestine and Syria, again.
Africa has its own timeline that never gets punctured with peace or a pause.
Outlook’s anniversary issue is about who we become when we are at war and we have almost always been at war with each other.
The world is a timeline of wars and this issue is an act of remembrance of endless wars.
Chinki Sinha writes.
Produced by Divya Tiwari.
Edited by Ehraz Zaman.
#NeverEndingWars #ContinuousWars #EndlessWars #PerpetualWars #Outlook #WarAndPeace #Palestine #Ukraine #Syria #Sudan #Nigeria #Congo #Cameroon #Gaza #Yemen #Burma #SriLanka #Africa #Iraq #Afghanistan #SerbiaKosovo #Bosnia #Haiti #Somalia #GulfWar
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NewsTranscript
00:00If I must die, you must live to tell my story, to sell my things, to buy a piece of cloth
00:09and some strings.
00:12Make it white with a long tail, so that a child somewhere in Gaza, while looking heaven
00:18in the eye, awaiting his dad, who left in a blaze, and bid no one farewell, not even
00:24to his flesh, not even to himself, sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above, and
00:34thinks for a moment, an angel is there, bringing back love.
00:40If I must die, let it bring hope, let it be a tale.
00:46Last year, we at Outlook India paid tribute to the children of Gaza, to the people of
00:51Palestine.
00:54Another year has passed, and the world is still at war.
00:59There are endless wars.
01:01This issue is a manuscript of sadness, a documentation of loss, homage to endurance.
01:08War is not an anomaly, it is constant, unyielding.
01:12The world has never known everlasting peace, not truly.
01:16Yet, even amidst devastation, humanity finds a way to endure.
01:25War is never elsewhere, it seeps into every corner of existence, leaving no one untouched.
01:45It's the cry of a mother in Gaza, the silence of a father burying his child in Ukraine,
01:51the lost gaze of a Congolese refugee forced to leave everything behind.
01:57It takes everything, homes, future, innocence, and leaves only ruins.
02:04No war has ever truly ended, its echoes ripple through time, through generations.
02:11But war is more than bombs and blood, it is hunger, displacement, and despair.
02:18It is the child growing up in a camp, never knowing the word home.
02:22It is the mother, rationing hope, her heart heavy with what she cannot provide.
02:28The cost of war is not just the lives it takes, but the lives it leaves behind, lives fractured
02:34by trauma, haunted by memories that refuse to fade.
02:38Refugees, soldiers, civilians, no one escapes unscathed, perpetrators, victims, survivors,
02:45and audience are all witness to the brutality we are capable of.
02:49Mental scars run deeper than the ruins of cities.
02:52In the faces of survivors, you see not just grief, but exhaustion, a tiredness born of
02:58trying to rebuild what seems irreparably lost.
03:03And yet, even as war wages, love finds a way.
03:07A father shields his daughter from the horrors outside, a couple weds in a camp, exchanging
03:11vows amidst the hum of generators.
03:15In these moments you see what war can never destroy, the human spirit's refusal to surrender
03:21to despair.
03:22Love remains our greatest act of defiance.
03:41This issue of our magazine is a pause, a moment to mourn, to reflect, and to remember.
03:48We are born from beauty.