Wars Within Wars

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 286, 15 December 1944, Page 7

Wars Within Wars

T was inevitable when the war became world-wide that it would bring other conflicts with it. This it has done. Greece and Belgium are with difficulty suppressing civil war. France escaped it by a miracle. Poland is escaping by enemy occupation. If all the points of friction were spotlighted one by one the effect might easily be a spreading wave of depression. But setbacks must be seen in perspective. Instead of asking ourselves what we are fighting for, when civil war seems to be liberty’s reward, we must remember, first that these explosions pass, second that although they are pitiable they are almost negligible in relation to the events that have brought them to a head, and third that the price the Greeks, for example, are paying for their liberty is less than they paid every day for four years at the command of. Germans and Italians. On the other hand it is childish to avert our eyes and refuse to look the facts in the face. They are unpleasant facts — as unpleasant as the pettiness, meanness, duplicity, folly, and fanaticism with which the best of us are so adequately endowed; but they are not the whole story or its most important part. Nor have they anywhere come as a surprise. If we were not ready for them it was our own fault — a temporary lapse in our vigilance. We should have been ready for them, and months ago we were; but postponed fears are like deferred hopes-the day comes when they disappear. Let us not, now that they have returned, be stampeded by them. Greece is free. Belgium is free. France is free. Poland and China will be free. In every case the external oppressor is gone or going. The internal conflict will end too — no one knows yet how painfully; but everyone knows that what has been achieved already had to precede what has yet to come. The order must always be freedom first, then wisdom to use our freedom.