World Youth Day and the France Attacks, or why it’s important that Francis got the ‘piecemeal third world war’ from Korea

The experience of han indicates persons need to be liberated from oppressive political economies that fundamentally thrive on war; perhaps this is why Francis insists that various ideologies of capital are producing the piecemeal third world war. In that same press conference from the Korea trip, Francis highlights two elements of han in the piecemeal third world war: ‘cruelty’ and ‘torture.’ First, cruelty:

The first is cruelty.  Today children don’t count!  We used to speak of conventional wars; today, this does not count. I’m not saying that conventional wars are a good thing, of course not.  But today a bomb is dropped and kills the innocent with the guilty, the child and the woman with him, his mother…  They kill everybody.  But we need to stop and think a bit about the degree of cruelty at which we have arrived.  This should frighten us!  I don’t say this to create fear: one can make an empirical study.  The degree of mankind’s cruelty is presently frightening.

But what is this today in which a bomb is dropped and kills indiscriminately? Does this only refer to Obama’s drone policy? What about napalm in Vietnam? What about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the precedence of urban bombing throughout the Second World War? Does this statement not push the seeds of the piecemeal third world war back into the Second World War?

Second, torture:

The other word on which I would like to reflect, and which is related to this, is torture.  Today, torture is an almost, I would say, ordinary means used in intelligence work, in trials…  And torture is a sin against humanity, it is a crime against humanity.  And to Catholics, I say: to torture a person is a mortal sin; it is a grave sin, but even more, it is a sin against humanity.

Again, what is this today of torture as an ‘ordinary means used in intelligence work, in trials’? Did this begin with the War on Terror? Doesn’t this legacy of torture extend back through the entirety of the Cold War with atrocities committed by both superpowers? Was torture not ordinary in the first and second world wars?

In other words, I am not saying that the piecemeal third world war should be equated with the Korean War. I am saying instead that Francis is thinking of history of war that significantly predates his pontificate when he uses this term. Here’s another example. In the in-flight press greeting en route to Armenia last month, Francis made reference to the end of ‘fifty years of war, guerrilla fighting and so much bloodshed’ as the Colombian government and rebels signed a ceasefire. Certainly, this too was part of the long piecemeal third world war – with one piece being in Korea, another piece in Colombia, and other pieces elsewhere, spiralling into the geopolitical situation in which we find ourselves now.

Now let’s bring this all finally back to World Youth Day.