Factors of Conflict and Conditions of Peace

There has hardly ever been a long period of world history without wars and violent conflicts, of one or another kind, in one or another region, between larger or smaller groups of human beings, as well as fights between individuals. At the same time, the vast majority of ordinary people of the world have always desired to spend their life in peace. But they have always failed to prevent occasional outbreaks of wars and other kinds of conflicts. Also Sarkar, who came to West Germany in early 1982, at a time when the country was abuzz with the Peace Movement, witnessed the general failure of the same. He feels compelled to ask Why? We too. In order to understand that, we need to delve deep into several aspects of the human condition, and identify those that have become in the course of history of our species factors of conflict. Basing himself on the research of scholars in various fields, Sarkar has done that in the present essay. He has concluded it with his thoughts on the conditions of peace.

Saral Sarkar was born in 1936 in a village of West Bengal, India. After graduating from the University of Calcutta (Kolkata), he studied German language and literature for five years at the Goethe Institute in India and Germany. From 1966 to 1981, he was lecturer of German at the Goethe Institute in Hyderabad, India. Since 1982, he has been living in Cologne, Germany, where he has been active in the Green Movement, Anti-Globalization Movement, and all kinds of ecological and leftist movements. He was member of the Green Party of Germany from 1982 to 1987, but left the party in deep disappointment. Over the years, Sarkar has taken part in many discussions and debates in the above-mentioned areas and published widely in political journals in India, Europe, and the American Continent. His basal theoretical work "Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices" (1999, London) has also been published in German, French (in internet), Chinese and Japanese. His other major works are: "Green-Alternative Politics in West Germany", Vol. I & II (1993, 1994, Tokyo), "The Crises of Capitalism - A Different Study of Political Economy" (2012, Berkeley), which was originally published in German (2010, Neu-Ulm), "Eco-Socialism or "Green" Capitalism?: Collected Writings of Saral Sarkar" (2023, Norderstedt) and "Was ist Ökosozialismus?" (Marburg).