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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
French writers on war and peace
Romain Rolland: Selections on war
Romain Rolland: Gandhi vs Einstein: War must be stopped before it starts
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Romain Rolland
From Mahatma Gandhi
Translated by Catherine D. Groth
[T]he document to which there can be no rejoinder is that which Europe herself has traced in the life-blood of races oppressed and despoiled in the name of lying principles and, above all, in the brazen revelation of Europe’s lies, greed, and ferocity as unfolded during the last war, called the “War for Civilization.” And in it Europe sank to such depths that in her insanity she even invited the peoples of Asia and Africa to contemplate her nudity:
“The last war has shown, as nothing else has, the Satanic nature of the civilization that dominates Europe to-day. Every canon of public morality has been broken by the victors in the name of virtue. No lie has been considered too foul to be uttered. The motive behind every crime is not religious or spiritual but grossly material…Europe to-day is only nominally Christian. In reality it is worshipping Mammon.” [Mohandas Gandhi]
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