The death of at least 168 children and 14 teachers in an American airstrike on a school in Minab, southern Iran, on February 28, the first day of the ongoing conflict in West Asia, is symbolic of the moral universe that is being constructed in sharp contrast to what children are taught: shun violence, take the side of justice, adhere to the rule of law, and respect the rights of others. It was as if the school in Minab was bombed to tell the children worldwide that the values their education inculcated in them would be of little relevance in their adulthood.

International politics, even in the time of peace, privileges national interests and pragmatism over moral values. Friends are betrayed, and the weak abandoned for the gains in the future. The powerful deploy their enormous clout to build consensus in their favour. These involve complex manoeuvrings and negotiations, but do retain the veneer of civility and respect for the rights of others.

War, in contrast, marks a breakdown of the carefully maintained moral order, and exposes its essential ugliness and hollowness. This was vividly exemplified by US President Donald Trump’s remarks at the Republican Members Issues Conference last week. Claiming that the US navy had sunk as many as 46 Iranian ships, Trump said he enquired from an officer about their quality. Those Iranian ships were apparently “top of the line”. To the audience, Trump said he asked the officer why the ships were not captured, and quoted his reply thus: “It’s more fun to sink them.” Trump added, “They like sinking them better.” The audience guffawed, without a thought for the sailors who went down with the ships.

Trump’s recapitulation of his conversation with the United States navy officer depicts war as a sport undertaken to have fun, bereft of the misery and suffering it inflicts on people, as portrayed in school textbooks. It legitimises violence and dehumanises foes, who can be despatched to the watery graves for momentary thrills. Weaned on the rhetoric of the world’s most powerful man, wanton killings could gradually cease to be morally repugnant to children.

It will be so also because for well over two years, since October 2023, the world has watched Israel bomb Gaza into the Stone Age, killing over 75,000 people and, for many weeks, even starving them to death. The global outcry against the genocide, expressed through street protests, proved ineffectual, failing to stop Israel from continuing its killing spree. For all the lessons taught to children about the importance of the UN for world peace and the illegitimacy of colonialism, they now perhaps suspect they are fed lies: the world belongs to the powerful; the weak rarely inherit the earth.

A telling example of the weak are the Palestinians. Methodically expelled from their land by the Jews who migrated from Europe, they have been engaged in decades of wars to reverse their dispossession. On each occasion they have been vanquished by Israel, not least because of the assistance it receives from the US. With almost all Palestinian groups, barring Hamas, reconciling themselves to Israel’s existence, an independent state still remains denied to them. It is incredible to imagine that the Great Powers could help birth Israel in a land where Jews were, in the 1880s, just three percent of the population.

Narratives over history

Narratives matter more than history and truth; that’s what the children would think. Harnessing the sympathy generated over the killing of six million Jews by Hitler, a narrative has been spun to portray Israelis as a people disallowed to live in peace because of the militancy—aka terrorism—of Palestinians. The West’s cultural dominance has popularised this narrative even in India, surprising for a country with its rich tradition of anti-colonial struggle. Why didn’t Palestinians resort to a nonviolent struggle for the liberation of their land? What late Black leader Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), said of the US also holds true for Israel: “In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”

It’s possible I am wrong in juxtaposing the USA and Israel in this context. But I am not wrong in claiming that the narrative privileging Israel’s suffering over Palestinians’ was recently reinforced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Israel, starting three days before it combined with the US to attack Iran. Modi’s erasure of the genocide in his speech to the Knesset will prompt Indian children to ask: is it justified to tacitly endorse mass killing in exchange for technology, including for surveillance, arms and defence cooperation? Will today’s children grow up to engage in amoral calculations—and trade justice for their interests?

Are the Arab allies any less ruthless?

Iran’s Islamic theocratic regime has been responsible for countless excesses. It has killed and brutalised communists, liberals, and citizens who choose to dissent in desperation. It has suppressed women and jailed them for daring to toss away their hijab. Do these examples of state repression justify a war against Iran, its complete devastation? Along with this question, in their moral confusion, children, including those in India, will ask: are the Arab allies of the US any less ruthless than the Iranian regime? Why are they not subjected to bombing or regime change?

At the end of the war against Iran, the schoolchildren will realise rules guaranteeing national sovereignty exist at the mercy of the powerful. They violate the rules depending on their estimate of the losses they could suffer on account of their adventurism. Russia can’t be bombed for invading Ukraine as it has the capacity to militarily destabilise the world, particularly Europe. North Korea’s security is ensured because it possesses nuclear weapons.

Here was Iran willing to relinquish its stockpile of enriched uranium and forsake building a nuclear weapon, but was still bombed. This throws up a philosophical question for children: how do they, in their life, stave off harassment from a bully far more powerful than them? Do they acquiesce to the bully’s demands or fight until they are destroyed?

Since the Second World War, American Presidents have invaded countries, and organised coups to overthrow leaders defiant of them. Yet none has revelled in America’s military might to devastate nations as Trump has. Do nations tamely line behind him, afraid of incurring his wrath and accepting economic benefits he bestows upon them? Do they abandon old friends who are in Trump’s cross hairs, as India, despite its equivocations, has done with Iran? The choices a nation makes shapes the moral universe of its children that influences them in their adulthood. No wonder, idealism has been receding from our public life because, in this age of neoliberalism, it is seldom reflected in national decisions.

Ajaz Ashraf is a senior journalist from Delhi and the author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste.

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