This quote is from Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk. It is the preface in the Vietnamese version of his book “No man is an island”.
Violence rests on the assumption that the enemy and I are entirely different: the enemy is evil and I am good. The enemy must be destroyed but I must be saved. But love sees things differently. It sees that even the enemy suffers from the same sorrows and limitations that I do. That we both have the same hopes, the same needs, the same aspirations for peaceful and harmonious human life. And the death is the same for both of us. Then love may perhaps show me that my brother is not really my enemy and that war is both his enemy and mine. War is “our” enemy. Then peace becomes possible.
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