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May 4th, 2010, Dam Square.
On this day, on which we remember the victims of war worldwide, panic strikes.
Gennare Vincenzo Pepe, aka the dam screamer, is the malefactor.
No bomb. No weapons. No attack.
Just a confused, screaming man.
And yet, the sense of grave danger kicks in for a moment.
Is total war still possible in the west?
Haven't we passed that point long time ago?
What if we haven't?
Are we prepared for the worst?
We stood on the brink of WW3, 50 years ago.
We fought a quiet war from the end of WW2 'till the 90's.
The Cold War.
Communist Russia and capitalist America stood face to face.
Both built better, faster and stronger nuclear weapons to avoid the other from starting a
war.
This arms race came to a peak in 1962.
Chroetsjev, president of the USSR, was building missile sites on the allied island Cuba, right
in front of American soil.
The world held its breath.
A next world war, this time with nuclear weapons, was being feared.
There was a threat at the time, and the west prepared itself for a third world war.
Both could destroy each other.
Because that was so, the actual chance of war was very small.
It went better than expected. Russia turned around.
The people didn't quite get that, and neither did the press. They all said that things were
bad and therefore people believed it was bad.
After the fall of the iron curtain in '89, the red danger from the east was dealt with
forever. War changed.
The army, the generals preparing war, they are always busy preparing the previous war.
The war that comes always turns out to be very different from what they thought.
We have reached a point on which we haven't experienced war ourselves. Our idea of war
has changed. What happens when we directly confront youth with the question: "What is
war?"
War is a conflict between two parties, mostly countries. They try to talk, and eventually
start fighting.
War is a conflict between two countries or more, which they try to solve by talking,
and if that doesn't work, they fight.
War means that there are problems between countries, and they try to solve that by fighting.
Well, if two countries or nations have a conflict that they can't solve, they start fighting.
I think the Netherlands could be involved, but not like Germany attacking us or something.
There are dangers to it...
I think that if war comes, it will be in the Middle East.
Yes, but not in the Netherlands.
Everybody still remembers what happened in WW2.
The government will probably call for the army, and maybe every adult man has to do
military service.
At the moment, a large scale war with great armies isn't relevant.
There are no more powers that will do such a thing.
Without a direct threat, we have no direct reason to join the army.
Serving your country isn't necessary anymore. War became a far from our bed show.
Why do people still choose to join the army? The adventure?
The need to prove oneself as a man?
I have been in the army for a while after school. I quit, and got a job.
Aggression, warfare, attacking another party for you own wellbeing,
That's deeply embedded in human beings. So war isn't something we have to learn, war
is already in there.
If you would look at my room you'd see a heap of army stuff.
I grew up with it. All of my friends played soldier, and we went pretty far in the game.
Girls never play war. They don't like it at all.
They like completely other stuff. But boys find war very exciting.
I have had a great time there.
Playing of children is a way to get used to decisions they will have to make later on.
Shooting, throwing grenades, doing obstacle courses, long marches, scouting, everything.
We came up with a substitute to ease our *** for war.
Games.
There are tons of different games, Not just a couple, there are hundreds of them,
all very different in their own way. Now you need to look at the bestsellers.
You'll automatically find some extremely violent games.
People like those. Games about completely other things are found
to be uninteresting. It's just a matter of supply and demand.
And if people want violent games, the Americans will make them for them. Why would they care?
It's always been a good distraction for things. If you're bored, or something's wrong, you
can lose yourself in a game. I don't really think it has affected my personality.
And now you can wonder, what if somebody plays a lot of violent games?
Does that affect his perspective? That has been researched, and the answer is
yes. But that influence is far smaller than the
human nature. Without the human nature for aggression and
warfare, you could play violent games all day long without any effect.