Do we live in a cruel and merciless world where forgiveness and recognising each other’s humanity is only possible after we have killed and destroyed each other? Wilfred Owen seems to be saying this in his poem ‘Strange Meeting’ written in 1918, before being killed while fighting in World War I.

It is about reconciliation. Two soldiers meet up in a dark tunnel which they come to realise is Hell, the first having killed the second in battle. Most of the poem is a dialogue between the two soldiers. Enemies in war, the two become reconciled only after death: “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”

The poem raises a disturbing question: is hell recognising the humanity of your enemy when it is too late? This question is left unanswered because we only hear what one killed soldier says, and not whether the killer accepts his guilt and responsibility and is ready to recognise the humanity of his victim. But then perhaps there is no killer and killed, there are only killers and killed as they have both killed each other.

Wilfred Owen took the title of his poem ‘Strange Meeting’ from Shelley’s poem ‘Revolt of Islam’ written a century earlier. It is a poem against organised religion and religious wars where two sides clash with each other in  a war between good and evil, with each side believing that God is on their side and  that the other side is evil. Shelley makes the point that good and evil reside within each and every side and within each and every one of us. He also makes it clear that even ‘freedom wars’ are not wars between tyranny and liberty and that even liberators are potential tyrants. Undoubtedly history has proven Shelley right and right again.

In intimate enmity

Recently I came across the sculptures of Thomas Schutte called ‘United enemies’ where he brings down monumental bronze figures from the pedestal and puts them on the ground, to allow them to make contact with each other. He puts together two pairs of men, who hate each other and want to get away from each other but cannot, as they are bound to one another with rope. They have to find ways of living together, even against their will. I feel that our world has come to this existential situation now.

We have become displaced nomads in an existential desert with no comfort zones. In our small world connectivity has made us each other’s neighbours. We stress our differences and find it very difficult to get on with each other. Yet we are still not aware enough that like Schutte’s ‘United Enemies’, we are bound to each other and that however much we hate each other and want to kill each other, we have to find ways of living together if we are to save our planet and humanity.

Daniel Birnbaum describes Schütte’s paired figures tied together in couples – as “united in struggle and bound together in intimate enmity.” 

Schütte describes himself as a seismograph that registers changes taking place in the world around him. Touching upon eternal questions that deal with the conditions of human existence like freedom and responsibility, power and vulnerability, hatred and understanding, peace and war, he says: “My works have the purpose of placing a crooked question mark in the world.” 

Schütte articulates a world where all the gods are dead and distrust and cynicism have replaced automatic authority and respect. Like political, business, religious leaders today, his colossal figures “do not stand heroically atop a classical pedestal but seem to stagger, earthbound, on tripods of bundled poles. Struggling to be rid of its mate, each figure is nevertheless incapable of standing alone.”

Co-operation or catastrophe

Writing in the Financial Times (3 November 2021) Martin Wolf says “Co-operation is essential if nations are to provide the necessary global public goods for humanity.” In ‘How we can share our divided world’ he concludes: “we must not abandon attempts at global co-operation. That would be a catastrophe imperilling prosperity and planet. We must focus, instead, on defining and then making workable the minimum cooperation we must now have if humanity is to achieve what we all need … the alternative to rising above our limitations is catastrophe. If we are to enjoy peace, to prosper and to protect our planet, we must agree to disagree, while still co-operating. No reasonable alternative exists.”

We live in a world of 193 states with around 8 billion people with different interests and different attitudes, not just different but often against each other. We have serious conflicts and divisions not just between one country and another but also within countries. Even where military conflicts do not exist, politics have become the continuation of war by other means.

At the same time the world has become so small that we have become each other’s neighbours. We are all bound to each other. We cannot run away from each other. We have to find ways of living together, if not as friends at least as enemies. Whether we like it or not we are bound to each other, as strangers, as neighbours, as enemies.

Even as enemies we need to find ways of working together, not because we love our enemies and wish them well but because we need to survive. Even our selfishness and narrow interests dictate that we cooperate with our enemies.

If we want to slow down global warming to be able to survive on our planet, if we want to contain global pandemics, if we do not want to destroy the planet and humanity through nuclear armaments, if we want to use our resources to provide a decent life where every person can live free from want and fear on this planet, we must find ways of living together even if we hate each other.

More than ever before we drown together or survive together.

 Evarist Bartolo, Minister for Foreign and European Affairs