May the Mindanao conflict be ‘forever history’

For years, World War I was like an endless bleeding from the heart of Europe. It remains a painful memory to many people.

I am from Kaiserslautern, a small city in Germany, which is just a 45-minute car drive to France. Wars do divide families.   While my grandfather and my father were officers in a French Army unit, my maternal grandfather was an officer of the German SS. A distant relative traced back to my great-grandfather, Dr. Anton Dilger, also served with the German Army and sacrificed his life for love of country (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Dilger).

It was a very strange, painful time for many families. Today, I am happy that the senseless violent, bloody and murderous enmity between two nations that are supposed to be “brothers” is forever history.

It was like “flesh from your own flesh” fighting each other. We should learn, there is no substitute for peace. Peace is the only option, the only way.

I see a similarity between that war and the ongoing conflict in Mindanao: brothers and sisters of the same “roots” fighting each other. May peace finally come to the Philippines!

—JÜRGEN SCHÖFER, PhD, [email protected]