In order
to represent this topic, I chose to do a survey on what young people think of
war. I only asked them these two questions:
-"If
you hear the word "war", what are the three words which come first to
your mind?"
-"What
is, briefly, your opinion about war?"
The main
idea which comes out of this survey is that all young people are against war (I
never met anybody who liked war, the only little exception was a girl who told
me that war was sometimes useful). Most of them said that it should not exist.
They
think war is stupid but unavoidable, because all human beings are aggressive
and always want more power.
People
interviewed said also that if humans talked together and tried to understand
each other, there would be no war.
They
think it's a pity to wage war because it comes to nothing.
They
criticised a lot the fact that civilians are always very hit by war even if
they're not concerned and also the fact that the ones who run the soldiers are
rarely on the fields: people responsible of a war and who decided to make it
never fight by themselves.
Here are the first three
words that came to mind to each person
exactly as they uttered them. Some words recurred several times, such as
"death", "blood", "silly", "soldiers",
"weapons" and so on ..
Several people said
"Germans": I think that these people are racists: past is past and
Germans of today are not the same as Germans of yesterday.
I really think that
these words show how teenagers see war because all of them were spontaneous.
Some
ideas of activities using this list of words:
|
atrocity
|
black |
exhausted
|
atomic
bomb |
horrible
|
|
barked
wire |
competition |
food
shortage |
barbarity
|
idiotic |
|
casualties
|
dead
bodies |
grief |
blood |
|
|
darkness
|
economic
crisis |
army |
conflict
|
Napoleon
|
|
disarray |
fight |
barbarians
|
famine |
pain |
|
grey |
Hitler |
bleeding
|
Germans
|
planes |
|
History
|
human
being |
despair
|
helmet |
rat |
|
horror |
injustice
|
exterminations
|
hatred |
new
technologies |
|
ignorance. |
manipulation |
genocide |
hopeless
|
plague |
|
love |
bad |
idiot |
|
nastiness |
|
absurdity |
concentration camps |
Jews |
leader |
wrecks |
|
alarm |
death |
missiles
|
mutilations
|
weapons |
|
peace |
rain |
silly |
stupidity
|
panic |
|
propaganda |
rust coloured |
storm |
the
Occupation |
politic |
|
religion
|
spying |
terrorists
|
torture
|
rebuilding |
|
soldiers
|
territory
|
tired |
unavoidable
|
slaughter
|
|
tank |
thunder
|
tyrant |
violence
|
The Red
Cross |
|
truce |
useless
suffering |
wiping
out |
uniform
|
treaties
|
|
useless
|
|
|
|
|
Eleonore