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1
Why?
 Michel ODIKA
War in Brazzaville (Congo)(1).
War Philosophy:
Cogito ergo… boom
(Susan SONTAG)
Before else, there is no waste of time in life like that of makingexplanations. However, it is no waste of time to remember some thingsof crucial importance. Especially noteworthy is the fact that “
 forgotten is forgiven
”,according to Scott FITZGERALD.
WARNING
–
 It is not catastrophes, murders or diseases that kill –it is the way people believe and think 
(Virginia WOOLF, novelist).
NO MORE WAR
War has become a luxury only small nations can afford 
(HannahARENDT, philosopher).
 Not only does war settles nothing, but to win a war is as disastrous as tolose one
(Agatha CHRISTIE, novelist).
 
2
War is never a solution –it is always an aggravation
(BenjaminDISRAELI, statesman).
 It is by no means self-evident that human beings are most real whenviolently excited. Violent physical passions do not in themselves differentiatemen from each other, but tend to reduce them to the same state
(Thomas ELIOT,poet and dramatist).
 Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not acrime
(Ernest HEMINGWAY, novelist).
Force and fraud are in war two cardinal virtues
(Thomas HOBBES,philosopher).
War must never be praised as ennobling mankind, for war is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills
(KANT, philosopher).
War is only a cowardly escape from peace-induced problems
(ThomasMANN, novelist).
War does not determine who is right –only who is wrong
(BertrandRUSSELL, mathematician and philosopher).
Peace is not mere absence of war, but a virtue that springs from a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice
(SPINOZA,philosopher).
HOPE MESSAGE
–
 Believe in life! Always human beings willlive andprogress to greater, broader and fuller life
(William DUBOIS,novelist).1.Photograph by David LUTTENBERGER (Americanphotographer, Associated Press) –Cover illustration of aFrench-written book I published a few years ago:
MichelODIKA,
 Au plus près de Brazza
, éditions Harmattan (2004),Paris.
 
1
Mainstreaming Large-scale Disasters
Michel ODIKA
 Mainstreaming disasters basically means addressing the causes and effectsassociated with emergency and crisis situations, so as to mitigate, rather thanto exacerbate, their environmental and medical impact. For the most part, it consists in combining and coordinating three approaches, that is: facing the facts, building a critical mass of capacity for safety, and keeping upmomentum on prevention.What needs to be done in terms of mainstreaming disasters,ultimately, is tograsp things at the root, with a constant view to securing the future.
Building a critical mass of capacity for safety…
What needs to be done to go beyond a paper exercise? When dealing withemergency situations, the best we can do is to think about things as they are, not asthey are said to be. In practical terms, only those who are acquainted with facts canmake a continual addition to their stock of knowledge and experience. That’s in thelast resort the price to pay for preparing the ground and thereby breaking somepotentially dangerous and poisonous myths.Prior to all crisis management, please let us have no illusion that, one fine day, theworld will be permanently preserved from disasters. No, disasters simply rewritethe rules. And to prevail we too must rewrite these rules. However, the foundationsexist to mount responses commensurate with the challenge of better controllingadverse events facing the world.
Keeping up momentum on prevention…
Each plan and programme established must become the building block forsustainable strategies to free us, not of disasters as such, but of the damagingconsequencesresulting from disasters. At the same time, we have to make thisconceptual leap in our actions and interventions in order to move from the reactiveto the preventive. Success is in sight, but securing it will require that we have thewill, means and knowledge needed to make real headway.In matter of large-scale disasters, prevention may be best defined as the ability andwillingness to envision the future, so that we can unite connecting and convergingelements to make the years to come as safe as possible. Thus, the global responseto acute environmental disorders must be transformed from an episodic and“crisis-management approach”to a thoughtful and long-term response thatemphasizes the use of evidence-based principles.
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