Perang menurut `All Quiet on the Western Front'

Perang mencipta sejarah. Sejarah perang hampir sama hayat dengan sejarah manusia. Malah perang adalah salah satu punca pasti kematian manusia.

Tetapi apakah penyebab dan kesan perang?

Tentulah pelbagai. Tetapi yang pasti ia adalah akibat rasa marah dan rakus manusia. Bukan secara kolektif tetapi individu. Dan akibatnya manusia mati kerana itu.

Kesannya? Pembekal alat perang menjadi kaya raya.

Sekurang-kurangnya itulah yang cuba disampaikan oleh filem klasik `All Quiet on the Western Front’ (1930, Universal Pictures, arahan Lewis Milestone, dari novel oleh Erich Maria Remarque dan pemenang filem terbaik Anugerah Academy).

Filem antiperang yang mengisahkan pengalaman sekumpulan askar German di medan perang itu mempunyai prolog begini:

“This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war...”

Di dalam filem tersebut walaupun seorang askar muda bersetuju bahawa Perancis patut dihukum kerana memulakan peperangan (Perang Dunia 1) itu, tetapi kesalahan yang sebenar terletakkan kepada `seseorang yang lain’.

Seorang askar bernama Tjaden bertanya: Well, how do they start a war?

Seorang yang lain menjawab: Well, one country offends another.

Tjaden bertanya lagi: "How could one country offend another? You mean there's a mountain over in Germany gets mad at a field over in France?

Lalu dijawabnya: Well, stupid. One people offends another.

Tjaden berkata dia tidak mengenali walau seorang pun orang Perancis atau Inggeris, jadi tidak ada sebab untuk mereka membuat dia marah.

Tjaden: Oh, that's it. I shouldn't be here at all. I don't feel offended.

Sarjan Katczinsky (seorang veteran perang, salah seorang watak utama melawak): It don't apply to tramps like you.

Tjaden: Good. Then I can be going home right away...The Kaiser and me...Me and the Kaiser felt just alike about this war. We didn't neither of us want any war, so I'm going home. He's there already.

Seorang askar lain: Somebody must have wanted it. Maybe it was the English. No, I don't want to shoot any Englishman. I never saw one 'til I came up here. And I suppose most of them never saw a German 'til they came up here. No, I'm sure they weren't asked about it.

Askar: Well, it must be doing somebody some good.

Tjaden: Not me and the Kaiser.

Askar: I think maybe the Kaiser wanted a war.

Tjaden: You leave us out of this.

Katczinsky: I don't see that. The Kaiser's got everything he needs.

Askar: Well, he never had a war before. Every full-grown Emperor needs one war to make him famous. Why, that's history.

Paul: Yeah, Generals too. They need war.

Askar ketiga: And manufacturers. They get rich.

Seorang daripada mereka menyatakan yang peperangan itu umpama suatu 'penyakit’: "Nobody wants it in particular. And then all at once, here it is. We didn't want it. The English didn't want it. And here we are fighting.

Katczinsky lalu menjelaskan bagaimana perang sepatutnya dilakukan: I'll tell ya how it should all be done. Whenever there's a big war comin' on, you should rope off a big field (and sell tickets). Yeah, and, and, on the big day, you should take all the kings and their cabinets and their generals, put them in the center dressed in their underpants and let 'em fight it out with clubs. The best country wins.

Sumber:
(www.filmsite.org and www.greatestfilms.org)