Children, War, Money
Children don't understand wars.
Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945, after the explosion of the Fat Man atomic bomb, a Japanese boy and his dead little brother.
Wars are the result of financial interests between people who do not take part in wars and who use others as cannon fodder. In other words, in the words of Paul Valéry: "War is the massacre of people who do not know each other, for the benefit of people who know each other and do not massacre each other."
Or, as Michel Collon says today: "No wars without lies."
Children know nothing about money; they don't have any in their pockets. They don't have bank accounts, credit cards, or anything that goes with them. They simply have the joy of living, as long as they are allowed to live, grow, and flourish, and are not massacred... as in Gaza.
Moreover, do we really take children seriously? We may find them amusing. Their innocence and naivety can touch us, but for the vast majority of adults who have forgotten their own childhood—and who even make a point of forgetting it—childhood is not a serious stage of life. Besides, those who work with children—care assistants, educators, teachers—do not enjoy much prestige, and their social status is hardly enviable. So the fact that eight million children die every year around the world, or that they can be subjected to rape, torture, and appalling forms of trafficking, barely causes a stir; the mainstream media hardly ever talk about it. And since 2024, during a genocide carried out in real time against an entire population, the fact that thousands upon thousands of children have died under the bombs in horrific massacres has barely caused any greater reaction. Certainly, huge demonstrations of support and outrage have taken place, but Western governments capable of taking action—with a few exceptions—have intervened only half-heartedly, while the overwhelming majority of the population looks away.
GETTY IMAGES — BBC News Mundo, July 30, 2025
A brief video, whose trail has since been lost, dating back to the first destruction to hit Gaza after October 7, 2023, when the bombings were already terrifying and deadly, showed Palestinian children writing on each other's arms: "I don't want to die." They are probably dead by now. They died for MONEY and its corollaries: domination, exploitation of others, and ultimately their extermination. MONEY, that ominous deviation of the human mind that will eventually destroy all life on the surface of this Earth: Gaia, OUR EARTH!
And this MONEY, this obsession with money, remains a fundamental concern imposed upon all human beings, even—and especially—those who have none at all. Yet money cannot be a purpose in life; it will never make anyone happy. It can manufacture an illusion of happiness, but never happiness itself. In reality, it is a tool of domination, a multiplier of murder and crime that destroys our shared humanity.
However, when the spirit of childhood endures into old age, the capacity for happiness survives despite all the vicissitudes, humiliations, and shit that inevitably come with a life tied to MONEY and EVERYTHING THAT FLOWS FROM IT. This is the case for the creator of Holistic Éduc, who still manages to be happy even though, in order to survive, he had to spend 54 years working in the French public education system. And he emerged more or less unscathed, as did many of the kids he managed to help, despite and against this miserable and disastrous institution. The spirit of childhood was, for him as for them, the best antidote.
They remained children and brought happiness to many.
And what if money disappeared?!...