If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them

Host: The square was empty but for a single bench under a pollarded plane tree, its branches like skeins of wire against a dull sky. A soft wind moved paper, leaves, and a discarded pillowcase that flapped like a flag of absurdity. Streetlights spilled yellow pools on wet cobblestone. The night smelled of damp bread and distant sirens — the small sounds of a city that never quite sleeps.

Jack sat on the bench, coat buttoned, hands folded, eyes hard with calculation. Jeeny stood beside the fountain, a pillow clutched in her arms, smile soft but steady. Between them, a single pillow had been placed on the ground, its white fabric catching the streetlight like a challenge.

Jeeny: “Alice Walker once said, ‘If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows — pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music... That would be so much cheaper than **bombs’.”

Jack: “Cute imagery, Jeeny, but cute images don’t stop armies. Pillows don’t disable tanks or disable missiles. Wars run on logistics, geopolitics, and fear — not on comfort.”

Host: A distant train moaned, and a pair of figures passed in the shadow, laughing briefly like people who still believe in impossibility. The pillow at their feet looked almost serious.

Jeeny: “Walker’s idea is not naïve. It’s a challenge to the logic of violence. Imagine dropping aid instead of bombs — Berlin Airlift comes to mind: in 1948, the Allies flew food and coal into Berlin to counter a blockade. Planes became lifelines, not weapons. That’s fighting with pillow-stuff.”

Jack: “Berlin Airlift is not a moral paradigm — it’s a strategic operation by state actors with airfields, political leverage, and a clear victory in public opinion. Tossing pillows at combatants won’t stop an ideology that feeds on grievance.”

Jeeny: “But Walker isn’t only talking about instant tactical victory. She’s inviting a shift in our metaphor. Replace explosive force with nourishment. When soldiers and civilians receive food, medicine, and music, you reduce the hunger that feeds recruitment. Humanitarian aid has stopped conflicts before — think post-war reconstruction, truth commissions, healing programs.”

Jack: “Let’s be real. Humanitarian aid is critically important, but it’s often used as a bandage on structural rot: corruption, resource competition, territorial claims. If a warlord makes money from chaos, a pillow full of rice is a drop in a bucket. Worse, aid can be hijacked by combatant groups and prolong war. The logic of force still controls realpolitik.”

Host: A cat threaded along the bench, nuzzling the pillow, as if to test the proposal for softness. Neon from a closed shop breathed color onto the scene, like a live illustration of contradiction.

Jeeny: “Walker’s proposal is subversive: it puts value where destruction once was. Consider nonviolent movements: Gandhi’s salt march undermined colonial authority not by blow but by moral pressure. Civil rights protests in the U.S. won moral victories that outlasted violence. What if our default tool for conflict were empathy, food, and song?”

Jack: “Gandhi and the Civil Rights movement succeeded because they had political narratives, organizational depth, and international attention. You can’t equate pillows with organized resistance. Also, not all actors respond to moral pressure. Authoritarians and terror cells exploit human kindness. A pillow can be a trap if it feeds the wrong hands.”

Host: The pillow beside them seemed to breathe with their words — soft on the outside, dense on the inside, a symbol that refused to be only cute.

Jeeny: “Then use pillow diplomacy alongside political strategy. Think of peacekeeping that prioritizes human need. Today, air drops of food and medical kits are standard in humanitarian response. Imagine scaling that logic: instead of targeting infrastructure, target survival. It’s cheaper than war and cheaper in lives.”

Jack: “Costs are messy. Cheaper in money doesn’t always mean cheaper in geopolitical costs. If a state fails to defend its interests, rivals fill the vacuum. Who supplies those pillows? Who protects the drops? You need naval and air control — the same resources that build bombs.”

Host: A busker on the corner played a soft melody, the notes blending with the rain. Jeeny rocked the pillow gently, listening to the song as if it were part of the argument.

Jeeny: “Protection can be nonviolent too: security by consensus, UN escorts, protected corridors for aid. We already use these tactics; they work when political pressure and public scrutiny are strong. Walker’s point is a moral pivot: make care the first response, not the last one.”

Jack: “Ideal scenarios sound good on paper, but reality is full of actors who profit from chaos and succeed in suppressing public scrutiny. Also, music and medicine are valued — and taking them to battlefields won’t change the ambition of leaders who seek territory, resources, or revenge.”

Host: The bench creaked as Jack shifted, the pillow seeming to absorb the weight of their debate. The busker’s melody kept playing, and a woman with a basket slowed to listen.

Jeeny: “Look at post-conflict programs that worked: Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe, reducing instability; humanitarian corridors in Syria once saved thousands; music therapy in trauma clinics helps survivors heal. Walker’s pillow is a metaphor for redirecting energy into repair instead of ruin.”

Jack: “Repair is noble, but it doesn’t resolve power politics or national security dilemmas. The state system is built on deterrence. If you only offer pillows, you might prevent some suffering, but you won’t prevent aggression. And often, the first actor to respond to threat is a military one.”

Host: The pillow was now between them like a third voice — innocent, demanding, refusing to be dismissed.

Jeeny: “What if pillow-drop is the first move? Begin with aid to undercut recruitment. Send food to civilians, medicine to hospitals, music to community centers — make life tangible. Then apply pressure on leaders through sanctions, diplomacy, tribunals. You don’t replace policy with pillows — you reshape the moral terrain where policy acts.”

Jack: “Fine, but consider perverse effects. Aid can prop up regimes, fuel black markets, and create dependency. Also, sound diplomacy requires coercive capability as leverage. Pillows without teeth become soft props.”

Host: A child ran by with a small pillow, laughing, startling a pigeon into flight. The simple act felt like a rebuttal — joy against calculation.

Jeeny: “Then design pillows with strategy: track distribution, partner with trusted local groups, embed accountability, and pair drops with information that discredits propaganda. Combine soft power with smart hard instruments. The cost of war is astronomical; starting with care may prevent many wars.”

Jack: “Maybe in some cases. I’m not completely closed. But I refuse to accept a romantic simplification: pillow-drops are not a silver bullet. They’re a tool, useful in certain contexts, harmful in others.”

Host: The rain eased, and a halo formed around the lamp, like a small theatre spotlight on their debate. The pillow caught the light, and for a moment, both arguments seemed true — dangerous and possible.

Jeeny: “Walker’s radical vision is a moral provocation. If we reimagine conflict as a human failure to share resources, then pillows are the first answer. It’s a call to build systems that make violence irrational.”

Jack: “And I’ll answer again**: pillow imagery should inspire policy, not replace it. Use pillows wisely, but keep the hard instruments of statecraft in reserve so that those who threaten others know they cannot do so with impunity.”

Host: They sat in the calm that follows a storm — neither entirely convinced, both richer for the argument. The bench creaked under the weight of thought. The pillow lay quiet, a simple reminder that some ideas are soft on the face but hard on the heart.

Jeeny: “Perhaps the real test is this: if pillow-drops save a single child’s life, the idea is worth trying.”

Jack: “And if they enable a warlord to flourish, they’re harmful. So we trial, measure, refine — not romanticize.”

Host: A plane moaned above, a reminder that flight can deliver destruction or deliverance. The choice — pillow or bomb — belongs to the politics we make, the values we choose, and the courage we practice.

In the end, Alice Walker’s words remain a charge: that conflict can be reimagined, that care can be weaponized into healing, and that sometimes the softest tactics are the hardest to learn.

Host: The pillow rose as Jeeny lifted it and placed it on her lap, both a banner and a question. Jack stood, buttoned his coat, and took one last look at the bench and the empty street.

Jack: “Try it. Measure it. Don’t call it peace until it proves durable.”

Jeeny: “And don’t dismantle hope in the name of realism.”

Host: They walked away in different directions, their footsteps soft on the wet stone, the pillow between them like an unfinished sentence — an invitation to a world where fights might one day be measured in meals, medicine, and melody, rather than in shrapnel.