UN Peace Day: War, war and war everywhere! Liad Tella Yesterday, 21st September was International Peace Day. It is a day set aside by the United Nations to celebrate and promote global peace and peaceful co-existence among all peoples of the world irrespective of race, religion or colour of the pigment of the human skin. The tragedies of the first and the second world wars brought home the need for peace and pacific settlement of all disputes without recourse to arms conflict. The German bid to subjugate the entire European world and put all under German rule was the root of the wars which led to loss of millions of lives across the globe. Africans and Asians were dragged into the wars they knew nothing about. The innocent paid the supreme price for the two wars that had no direct consequences on their lives and existence on the planet earth. They were used and later shared like cakes to feather the interest of Europe. The American entry into the World War 11 precipitated an early end to the war and the world owes America and Russia a depth of gratitude for this. The use of the atomic bomb on the two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought an abrupt end to the war. To avoid future catastrophe of that magnitude, the Allied Powers came together to form the United Nations Organisation UNO now simply called the United Nations. With the General Assembly comprising all independent nations of the world as members and the Security Council as the executive organ with five permanent members that must concur on all issues. The rise of socialism in Eastern Europe under Russian hegemony and communism in China polarised the world into two major camps. The world was divided between the Adam Smith capitalist philosophy nations and the Carl Marx-Hegelian socialist economic nations and the attendant cold war. This article is not about the history of the United Nations, it is about the dream of global peace, equality of all nations and equality of men no matter where he lives, his choice of religion, his race or colour of his skin. It is about how far the world has gone on the declared collective desire to engender a world order where peace will be supreme; where most, if not all disputes will be resolved through peaceful negotiations rather than armed conflicts; a world of economic prosperity based on mutual cooperation and understanding; a world where the weak will be protected against the whims and caprices of the powerful. A collective resolve to avoid war at all cost. Most issues that lead to war are finally resolved on the round table of negotiation in spite of the emergence of a victor and the vanquished. The terms of peace are not and can never be achieved at the war front; why then do most nations, state or community choose the option of war? Perusing the record of international relations, more wars have been fought between 1945 and 2014 than between 1845 and1945. Why? The foundations of the war lay in the desire for domination by subterfuge or force by the western nations and the socialist/communist resistance and the expansion of their ideology to Africa and Asia through persuasion as against the carrot and bullish approach of America and its European allies. Second is the negation of the principle of equality in the United Nations scheme of things. When comparatively weak and poor nations transgressed against the standard bearings and norms of the United Nations, they are swiftly punished severely but when any western nation member of the Security Council violates the norms, the UN usually turns a blind eye, leading to constant impunity of the powerful nations against the weaker nations. Afghanistan was destroyed by the US and Allied Forces for refusing to repatriate Osama bin Laden who was fingered by the US over the 9/11 bombing of the twin-tower world’s tallest building in New York; and destruction of Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait. Lebanon was invaded severally by Israel, which perpetually occupies Palestine. Britain invaded the Argentina’s Falkland Island; America invaded Nicaragua; Russia invaded Georgia; India is perpetually occupying Kashmir; Britain is blocking the independence of Scotland and China has blocked the independence of Hong Kong. The late President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was hunted to death by the US for seeking economic independence and national political freedom. Libya was destroyed because of western desire for regime change. Syria is in turmoil for the reason that President Assad must be removed from power. President Omar Bashir of Sudan has been declared wanted for war crime while ex-President George Bush and his father are left as American heroes in spite of their war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Ronald Reagan was celebrated as a hero when American bombers invaded his palace in attempt to bomb him out of existence. There are many more examples too numerous to list here. The position of western ideologues is that capitalism and western democracy provides the only hope for good governance and rule of law. This to me is an ignoramus stance because God, who created the world, did not programme the world to be a single race, single people, single language, single religion and a single nation. Isn’t it a futile and puerile thinking and a doomed agenda to want to Americanize the whole world? America has substituted itself with Nazism and in its quest to dominate the world has set many countries ablaze and denied many nations the chance to be ruled by their own chosen leaders who would govern according to their customary values and norms. Freedom is an inalienable right of all people which must be expressed in their own way and according to their own culture. Any attempt to breach this right always leads to crises of unimaginable proportion. This explains why I subscribe to the wise saying of retired Justice Fatayi Williams that when men and women are driven away from the arena where debate is free, they are driven to the silos where revolutions are born. Next week we shall examine the reasons for war, war and wars in the global arena and why in spite of the United Nations peace day celebrations there is no peace in the world.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 04:35:06 +0000
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