Let love and peace on earth prevail
MOST of those who initiate and perpetuate war do so on the basis of the premise that they are championing and promoting the edicts of God.  But how is this so? I still have to see a comprehensive analysis of any religious text that justifies killing the innocent, and causing unimaginable grief to their loved ones. Whether it is an Israeli or a Palestinian child, a Hindustani or a Pakistani child, an African or a European child, the shedding of innocent blood can be nothing else but an abomination in the sight of the Lord.

In l981 an editorial in the Latin-American “Daily Post” asked:  “Did you wake up this morning, read the headlines, and did it suddenly occur to you that the world seems to be an awfully dangerous, unstable place these days?”

After considering several aspects of the international problems the editorial concluded: We would like to wake up tomorrow, scan the headlines, and come away with the feeling that things are getting better; but, somehow, we just don’t think that’s the way it is going to be.”

That editorial is as applicable to today’s world as it was in the world of 1981, when it was published.

Evil will always find instruments and fanatics are spreading further hopelessness about the likelihood of the survival of mankind.  A nuclear holocaust is an impending threat looming over the globe, because these sophisticated instruments of destruction are within the immediate reach of inhuman, power-drunk beasts, many of whom are on a perpetual high on hashish, opium, or whatever their drug of choice is, leaving them with scant margin for reasonable dissimulation and consideration.

Despotic leaders sow the seeds of insurrection in the hearts of their subjects, creating spawning grounds for violence to take root.

In parts of the Middle East and Africa, where lethal weaponry are like toys in the hands of irresponsible, immature children, immense national wealth is used – not for enhancing the social paradigm, nor for appreciating and expanding the development dimensions of nations, but to instead fuel self-aggrandizement by dictators, who oppress their people in order to acquisitively purchase, like spoiled children with new toys, the most modern sophisticated weaponry imaginable in order to play sick war games – often at the expense of or against their own peoples.

As a natural offshoot has grown terrorism, with all its sinister implications – innocent people kidnapped and murdered, wanton destruction to personal and national properties of limitless proportions, thereby compromising budgetary allocations for social programmes, the list of atrocities continues to grow on a daily basis.

The greatest tragedy of war is that civilians are also killed, maimed, left homeless and displaced.

The arms sale is exploitation by rich, scientifically-advanced superpowers, which has no compunction in making available to dictators and war mongers weaponry used to suppress and oppress their own people, instead of advancing their social development.

In 1989 a student demonstration in Tiananmen Square, China, against governmental oppression was ruthlessly crushed under the wheels of war tanks.

On International Human Rights Day, 10th December 1989, President Bush sent America’s National Security Adviser, Brent Snowcroft, and Deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, on a mission of goodwill to China.  In their toast to Li-Peng, mastermind of the Tiananmen Square massacre, they were quoted by the Chinese Press as saying “…we must not exhaust ourselves in placing blame for problems that exist.”

In 1990 America led a joint attack on Iraq, ostensibly in retaliation for the invasion and rape of Kuwait. Their policy of not exhausting themselves in placing blame for problems that exist did not seem to apply here. But then, in this instance, their oil interests were threatened.

In 1913 Woodrow Wilson became the 28th President of the USA.  The following year World War 1 broke out, with all the ensuing destruction to lives and nations that have been chronicled by various authors.

Recognising the need for global peace, Wilson established the League of Nations – a body conceived to promote global democracy and, ultimately, peace in an international context.  This was the forerunner to the United Nations and the vision of a great American humanist who left the world a legacy of a global collective of nations that yet has the mandate and the intent to sue global leaders to eschew violence and seek resolution to problems through peaceful initiatives and interventions.

Guyana’s Dr. Cheddi Jagan, recognising the inter-dependency of nation upon nation for the prerequisites of global survival, and the imperative of promoting a holistic approach to the formulation of mechanisms for the survival of mankind on Planet Earth, given the appreciating global disasters as a result of global warming and other factors, conceived and promoted the unique concept of a reconfigured, reconstructed international construct in his “New Global Human Order,” which has been lauded and accepted by world bodies, including the United Nations.

But the ideas and the voices of the great humanists and thinkers of the ilk of Kofi Annan, Cheddi Jagan, Woodrow Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King seem to be silenced by the war-drums of the warlords, which could very well precipitate Armageddon.

But while the war-mongers are beating their drums and firing their missiles every peace-lover in the global collective of nations could start the processes of world peace by living in grace within families, within communities, and within nations.

If this resolution could herald in the New Year on individual bases, then maybe it could provide the catalyst for eventual peace on a global scale.

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day connoted with the celebration of love; and while this day is famous for the celebration of romantic love, it is not limited to this dynamic, because love is multi-dimensional, so today should be celebrated as a day for mankind in what Dr. Cheddi Jagan described as this global village on a universal scale.  The warmongers should lay down their weapons and let peace and love prevail – not merely on this day, as a token gesture, but for all time.