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.
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.
Innocent people are being kidnapped and murdered; there are instances of 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 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 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 nations 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.
However, 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.
Guyana continues to be caught up in the destructive politics of an irresponsible opposition collective.
Yet, if the resolutions espoused and propagated by great thinkers such as Kofi Annan, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Mahatma Gandhi, and other leaders of their stature could herald in a new dispensation on individual bases, and in a global context, then maybe this paradigm could provide the catalyst for eventual peace on a global scale.