"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein
Global institutions of peace, security and conflict resolution are managed by people who lack basic understanding of mankind, its role and vitality in global affairs, protection of human rights and aspirations for a sustainable future-making. When a formidable action is needed to prevent violation of human rights, security and even essential needs of survival, they bent on issuing phony statements and refer to international law of humanitarian rights (which does not exist or nobody cares about), and show faces of solidarity for leading humanity in painful crises. They are deceptive as they breathe incompetence, greed, egoistic name and fame and betray humanity. There is much evil and less goodness in the 21st century global affairs — amassed collection of unthinkable junk history. Flamboyant expressions of besieged mankind that defies ignorance and hallmarks of modern civilized people.
There are seeds of unimaginable and destructive Western cultural absolutism that could destroy the sense of time and rational consciousness of living history. The on-going war in Ukraine, violations of human rights, colored prejudice and indigenous killings in North America, social and moral injustice and continuous warfare — all echo degradation of human values and soul, exhibit intellectual discard, universal unhappiness, horrors, societal chaos and socio-economic miseries of innumerable multitude.
The politically wise and elected failed to foresee the formidable challenges coming from the 99% oppressed mankind across from global frontiers. Most political leaders would claim intellectual integrity but where else false proclamations go unnoticed of human sufferings, pains and socioeconomic devastation cannot be assumed to be the strategies of kindness in the struggle for sustainable political change and systematic reformation of terror and injustice.
We witness that human tragedy between Russia-Ukraine, across Western Europe, North American streets, the Middle East and elsewhere while human conscience in still intact. Politician tend to opt for convenient compromise deforming political truth as transient and pliable but truth is always ONE, not many, and this is what most contemporary leaders failed to comprehend. We, the People of the globe must learn from living history and think of navigational change or else it is a self-generated dehumanization curve — an evidence of a tragic human abnormality across all the functional domains, from thinking to actions. To safeguard our future, We, the People of global Conscience must evolve a compass of credibility to check those who are exercising political power and are entrusted with people's confidence for peace, societal harmony and workable conflict resolutions.
The UNO was supposed to safeguard the mankind from the "scourge of war”, but the UN Security Council- a progressive hope after the WW2 is really a debating club for time killing exercises and a manipulative global political powerhouse. The Five self-appointed permanent members compete in fear of the others and sustainability propaganda to discuss the current issues. They are not interested in stopping the savagery of killings between Ukraine and Russia, going on for almost year and half, appalling human rights violation and dehumanization of the people of Palestine under Israeli occupation, freedom fighters in Kashmir against the Indian military control, million of Rohinga people ethnic displacement from Myanmar, and destabilization of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and so on. There is nothing good coming out of the Security Council as a main hub of global peace, security and conflict management. The eloquent speakers tend to march on people's passion for peace and harmony with artful sophistry and captivating eloquence of words without meaning and prompt action to protect the humanity.
Western news media networks propel portraits of human degradation, historic injustice and sociol-economic vices as if political deception and prejudice were new things to political thinkers and rulers. How could we rethink to change the centuries old dreadful human apparatus of brimstone, tormenting social inequalities and torture inflicted by the contemporary so called working democratic systems of political governance? The UNO and its inept leadership has no plan to safeguard the mankind from the coming of a Third World War.
Those who grab political power by extreme ideologies and hateful manipulation are men of political intrigue assuming power through exploitation of fellow human beings and impose their absurdity on human consciousness striving for survival. Indian PM Narendra Modi recently visited the US to uplift his dubious public image as a leader. He spoke of peace and terrorism when he is actively engaged in oppressing the minorities across India -Sikh, Hindu, Muslims, Christians, violations of women rights and rape and waging a prolonged war against the people of Kashmir. Truth is One and the same unchanging as it was many centuries earlier.
Contrary to the historic India under Mughal Empire where ethnic diversities lived in harmony, we are seeing contemporary India denying equal human rights and freedom — a framework of extreme Hinduism ideology. The masses of Kashmir seek their rights to freedom, not forced captivity. How strange for over seventy years, corrupt Pakistani politicians never thought of an international conference on Kashmir? Pakistanis are abhorrent to critical thinking and criticism for political change. The one track military minds dominate the Pakistani so called political landscape and people are struggling to restore a sense of normalcy and lost credibility to nation's survival. Unless there is a navigational change away from the military dictatorship to restore democracy, Pakistanis could end-up losing their national freedom.
Could Ukraine and Russia meet at a conference table for an immediate ceasefire and peace making? NATO and the EU are not working in a logical framework to have a dialogue with Russia or to stop the killings and displacement fo civilians across Ukraine. Would America and Israel determine the future of the war torn Middle East? Several oil producing Arab leaders are complicit in failure of finding a peaceful resolution of Palestine — be it the East Jerusalem or the annexation of West Bank. These puppets are mindless beings not living with the Arab people but in palaces under the CIA management. Israeli and Palestinian both live in mutual fear and moral and intellectual decadence. Had they believed in Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad and their teachings as Prophets of God- all trying to unite mankind before God, they should have reached a peace deal.
The PLO lacks intelligent and effective leadership to counteract Netanyahu whereas the Israeli's problem rests with the right wing extreme leadership devoid of peace, morality and human equality. PM Netanyahu glued to the extreme right wing parties planning to annex the West Bank of Palestine into Israeli territory. The settlements goes on and wicked leaders simply call it against the international law. As if Palestinians were not human beings but just digits and numbers. One would have hoped that thinking Israeli politicians will safeguard their own freedom and security and workout a peaceful settlement between the two nations. None of them could live in peace and harmony unless human rights, freedom and justice are respected by all the parties.
Despite many political and strategic odds, one cannot blame the Western industrialized nations for ignorance, human prejudice and sociol-economic disparities. Why nobody else challenged the racial inequality and moral injustice? What did the Arabs or Muslims contribute to the changing pattern of global political affairs? Global humanity is a mix of all cultures and civilizations. The Arab-Muslim world failed to produce any leader of vision and intellectual integrity for the changing and complex global affairs of the 21st century. When Arabs leaders had proactive vision and intellect and human values, they articulated a unique civilization tolerant of diversity and varied cultural ethnicity in Andalucía (Spain) and built upon the unity of faith to nurture peaceful co-existence and human development. If you list the historic scientific, educational and technological discoveries and contributions of Muslim scholars, they are countless.
Do you know any other scientists or scholars whose text books were used continuously for five centuries in European medical schools? Or their scientific work translated into Latin, French, Deutch, English and other languages spoken across the world. Husain Abdullah Bu Ali Sina — Ibne-Sina (Avicenna — "Canon of Medicine” and "Book of Healing”), and Zakria Al-Razi (Russ), 10th century scientists and scholars. The Europeans changed their names to Avicenna and Russ so that nobody would recognize them as Muslim scholars. It is noted that Ibne Sina (Avicenna) alone discovered and authenticated 36 pharmaceutical formulas being used to this day. Marai Rosa Menocal (A Golden Reign of Tolerance: The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, 2003), explains:
The lessons of history, like the lessons of religion, sometime neglect examples of tolerance. A thousand years ago on the Iberian Peninsula, an enlightened vision of Islam had created the most advanced culture in Europe….In Cordoba, the library housed some 400,000 volumes at a time when the largest library in Latin Christendom probably held no more than 400.
Despite the sketchy illusions of freedom, democracy, human rights, liberty and justice, we are encroached, stuffed and at terrible risk of annihilation more accidental and by error of judgment than planned scheme of things by Man against Man. Often the extreme Western political propaganda inflames hatred against colored and indigenous people, Islam and blames Muslims as being "terrorists.” David Floyd voice continues to echo — I cannot breathe…I cannot breathe across the global human consciousness. Often false propaganda, deception and prejudice are combined in a trajectory of plans to sell weapons and console the egoistic Arab leaders as allies of the Western military alliance. This political delusion is full of inherent inconsistencies. Gary Wills (What the Qur'an Meant and What It Matters. Viking, NY, 2017), a leading American scholar explains the reality in his new book:
Our enemy in this war is far less localizable than it was in the World War 2 or the Cold War. Terror is a tool, not a country. Declaring a war on it is less like normal warfare, country versus country, there is No VE Day or VJ Day in such wars… living with fear is corrosive…the less we know about the reality of Islam, the more we will fight shadows and false emanations from our apprehension. Ignorance is the natural ally of fear. It is time for us to learn about the real Islam beginning with its source book — The Qur'an.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 12/2019.