G20: A golden opportunity for the future

The forthcoming G20 meeting presents a golden opportunity for the international community to surpass its difficulties, overcome its differences and pull together once and for all to solve, definitively, the mounting pressures facing our planet, challenges which pose an existential threat for the generations to come. It is within our grasp, but...

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In the year 2017 by the Christian calendar, or by other approaches over two thousand years after the Roman Empire reached the pinnacle of its development under Augustus Caesar, our planet is sick. Our lands are polluted, our rivers and lakes are polluted, our seas are polluted, our air is polluted, the space around the planet is polluted.

Species of animals and plants are becoming extinct before we discover them and thousands that already exist are at risk or in danger of disappearing before our eyes.

The "green" question aside, which is already serious enough to merit thousands of articles such as this one, international relations are at a level of tension unseen in many decades, with the NATO block pushing in ever-increasing waves of arrogance, making unfounded accusations and building up on Russia's borders. In recent years and since the beginning of the century we have seen breach after breach of international law by the same block, led by the FUKUS Axis (France-UK-US) or by ASS (the Anglo-Saxon Syndicate).

Illegal invasions

The illegal invasion of Iraq led to the destruction of a State which has not yet recovered, indeed, is teeming with terrorists, has endemic unemployment and is far worse off after 14 years than it was before the fingers of Satan touched it, in the hands of Bush and Blair and their bedpals.

The illegal invasion of Libya, in which war crimes were committed, as in Iraq, also led to the collapse of what was the African country with the highest Human Development Index, until Messrs. Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama sent the country back hundreds of years, also teeming with terrorists and split into a myriad of warring factions.

The illegal engagement in Syria, where the USA sits like an unwanted gatecrasher, as welcome as a serial rapist pedophile janitor in a grade school, the backing of terrorist groups, has wreaked havoc and chaos on the people of Syria, another country teeming with terrorists.

It appears that western policy is an abject failure. Never has so much damage been done to international relations by so few in such a short space of time leaving such profound crevasses.

The controlled media has gone into hyperdrive, peddling barefaced lies as the truth, accusing the Syrian Government of carrying out chemical weapons attacks when it does not have any and when it is clear that such attacks are perpetrated by the so-called "opposition" to incriminate the Government, often with puerile levels of carelessness such as launching the chemicals in areas crawling with Syrian Arab Army troops.

Russia is seen and sold as a "threat", when all it does is follow international law to the letter. The tensions in recent years were not caused by Russia. Georgia invaded South Ossetia and murdered Russian peacekeepers; the West invaded Iraq, not Russia; the West invaded Libya, not Russia; the West sided with terrorists in Libya and Syria, not Russia; Crimea voted to rejoin Russia, Russia did not invade Crimea.

The ball lies at Trump's feet

So the ball, we can say, is in the Western half of the court. And by "Western" we can say "Washington" because due to their cowardly and sycophantic, groveling stance, the NATO allies have allowed the USA to control not only their foreign policy, but also their budgets, through NATO (spend two per cent of your GDP on NATO weapons systems or else).

So let us then ignore London and Paris, which are basically irrelevant, and address Washington.

The world has the resources, and many times more than the necessary, to solve all our problems in the short-term and definitively. Instead of looking at each other down the barrel of a gun, instead of hurling accusations, instead of making puerile threats, we should be acting under the auspices of the UN Charter, not deriding it and saying it does not work after disrespecting its laws, as the USA and its allies do.

This means that when there is potential for conflict, we should not jump in and take the side of factions taking up arms, we should act as facilitators and try to provide the means for peace and reconciliation. It means we should favor development over deployment of troops and weapons, it means we should be educating civilians and not training soldiers, it means we should be implementing the measures provided already by the UNO, tools to achieve understanding and harmony.

We should be coming together to heal our planet, to clean the seas, to formulate a viable action plan to clear them of the tonnes of plastic pouring into them hour by hour. We should be protecting our forests, not cutting them down, we should have eradicated poaching by now, we should be developing eco-friendly economic solutions which bring sustainable development and prosperity and hope for the future.

We have all the tools at our disposal. The ball is in Mr. Trump's court. Let us see if he plays it back respectfully or if he continues to act like a clown pretending to beat up CNN reporters as if he were in the very worst sort of reality TV show. The population of the world demands nothing less. For Trump, this is an opportunity to seize, or to lose the initiative once and for all.

If this G20 does not deliver, and big time, then maybe it is time for the people of the world to network and create an alternative model of governance and of international organisms.

Photo

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1063682

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru 

Twitter: @TimothyBHinchey

[email protected]

*Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. He has spent the last two decades in humanitarian projects, connecting communities, working to document and catalog disappearing languages, cultures, traditions, working to network with the LGBT communities helping to set up shelters for abused or frightened victims and as Media Partner with UN Women, working to foster the UN Women project to fight against gender violence and to strive for an end to sexism, racism and homophobia. A Vegan, he is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights. He is Director and Chief Editor of the Portuguese version of Pravda.Ru.