Wounded World, Politics & Peace

The above heartbreaking image of a four-year-old Syrian girl with hands raised over her head captured by a Turkish photographer Osman Sagiri at the Atmen refugee camp near the Syrian border to Turkey has gone viral in the recent days proving that a photo speaks more than 1000 words.The child surrendered when she mistook the photographer’s camera for a gun which vividly reflects the utter fear present in the mind of innocents and victims living in the war zones.

While the entire world is still reacting on this photo, I felt like sharing my opinion about the bigger picture of today’s war crisis around the world and what ways conflicts and wars can be stopped to establish peace and harmony.

It might be completely unreal to imagine a violence free world as minor conflicts happen in every family but the extent of human slaughtering we have seen in Africa, Middle East and almost around the world is pretty much in the process of wiping the whole humanity. Many ongoing armed conflicts around the world are definitely serving the interest of so called world superpowers who want to exert influence or project power on a global scale. War in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, Somalia, Ukraine and many other countries in the world might have started because of different social, political, religious and cultural reasons but the outcome is the immeasurable loss of innocent lives, social infrastructures and hopes of the alive.

Poverty, inequality, unemployment, corruption, racial attacks and several other reasons could have pushed ordinary people in the street for their rights and has certainly created civil wars in many countries but the bigger war we have seen in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, Ukraine is clearly the result of the vested interest of superpowers like America, Russia, Britain and others. When the poor countries and people are suffering to solve their hand to mouth problem, how can a group of that state afford to buy a million dollar worth of arms and ammunition?

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute provides the list of world’s largest arms exporters and how much money they are making from it.The units in this table are so-called trend indicator values expressed in millions of US $ at 1990s prices. These values do not represent real financial flows but are a crude instrument to estimate volumes of arms transfers, regardless of the contracted prices, which can be as low as zero in the case of military aid. Ordered by descending 2013 values.  

2013 rank	Supplier	Arms exports
1	Russia	8283
2	United States	6153
3	China	1837
4	France	1489
5	United Kingdom	1394
6	Germany	972
7	Italy	807
8	Israel	773
9	Spain	605
10	Ukraine	589
11	Sweden	505
12	Belarus	338
13	South Korea	307
14	Netherlands	302
15	Switzerland	205

It’s now crystal clear that the export of arms and weapons is one of the biggest sources of income to these developed countries mentioned above and in order to continue the supply of such tools, war and battles are compulsory. They can’t be used to irrigate the deserted land nor can they be helpful to develop infrastructure, instead they are designed for destroying the humanity and their infrastructures. When civil war or some minor conflict arise in any country, it ultimately awakens the ‘United Nations Security Council’ which is responsible for restoring peace and security but all the five permanent members of the 'United Nations Security Council'- Russia, China, France, United Kingdom and United States of America are proven to be the five biggest arm suppliers in the world. What could Security Council do when one of its fellow members attacked Ukraine and took control over Crimea? The time has come for us to open our eyes and speak what’s really going on. Today people with money can buy dangerous weapons from political and business mafias in every corners of the world. The biggest superpower USA allows its people to buy weapons legally in their own country. 2012 Aurora shooting demonstrated how ordinary people lose their life in one of the most powerful countries in the world. Such realities become mundane news stories to their government and they continue repeating their speech of commitment to provide peace and justice to the people in war zones. Why and how can we believe them when their actions are totally the opposite?

System of governance, political ideology, religion and several other factors are seen as media to create political turmoil and instability in the developing nations so that these developed nations can interfere there and lengthen the political insurgency which will allow them to continue their business of arm export. Humanitarian aid offered by these giant nations to the victims in war areas are just temporary and no one can guarantee food, shelter and security to them. To me it doesn't make much sense when you create war, you make people suffer and then you yourself promise to provide peace and security to these people. Armies are created in the name of national defense and the trained manpower is pushed to the war zones in order to make them play the holi of their own life. Many of them die giving the medals of their bravery to their family and many more are trained to be sacrificed and this cycle continues. Undoubtedly the fear of terrorism and vandalism must stop promptly but in the excuse of peacekeeping we shouldn't allow these cunning gamers to plan a bigger game of mass destruction. While discussing these issues, it reminds me of the movie ‘Hunger Games’ in which the game is deliberately designed to kill people. The current conflicts around the world don't look that much different but certainly going on in a bigger scale.

Unfortunately, we don’t react equally when the same degree of violence and accidents takes place in different parts of the world. September 11 event in USA, Charlie Hebdo shooting in France, 2008 Mumbai attack got a massive global reaction and media attention but a lot of people around the world these days are used to listening and hearing the ongoing political crisis in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Africa and different developing countries around the world. The outbreak of Ebola has killed thousands of lives in Africa but why are these super powers not showing any urgency to save more lives and why the rest of us are not raising our voice louder enough? The rapid rattle of the shuttering rifles and explosive bombs can never create a peaceful society. In order to minimize current wars and political monopolies around the world and possibly to eradicate them, I believe the following things can be done:

   World superpowers must stop the manufacture and export of arms and ammunition and they   should invest their economic power in the elimination of absolute poverty, unemployment, inequality and social injustice around the world. Their attention to the global economic and social problem must be their first priority instead of venturing in Moon and Mars

   People involved in revolution and wars must be encouraged to come in a peace process and both governments and different revolutionary and armed forces of different countries should make multiple attempts to sort out the issues through mutual trust and negotiation. Disarming of the revolutionary cadres always becomes the priority of governments and mediators in such process which is understandable but if developed countries stop the business of manufacturing and supplying of such arms, this process can be a lot easier

   The International Court of Justice must be made more powerful and all countries in the world must have opportunity to appoint the right people in the judiciary

People of each developing country must choose morally strong and committed political leaders, not the politicians so that the country’s sovereignty remains strong. The accountable government led by real leaders will work for the benefits of people whereas sending corrupted leaders in power will invite foreign intervention

Ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural and social diversity in a society must be respected and racial attack and discrimination on any basis must be avoided

People of the country must remain as watchdogs and once people in the power fails to accomplish their agenda as per committed deadline, massive public pressure must erupt out to kick corrupts and replace them with better leaders. If the trusted government fails to accomplish its agendas, people mustn't wait for the next election

The state must create a powerful mechanism to investigate the assets of politicians and control them from the corruption

Many big media are owned by corporate and are biased, so a civil society or citizens journalists can create a powerful media to inform people with the correct and reliable information of different political, social and cultural events. In this regard, social media are doing amazing job these days

The judicial system must be free from political influence and the country must have fast track courts for the speedy address of the serious social and political crimes and misconducts

Developing nations must unite for a common benefit to pressurize big powers to take right steps in case of political emergency

Social icons, singers, dancers, movie stars, sports celebrities, writers and social activists must unite together as opinion leaders as people favor them more than the politicians. In real need, the unity can be helpful to bring the correct political changes

We all have to be morally strong, self-disciplined, cooperative, less materialistic and spiritual to find more peace within ourselves

We all must accept the reality of the current world and act accordingly. We may not be able to live in a completely violence free society but the concept of the world peace is an idea of planetary nonviolence, freedom and happiness and this dream can be the reality if we can at least make our government more publicly responsible , ethically professional and corrupt free. If an individual like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Buddha could bring so many amazing changes in the world; I believe the unity of mammoth positive individuals can certainly make this world a better place to live in. It’s definitely sad to see people of this world killing each other and destroying our own brothers and sisters. I reckon if alien attacks humanity in any stage, probably the world might be free of boundaries, class, colors and prosperity as our unity would be vital to save our existence. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait till then.