STRANGE CELEBRATION OF UN75

Leaders hated and feared make make false claims of global peace, security and justice

Are we, the people of the world, trapped in a vicious circle of disingenuous unlearning of the learning, inequality, racial injustice and human degradation across the globe? We continued to experience political deceptions in the name of peace and security, phony wars for peacemaking, destruction of human habitats, racial injustice and violation of basic human rights and dignity at every step of the UN’s ladder of convenience for fair and foul narratives. The United Nations and its Charter were empowered by the successful nations after World War II to protect mankind from another manmade, catastrophic war and to come up with workable solution to futuristic human security and conflict-resolution. But, the UN and its agencies failed to live up to the hopes of succeeding generations.

We have been ditched into a waking consciousness of human degradation as a new normal. Across the globe, people are yearning for equality, racial justice and peace and security of all living beings. The European Empires, e.g. British, French, Dutch, Italian and American, all infested the societies with racial inequality, class systems and endless systematic discrimination of black and coloured masses. The UN could not convene an emergency session to discuss the human losses in both rights and dignity that its Charter claims to have granted protection. The UN leadership fears US President Trump and his volatile reaction psychology—’America First’. American masses are increasingly assuming anti-racism stance and marching for human equality and racial justice. President Trump alleges conspiracy and calls them “extremists’ and ‘thugs” disturbing the law and order. Throughout American history, such denials have perpetuated discrimination, violation of human rights and societal violence. When destiny of the people coincides with that of the political elite, the nobility fears the challenge of change.

We the People of Concerned Humanity are witnessing dreadful political apparatus of painful imagination and threats to rational future-making for all the mankind. Our enquiries and search for human equality, social justice, peace and global harmony are dashed away like the scum floating on water. This is not a speculative tenet but a living reality recorded by our time and experience. These grave issues concern all the mankind regardless of nationalities, borders, ethnicities and prides of so many flags. Are these politicians pathological liars viewing the humanity as dumb, numb and silent spectators? We are the living conscience of humanity and do know that UN celebrations are a planned distraction from the challenges of the prevalent world order of political misrepresentation, contradictions and falsehood. There is hardly any encouraging evidence to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the UN plausibly when millions of human beings are continuously charcoaled in Syria, locked up in Kashmir, Yemen, Libya, Myanmar, Iraq, Belarus and elsewhere on this planet. The very essence of human rights and dignity that UN and the American leadership should have protected against aggression and used its resources to protect life and freedom of all the people is in jeopardy. But the leadership professing to be wise and optimistic is fast becoming irrelevant, treacherous and self-centred without any accountability. Paul Craig Roberts in his piece “A New World is Being Born: What Will It Be?” explains the encompassing truth:

“We are hearing from many that the world after Covid-19 will be different. The question is: Different in what way? Will it be better or worse? Elites are working to make it better for them, and worse for the rest of us. About that the evidence is clear … [t]he elites by thinking only of their interests are in the way of the opportunity that crisis provides to bring people together. If we can’t be brought back together, we can forget about unity beyond the boundaries of our own victim or identity group. In place of community, we will be organized in clans of separate identities. The absence of unity at home will make us a sitting duck for enemies abroad.”

America and Trump beyond the 9/11 and genocide in Iraq

After 9/11, the American politics indicated shifting metaphor to wickedness and cruelty against poor and helpless nations. To chase Osama bin Laden, they massacred and destroyed millions of people in Afghanistan. But once OBL was killed, American war did not end its occupation. The Iraq invasion with American-British collaboration resulted in genocide of approximately three million civilians. Would American and British leaders ever be held accountable for their crimes against humanity? Robert Scheer, Editor–in-Chief of Truthdig, in his article “All Americans Have Blood on Their Hands” narrates the first-hand experience of Danny Sjursen, a veteran of US war in Iraq in the following words:

“[T]he reality is that I was censoring myself … adapting to his new life and grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, the former soldier is still profoundly troubled by his experiences at war, not only as he led soldiers to their deaths, but also as he watched US forces devastate Iraq and Afghanistan. … “What I saw happen to the Iraqi people [haunted me more] than what happened to my soldiers,” Sjursen says. “Not only the bodies in the street, not only the civil war that was being waged, but I found that more than 90 percent of the very friendly Iraqis … told me that life was better under Saddam … [t]hat was a big turning point, when I started to say, ‘Wait a second. You know, forget about fighting the war poorly; we shouldn’t be fighting this war at all’.” But the blood on Sjursen’s hands, which he remains conscious of long after his last deployment, is on all Americans’ hands….”

Could the American society spare some time and opportunity to think rationally about global peace, humanity and racial justice than their pets and daily stock-market listings? At the last phase of his presidency, Trump is attuned to flatter his friend Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, more than American political capacity could afford. America under Trump is blindfolded by the lobbyists to believe in falsehood and misrepresentation and to compromise on the truth of the rights of people while virtue of truth becoming offensive and undesirable as a precept in the US foreign policy.

The UN could have addressed the problem of Palestine-Israel conflict and recognition of two states for almost 70 years. It seems many false and ignorant leaders occupy not only the political platforms of the UN but also in America, Israel and the Arab world. The former Arab tribal agents of the lost British Empire and now princes and authoritarian kings do not represent the masses in UAE, Bahrain or Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. The authoritarian rulers could be phased out any time. It is a Trump-sponsored fantasy to appease one-sided classic ignorance. The Arab and Muslim people have a history of religious affinity and protection of Jews and extending them critical humanitarian assistance during and prior to the WWII when Europeans persecuted them for ages because of the religious animosity. Now State of Israel is in denial of the rights of Palestinian masses to statehood and to co-exist in peace and harmony. Perhaps, Israeli citizens should be conscious of this historic truth and be courageous to protect the Palestinians from a dangerous trend of political cruelty. Arab palaces are guarded by the CIA, not by the people. The leaders and people breathe oxygen in conflicting time zones. Trump administration is manifested in its denial of human rights, human equality and racial justice and looks repulsive to suppose human security and peace to be enhanced by profligacy, malevolence and one-track thinking of peace and security in the Middle East.

To think of political change for human equality and justice

In its search for change and movement to progressive future-making, the global mankind is oppressed by systematic ignorance, intransigence and arrogance of the tiny affluent class of people managing the global institutions, militarization and governance—the perverted insanity lacking basic understanding of the human nature and of the working of the universe in which we enjoy coherent co-existence. The mankind continues to be victimized by the cancerous ego and cruelty of the few Western warlords. Perhaps, they view humanity just in digits and numbers, not as the living entities with social, moral, spiritual and intellectual values and progressive agenda for change and development. The oppressed masses in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), tormented innocent displaced refugees in Syria, more than half of a million of Rohingya refugees forcibly evicted by Tatmadaw (Myanmar military)—a genocide in the making—and stalled in Bangladesh, divided and continuously bombed civilians in Yemen, citizens of Belarus demanding fair elections and besieged Palestinians looking for global humanity to help—if there is any still intact—and call for order of the disorder, equality and justice. They have no tools to challenge the oppressors except endurance and foresight for human identity and peace to rejoice dignity and freedom without any perpetuated animosity. This was the moment the UN and its Big Five should have moved to take a stand in support of human equality and justice.

To change the world, it is incumbent upon the intellectuals, academics, visionaries, poets, philosophers and the thinking people to perceive and articulate new and creative ideas, new political imagination for the 21st-century organizations to be functional for the people, by the people and accountable to the supremacy of the people’s will; thus, facilitating opportunities for dialogue and reason to deal with issues of primary national conflicts, competing economic and political discords, freedom, justice, human rights, and to invent new terminologies of diplomacy, peacemaking and co-existence between man, the humanity and the universe. Peace and global security are not the properties or the exclusive domains of any superpower— America, Russia, the EU, UNO or the UN Security Council or any American corporation. The global mankind enjoins rational optimism to see the ideas and ideals of peace and human security as its own collectively, not of the few.

The tragic death of black American George Floyd reminds us of all the revulsion against the failure of working democracy, economic evil, subjugation of the people of colour, psychological and political evil, and insane evil against the black and the people of colour. The ‘America First’ claimed by Donald Trump reflects painful temptation and socioeconomic and political compulsion of systematic evil embedded in capitalism and the class of the people who claim supremacy to govern the less fortunate and poverty-stricken people of colour. They planned and organized security and police forces to protect the ruling nobility—one percent elite. Facing the challenges of public outcries for equality and racial justice, legislative and systematic legal changes must be formalized to create participation of all the citizenry in making a sustainable future. Public calls for unfunding of the police apparatus is not a realistic issue but better education and training of police force could change the human landscape of trust and relationship. All colours matter and all lives matter if we claim to be a rational human species populating the God-given One Planet—the Earth. We the People, the Humanity are colourful and beautiful.

 

Dr Mahboob A. Khawaja is the author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making.