Smoke rises from the site of airstrikes in a central area of the Iranian capital Tehran
Image: Atta Kenare / AFP
WE ARE about to leave the holy month of Ramadaan. However war, the Grim Reaper, continues to claim the lives of innocent people across the Muslim and non-Muslim world: 175 schoolgirls were massacred in Minab, Iran, by a US missile strike. War is like fire in the human community, one whose fuel is human beings. Wars expose man’s ultimate inhumanity.
It is an innate, but obsolete part of human nature. War reflects man’s basest instinct, untamed by rationality. All wars are instigated by hungry megalomaniacs, the politicians, managed by professional killers, the military, and fought by the brainwashed members of their prospective population, the cannon fodder. The scale of brutality is frightening. There is no logic to the growing levels of nihilistic violence and wanton bloodshed. The carnage in the Middle East and Europe, fascism in Asia, and the descent into barbarity have been swift. Mankind is locked in a titanic struggle to contain the most deadly plague this century. It was Martin Luther who said: “War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys families”.
Prospects for global peace will never attain reality. Numerous power blocs are being created. These structures are quite possibly the nucleus of an aspiring self-totalitarian world state. The creation of a new all powerful new world order. Human conflict will never end war. Only the dead have seen the end of war. History reminds us that no matter how atrocious war becomes, humanity will never say "enough is enough".
Even the obscenity of all the wars now raging out of control, with the ultimate horror of nuclear war, does not convince mankind to avoid war as a diplomatic bargaining tool.
History is splattered with the blood of innocent people who perished in a multitude of wars in the 20th century.
Every nation has violated article 2 of the United Nations Charter of 1945, which calls on member nations to abstain from the use of force in in their international relations. It is indeed a sad fact that war and conflict, drive and sustain the mighty industrial engines of the world. We are in the cross-hairs of a potential massive nuclear holocaust, that could erase all life on earth.
2026 will be man’s final dance with death, unless sanity, civility and
common sense prevails.
May Almighty God protect us in this turbulent world..
FAROUK ARAIE
Benoni