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International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls—November 25

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When the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his message for the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women and Children ( November 25) that “every 11 minutes , a woman or girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member”, many people were shocked. This however is an often quoted fact when violence again women is discussed at world level, as also the fact that in the age group over 15 nearly a third of women suffer serious acts of violence including sexual violence. To this should be added abuse and sexual violence suffered by children which can leave a very lasting adverse impact. In the USA, where more reliable data is collected, nearly 40% girl children suffer from abuse and nearly 25% from sexual abuse.

While identifying causes of this violence, some are related to the traditional attitudes of gender inequality and discrimination as well as related attitudes of  dominance over them by males. However what is important is that while high levels of violence of women have been recorded in several traditional societies, these have also been recorded in highly modern and ‘liberated’ societies where women have won significant rights of equal opportunities in many walks of life. Why do high levels of violence against women continue in such societies?

This is because the basic urge or the root cause of various kinds of violence at various levels comes from the basic instinct of dominance. Why is there class violence or caste violence? It is because of the urge of dominance. Why is there inter-faith violence? It is because of dominance. Why are there wars and civil wars? Again because of the urge of dominance of one over the other. Similarly gender violence is rooted in the urge for maintaining dominance, but one difference is that here it is more likely for violence to take place within close relationships. Several societies which try to introduce more equality for women at apparent levels but do not try to check the basic problem of relations of dominance because to do so would involve deep commitment to justice and equality for which the leadership is not prepared. Hence when outward level equality appears but deeper level dominance instincts remain, this continues to be reflected in high levels of gender-violence which inevitable involves high levels of violence in close relationships.

This is why this writer has persistently argued for years that all peace efforts should be closely related and supportive at various levels, and in this context the peace efforts and anti-war efforts, the inter-faith harmony efforts, the social and economic justice efforts and gender-equality and justice efforts are closely related. Without such a comprehensive mobilization, it becomes difficult for various social movements to achieve significant and desirable gains in isolation. In this context the high levels of gender violence even in the middle of surface-level efforts for equality can be understood.

Please click the following link it is 4th article.

Patriarchy 

Global Peace and Humanity: We, the People are Victims of Failed Global Leadership

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By  Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

Looking Beyond the Obvious Lens of Human Consciousness

Cop 27 has just ended in Sharm el-Shaikh (Egypt) without any candid measures to deal with a readily available “Time Bomb”, of climate change affecting all and everything that is living on Earth. Nations and leaders made promises at COP 26 Glasgow Conference but never took practical steps to lower the fossil fuel emissions, greenhouse effects and depleting lifelines of sacred Earth. The media would call this perversion from reality – ‘politics of broken promises’, business as usual. Do they not understand the vitality of a healthy Earth and functional systems of Nature within a splendid Universe?  Do they know how the Earth, the seas, water, air and life and all other beings were created?  Have they talked about how the Earth functions, how the water flows and how the seas exist and how the oxygen generates and sustains human life?  

Human beings are blessed with thinking, knowledge and intellect. To avoid any conflict between Man and the Nature of things, the leaders, scientists and climate experts must understand how the Heavens and Earth exist and are structured in balance; how they are ordained by the commands of God to serve mankind and provide all the resources needed for human survival, life and sustainability. To deal with man-made follies of climate change and greenhouse effects, they must know how the Earth moves at its axis and rotates at 1675 km per hour or 465 meters per second that is 1,040 miles per hour. The Earth’s circumference at the equator is 40,075 km. And the length of time the Earth takes to complete one full turn on its axis is 23.93 hours. And how all the living beings get lifelong nourishment within the splendid Universe? When leaders and experts obsessed with ignorance and wickedness prefer to simply talk and listen and do nothing to avert the catastrophic consequences of their own failure, they operate in conflicting time zones without finding any workable solutions.  Is that not what happened at the COP 26 too? Not to mention the COVID-19 Pandemic and its ongoing critical impacts on all aspects of human affairs. The G20 show case galvanized the media coverage of the few who could speak and impress others with persuasive voices of ingenuity but without any rationality to console the mankind with substantial remedies, be it the climate change, war between Russia and Ukraine, supplies of gas and oil from Russia, food scarcity and global peace, conflict resolutions or future-making. It is repulsive to suppose universal harmony can be enhanced by profligacy, malevolence and horrors and miseries of unthinkable multitudes.

Sanctity of human life is grounded in realization of peace, dialogue and co-existence. The ongoing conflict between Russia, Ukraine and the West is one of the single most factors in perpetuated global disharmony, socio-economic and political disorder. Recently, this author proposed a rational worktable solution to all concerned: “https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2022/04/19/ukraine-russia-and-the-easter-of-insanity.php and https://english.pravda.ru/opinion/151200-easter/ 4/19/2022:

To stop the war in Ukraine, the US, the EU, NATO should have a direct face to face communication with President Putin. …….It is logical when people of diversity and opposing ideals come to talk directly, tensions and evil mongering is reduced to reason and mutual interest. This has not happened except military options for weapon supplies and enlargement of the scope of regional conflict.  Time and history will not forgive nor forget any of the leaders if they failed to agree to an immediate ceasefire and peace deal

Are we living in an era of false truth, feigned piety and alternate transient facts of human affairs? Those occupying positions of influence generate ideas and narratives which are often drawn from people who are ideologue of self-interest, contradictions and misrepresentations across global landscape.  Dr. Rudolph Hansel (“Returning Man to Nature. Paul Thiry d’Holbach. “The essence of man is to feel, to think and to act” Part II” Global Research: 11/08/22),  shares an in-depth look of Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach (1723-1789), one of the leading figures of the French encyclopaedists, in his book “System of Nature”, published in 1770:

Let man, therefore, cease to seek beings outside the world he inhabits, which are to provide him with a happiness which nature denies him: let him study nature, learn its laws, and contemplate its energy and the unchanging way in which it acts; let him use his discoveries for his own happiness, and tacitly submit to laws from which nothing can escape him; let him refrain from inquiring into the causes which are surrounded for him with an impenetrable veil, let him bear without grumbling the decisions of a universal power which can neither turn back nor ever deviate from the rules which its nature prescribes for it.

Global Leaders Must Listen to Voices of Reason and Intellect for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Effective leaders are people who know their strength and weaknesses and are always open to listening and learning from the masses. Those who pretend to be wise and super beings are on the wrong side of time and history. Leaders must recognize the limits to time and place for change. Our conscientious culture, hopes and ambitions are evolutionary and continue to be changing and evolving for a sustainable future. Truth is ONE, it cannot be divided into numbers of votaries, that is, We, are One People, We are One humanity under the dreadful impacts and consequences of an invisible enemy set to dehumanize all the mankind on this planet. We should be looking for an informed conscience not default of an enlightened conscience to restore trust and societal confidence that COVID-19 pandemic is medically and spiritually treatable, War between Russia and the West (NATO and the EU), Ukraine being the object can be stopped, supplies of natural resources can be restored to normalcy, climate change can be understood and remedies can be implemented, Kashmir and Palestine -Israel future can be resolved peacefully, and we can be reconnected as One People and One Humanity without egoistic politics of the few.  

Most contemporary leaders of the world appear to rejoice self-centered evil-mongering, not wisdom and truth of people-oriented political systems of governance. Ideas and ideals that defy reasoning and truth are gushingly operative in aerial bombing of the innocents in Syria and inhuman displacement of civilians, forced confinement and torture of masses in Kashmir by Indian occupied forces, Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Saudi Arabian-UAE led war against the poor people of Yemen, and almost a million forcibly evicted Rohinga Muslims from Mynamar (Burma). The UNO is just a symbolic title, not a force to transform conflicts into peacemaking optimism. We, the People of the globe ask all nations on Earth to recognize our strengths and weaknesses for unity of minds for change and adaptability to the making of a people-oriented future in peace and living together as people of reasoned conscience

We can do it, we are One Humanity – we cannot be divided into segments of geography and history as numbers. We the People, We the Humanity are connected to all other things within the God-given Earth and the Universe to serve the mankind. This gives knowledge, soundness and power to reason and forbidden truth in the current global affairs.

We, the Humanity Look for Peace, Solidarity and Security

The planet Earth is not a dead orbiting object but a living entity providing continuous nourishment to human life, change and progress and existence of all other living beings. The Heavens and Earth exist and ordained in balance by the commands of God, not by any human construct or order. When nations and leaders subscribing to political absolutism start acting like God and challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God; historically speaking they become an object of unthinkable natural calamities- earthquakes, wildfires, floods, deaths and destruction. The Divine Revelations (The Qur’an: 40: 64), remind us, who we are and what relationship do we enjoin to Earth and its sustenance that supports our life and existence:

It is God Who made for you  the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy; And has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful,  And has provided for your Sustenance, of things pure and  Such is God your Lord. So Glory to GOD.,                                                                                                                                                 The Lord of the Worlds.

We must connect people to people across the globe to be active participants in delivering a new and more viable common future of unity, happiness and future-making. They used to export weapons to wage wars, now exporting wars and media propaganda and are profiteering from the emerging crises all over the globe. Replacing human consciousness of peace and security by repulsive ideas of despotism, the warlords are corrupting the human values, new-age visions and concepts of healthy standards of peaceful co-existence as they see it a threat to their plans.

Caitlin Johnstone (“We never really had a chance to build a healthy world” Information Clearing House: 09/11/22) is a courageous Australian thinker and writer and author of Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. https://caitlinjohnstone.com.  She outlines a candid message of human sufferings:

And we wonder why everyone’s so dysfunctional and self-destructive. ….We never really had a chance to build a healthy world. Our ancestors went from running away from monsters with sharp fangs to burning witches and heretics to fighting world wars to giving birth to us, and that wave of fear and chaos carried forward right into our own psyches and into the psyches of everyone else on this planet without skipping a beat. If you look at where we came from and how we got here, it’s amazing we’re even as functional as we are.

So we’re all innocent, in the end. Again, we must of course push to bring consciousness to the parts of humanity that have taken a wrong turn — to the war criminals and plutocrats and managers of empire, and all other abusers and the abusive systems which elevate them. But underneath that fierce burst of light there can also be a deep compassion and understanding born of a lucid seeing of how we got here in the first place.

We know fossil fuel emissions, oil spill-overs, deforestation and technological destruction of life and earth can be reduced and managed but none will dare to initiate the remedial measures for change. We know global political problems can be resolved through dialogue but none will take action to communicate to perceived enemies. We know COVID-19 Pandemic could be managed as did Ibna Sina (Avicenna: Canon of Medicine), during the 10th century of herbal medicine. Why the global leaders, scientists and so called smart experts shame of not exploring other workable remedies for sustainable future? “If you THINK intelligently, you could find workable remedies to human problems.” Knowledge and sciences are not fixed entities. We the People must reason for an instinctive recognition of social, economic and political injustice across the globe and logically try to transform the world of political wickedness, disharmony, socio-economic and political deprivation and exploitation into a world of moral, intellectual and  spiritual reasoning and be passionate  and hopeful for constructive changes in thoughts and behaviors – be it the policing or the masses march on streets and halls of fame, our aim and wisdom must be focused on purpose – a different and a better world of tomorrow and continuous change to be monitored and assessed by the people of knowledge and reason to ensure that we do not cross-over the limits of the Laws of Nature  deserving punishment from God –  the Creator and Sustainer of all the lives, the Earth and the Universe that matter to us all as human beings.

(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 Publishing, Germany, 12/2019).

Chomsky On The Root Causes Of Russian Ukraine War.

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Shared by: Syed Ehtisham

Writer : DR. Ramzy Baroud

One of the reasons that Russian media has been completely blocked in the West, along with the unprecedented control and censorship over the Ukraine war narrative, is the fact that western governments simply do not want their public to know that the world is vastly changing.

Ignorance might be bliss, arguably in some situations, but not in this case. Here, ignorance can be catastrophic as western audiences are denied access to information about a critical situation that is affecting them in profound ways and will most certainly impact the world’s geopolitics for generations to come.

The growing inflation, an imminent global recession, a festering refugee crisis, a deepening food shortage crisis and much more are the kinds of challenges that require open and transparent discussions regarding the situation in Ukraine, the NATO-Russia rivalry and the responsibility of the West in the ongoing war.

To discuss these issues, along with the missing context of the Russia-Ukraine war, we spoke with Professor Noam Chomsky, believed to be the greatest living intellectual of our time.

Chomsky told us that it “should be clear that the (Russian) invasion of Ukraine has no (moral) justification.” He compared it to the US invasion of Iraq, seeing it as an example of “supreme international crime.” With this moral question settled, Chomsky believes that the main ‘background’ of this war, a factor that is missing in mainstream media coverage, is “NATO expansion”.

“This is not just my opinion,” said Chomsky, “it is the opinion of every high-level US official in the diplomatic services who has any familiarity with Russia and Eastern Europe. This goes back to George Kennan and, in the 1990s, Reagan’s ambassador Jack Matlock, including the current director of the CIA; in fact, just everybody who knows anything has been warning Washington that it is reckless and provocative to ignore Russia’s very clear and explicit red lines. That goes way before (Vladimir) Putin, it has nothing to do with him; (Mikhail) Gorbachev, all said the same thing. Ukraine and Georgia cannot join NATO, this is the geostrategic heartland of Russia.”

Though various US administrations acknowledged and, to some extent, respected the Russian red lines, the Bill Clinton Administration did not. According to Chomsky, “George H. W. Bush … made an explicit promise to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand beyond East Germany, perfectly explicit. You can look up the documents. It’s very clear. Bush lived up to it. But when Clinton came along, he started violating it. And he gave reasons. He explained that he had to do it for domestic political reasons. He had to get the Polish vote, the ethnic vote. So, he would let the so-called Visegrad countries into NATO. Russia accepted it, didn’t like it but accepted it.”

“The second George Bush,” Chomsky argued, “just threw the door wide open. In fact, even invited Ukraine to join over, despite the objections of everyone in the top diplomatic service, apart from his own little clique, Cheney, Rumsfeld (among others). But France and Germany vetoed it.”

However, that was hardly the end of the discussion. Ukraine’s NATO membership remained on the agenda because of intense pressures from Washington.

“Starting in 2014, after the Maidan uprising, the United States began openly, not secretly, moving to integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command, sending heavy armaments and joining military exercises, military training and it was not a secret. They boasted about it,” Chomsky said.

in World — by Dr Ramzy Baroud —