Arab World: Searching Reason in Ruins of Insanity
Mahboob A Khawaja, PhD.
Failed International Institutions are Dehumanizing Global Mankind
Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo – the hubs of ancient cultures and civilizations are targets of man-made destructive instinct. Arab leadership political incapacity is joined by complacency and result is the worst combination of tyranny and cruelty to humanity. Is it an inevitable Divine punishment to the Arab leaders for their meddling in affairs they lack imagination and power? Western warmongering and Arab authoritarianism have destroyed what took centuries to human ingenious and intellect to build for future generations. How do you reason with monstrous acts of bombing and killing the innocent people – a ‘right man’ syndrome in its worst naked form and shape? Retrieved historic diplomacy and fake persuasive dialogue is esoteric doctrine fraught with ignorance and arrogance. The civilized world sees the deliberate massacres of people and torture and destruction of the habitats through the books, media analysis and conceits and speaks boldly of peace and security, human rights, law and justice but practice gross indifference and jargons of empty elegance and meaningless futility. Daily carnage of the civilian deaths and consequential perils of bloodbath in Aleppo, Baghdad, Damascus and elsewhere across the Arab world will put to shame what is called diplomacy and peaceful negotiations for ceasefire while the resourceful nations are competing in brutal warfare. Both America and Russia are capable to recapitulate peace, not cruelty in the Arab political theater. The Arab leaders on their own have no cohesive intellectual capacity and policy for peace and normalization. The oil exporting Arab states rely on foreign masters (USA- Britain) and in the case of Bashar al-Assad (Syria) on Russia to do the political horse trading. None have the capacity to view human life as sacred and respectable. They were divided and destroyed by the transitory prosperity of petrodollar. If America and Russia were to mock intransigence and realize the value of peace and security in the region, they could win what is unthinkable for global peace and security. Peace will not happen when insanity replaces rationality in human affairs. History is repeating itself what went wrong when powerful nations shrink intellectually to become spectators rather than active peacemakers. The failure of the League of Nations allowed Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Japanese Empire to occupy the weak and poor nations and impose their logic of power paving ways for the 2nd World War. We witness the UNO in similar parables. Western military interventions and Arab authoritarianism have ruined the whole landscape of the Arab Middle East. How to reverse the anarchism of the few against many in a world determined by the powerful nations at the UN Security Council? The States occupying the nerve center of political power are not accountable for their actions to the larger segment of humanity. The failure of the global institutions ‘to protect the mankind from the scourge of wars’ is just paper-based proclamation lacking proactive imagination and force to transform it into formidable action. All wars are against the human nature. The global institutions are not responsible to the humanity which ultimately is victimized for their failure. Common masses across Europe and elsewhere suffered the dreadful consequences of the two World Wars, not the League of the Nations. Likewise, the UNO and its agencies watch the catastrophic killings and destruction happening throughout the Arabian Peninsula but do little to stop the carnage. Its reports and findings are being questioned and sometimes ridiculed by its own members of the Security Council. The Security Council produces empty jargons for time killing not commitments to peacemaking or conflict management. How strange the so called wisemen of the globe exchange claims and counter claims of ‘war crimes’ when thousands are targeted and massacred by cluster bombs in Aleppo, Baghdad, Homs and hospitals and places of warships are destroyed? They lack sense of humanity, time and history. What happened to the negotiated freedom of Palestine ending the Israeli occupation, protection of the civilians in conflict zones, rights of the refugees and displaced, and continuing Indian betrayal to the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to determine their own future? At large, the aspirations and trust of humanity are betrayed and scorned by the global institutions. This state of affairs reflects complete breakdown of the global systems of governance and march towards self-annihilation. We are witnessing and living in that delusional culture of human degeneration. Animosity and wars are not outgrowth of celestial bodies but essentially man-made follies throughout the history. All human acts are subject to change and reformation. What was illegal to use barrel bombs and chemical warfare are new normal in Syria and Iraq. The resulting deaths of the civilians and destruction of the Arabian habitats are deliberate and systematic. Who will rebuild what is being destroyed as a price to enhance insanity of the few authoritarian warlords? The global political affairs need new thinking, new leadership vision and men of new ideas to restore trust and rational foresight for the future of mankind.
Post 9/11 American led “War on Terrorism” is Fueling the Arab Conflicts
Michael Meacher (“This War on Terrorism is Bogus”, The Guardian: 9/6/2003), British MP and Environment Minister in PM Tony Blair cabinet from May 1997 to June 2003 explain that the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination.
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) written by the neo-conservatives in September 2000 before 9/11 – it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a “worldwide command and control system”. This is a blueprint for US world domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing fantasists, it is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis.
The ‘War on Terror’ had wide range of unspecified agendas for long time to come:
- to occupy the Arab heartland and to offer extended strategic and political supremacy to Israel in the Middle East,
- To distract the focus from the freedom and peaceful resolution of Palestine as an independent State and defy the global support for human rights,
- to control and manage the oil and gas resources of the Arab Middle East,
- to inject fear and powerful hegemonic influence of the Western culture and varied civilizations,
- to divide and rule the Arab and Muslims people from distance powerhouses,
- to create new markets for the dollar and to block trade-business entry of China into the exclusive American Middle East market,
- to entice ignorant Arab population with false imagery of freedom, liberty and social justice and make the mindless rulers fearful of the US-Europe influence in their future-making,
- To dismantle the socio-economic and political infrastructures of the Arab-Muslim world, encouraging internal strife and sectarian bloodsheds and making them subservient to the US-European military and economic subjugation.
- And lot more piles of tyranny and insanity to come
Wake Up Arab People – You are Being Destroyed by the Turmoil and Chaos of Sectarian Wars
Many across the global intellectual hubs think that like the Al-Qaeda and the ISIL is a by-product of the US-British strategy in the Arab Middle East. Its immediate role and outgrowth is a new cult of sectarian barbarism to distract political attention from the focal issue of Palestine and solidarity of the Arab people. Its secretive aim encompasses the strategy that once oil exporting Arab puppet regimes become a liability on the Western powers, they should be subjected to domestic challenge by their own rebellious groups forging affiliation to extremism and anti- authoritarianism. All of the American-led war efforts directed against ISIL appear to be fake simplicity and are aimed at maximum destruction of humans and habitats under the aegis of “War on Terrorism.”
The global political affairs are not managed by rational people with rational thinking, doing the rational practices for the best interests of global citizenry. The 1% global elite – men of king operate the international institutions – the perverted insanity lacking basic understanding of the Human Nature and of the working of the splendid Universe in which we enjoy coherent co-existence. These global leaders are devoid of moral, intellectual and spiritual values essential to deal with human affairs. President Obama and President Putin and others resourceful to making peace would not listen to voices of reason unless challenged by a cohesive global humanity with focused mind and active agenda.
Chris Hedges – author of Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (“How to Think“, Truthdig: 7/9/2012) offers a global context to perpetual animosity and dreadful notion of hatred encouraging the few warmongers to undermine the very existence of humanity of which they are an essential part:
And here is the dilemma we face as a civilization. We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible. It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.
To Rethink in Time and History for the Unity of Mankind to Resolve Conflicts
If time and history are a reference point, we the humankind stand at a critical juncture of our own complacency to have allowed ignorance, hatred, fear and animosity to destroy our lives, culture and existence. Those obsessed with invincible armies cannot solve the emerging political crises. America and Russia cannot be blamed for all the catastrophic happenings across the globe. They represent the States, not the living humanity. Men of new ideas possessing individual conscience have the most powerful weapon to challenge the few egoistic politicians in global chessboard. Political self-interest pursued by intrigues and hypocrisy will not produce global peace and harmony. All global leaders want to be seen as winners, not losers. Ironically, when self-interest overtakes global interest, they are a scum floating on the torrent of time. Intellectual and moral turmoils are the two shades of disingenuous politics at the global political theater. The informed global community deserves sincere commitment to peace and harmony, not slanderous blame of ‘war crimes’ against one another. Such rebuttals darken the prospects for workable alternatives and creative solutions in critical conflict management. The working of international institutions is at crossroads. Nobody can imagine any miracles out of the nothing, be it at the UNO-New York, Washington or Moscow. Often sadistic dummies oversee critical lifelines of global humanitarian affairs. We must regain control of our own potentials and powers; analyze our strength and weaknesses as united and organized people of the globe. We the people can change even if the leaders lack imagination of our hopes and priorities. Political gangstrism will expand into insane egoism to cause the downfall of the few as it happened to Hitler, Mussolini, Hosni Mubarak, George Bush, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi and Bashar al-Assad in-waiting game. The earth won’t dwindle or the sky won’t fall upon us if more will go the same way as happened in recent history. All absolute political monsters understand each other. The voices of reason are loud and clear as global humanity cannot suffer the penalties of tyranny and evil-mongering. We the people of the world enjoin focused minds and imagination to articulate a new world of One Humanity, brotherhood and peaceful co-existence amongst all, free of hatred, intrigues tyranny, encroachment and animosity.
We, the people of the globe possess understanding – how to change the egoistic and embittered insanity of the few hate-mongers and warlords into equilibrium of balanced relationship between Man, Life and God- given living Universe in which we reside all.
The well wishers across the globe would like to see the Arab masses to unite against the forces of authoritarianism, sectarian killings and torture of the innocents, be it in Baghdad, Aleppo, Damascus, Tripoli, Cairo or elsewhere. Peace will prevail as a fact of life, not a fiction on screen. In his farewell address to the people of America, President D. Eisenhower (01/17/1961), made the following proactive political, intellectual and strategic priorities known to all:
“…. Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years…… We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied, that those who denied the opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full…….. That the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”
(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Germany, 2012), and forthcoming publication – One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution).