As we approach Ramadan, war, the grim reaper, continues to claim the lives of innocent people across the Muslim world. The dire consequences of war, particularly for the civilian population, defy description. War is like fire in the human community, one whose fuel is human beings.
They expose man’s ultimate inhumanity to man. Wars are an innate but obsolete part of human nature. Wars reflect man’s basest instinct, untamed by rationality.
The rape of women and girls in war-ravaged Muslim lands continues unabated. This is the ultimate war crime against humanity, while a passive global audience looks on. Today’s world abounds in international courts, laws and tribunals, yet war is becoming more brutal, more transnational with mounting civilian casualties.
The world has lost it’s humanity. Conflicts in Muslim lands have been marked out by almost medieval acts of savagery. 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 the descent into barbarity has been swift.
It was American civil rights leader Martin Luther King who said, “War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.”
Prospects for global peace will never attain reality. Numerous power blocs are being created. These structures are quiet 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.
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 their international relations. It is indeed a sad fact that war and conflict drive and sustain the mighty industrial engines of the world.
It was British philospher Bertrand Russel who once said: “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.”
May God protect us in this era of mindless violence.
— The reader is a South African based in Johannesburg, South Africa
