Middle East needs holistic approach

IT IS INDEED tragic that powerful nations laid the seeds of anarchy, chaos and massive bloodshed in warafflicted areas of the world. It is only diplomacy that can bring about tranquillity in this arc of crisis.

Sadly, there are outside forces who are manipulating events for their own selfish purposes, while the area descends into utter chaos.

The current bloodbath in these conflict zones are escalating out of control. Scores of people of every religion are killed across the Middle East every day.

About 30 000 innocent civilians were killed in Gaza, without prominence in the global media. The biased and controlled western media do not publish these deaths in banner headlines. When westerners are killed, the world goes into mourning.

The circumstances in the Middle East are unique and require a more holistic approach.

Success will depend largely on a multi-dimensional perspective that brings together the energies and insights of a range of State and nonState actors and civil society.

Enabling the societies and policies of the region to identify areas of mistrust and across the strategic and political and cultural and religious divide, will open up possibilities of dialogue.

Diplomacy is a must today and the first step in establishing this is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones.

War threatens man’s highest good, which is life. War makes poor people and individuals more miserable. War is folly, which does not provide the security it promises.

Only genuine peace will save us from total and utter destruction. It was Victor Hugo who said: “Peace is the virtue of civilisation, war is its crime.”

Death and destruction stalk the entire Middle East. Humanity pleads for sanity and peace in Gaza.