World caught in web of terrorism
THE CHILLING massacre of innocent civilians in England must be condemned by the global community.
We cannot afford a clash of civilisations. The entire world is caught in the vortex of global terrorism.
In the Muslim world, 50 innocent people are killed every day as a result of terrorism.
To reduce the level of terrorism, or even contain it, we will have to deal with its manifestations and underlying causes.
Today’s terrorism transcends political and geographical boundaries; it is supported by powerful states and a multitude of international actors.
The poignant fact is that global peace has become a subject at the UN and all endeavours to attain it have been futile as unrestrained violence has made its way to establish its diabolical might.
Kingpins of terrorism were the portent of today’s powerful nations on the strength of whom they plotted to keep a hold on other nations, but little did they realise that snakes cannot be tamed.
Killing has become a diurnal activity, as a shaken and frightened world sits viewing the dance of death as spectators.
It was Mark Twain who said: “Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that,that cannot be done.”
The world is soaked in blood of the innocent victims of brutal 21st century warfare.
When the UN was formed after the horrors of World War II, the heads of nations who gathered to sign the charter agreed that it should begin with the following preamble: “Since it is in the minds of men that wars begin, it is in the minds of men that the ramparts of peace should be erected.”
Peace must be more than an absence of violence. It must be absence of ill will and angst. Mankind is not ready for peace.
Thus far all peace talks have ended in abject failure, costing more than 50 million dead over the past 50 years.
The leap to nations and planets takes us out of the realm of reality and into our imaginations.
It was Ernest Hemingway who said: ”Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
War is, without argument, the worst collective experience of humanity. It has created new nations on the rubble of destroyed cities and humans. Major powers will be facing the paradox of yet more asymmetric warfare by small adversaries wielding outsize weapons capable of atomic explosions and chemical warfare.
We live in a violent culture in a violent world that appears to be becoming more violent with time.
As is the case with any act of war, the perpetrators and victims have been reduced to mere statistics and caricatures. Terrorism threatens us all, not only physically and politically, but morally and intellectually as well.
It is a violent disproportion between ends and means, against which we have no recourse.
Terrorists worship power and murder, not Almighty God. They have no religion. If Isis members were Muslims, why are their victims mostly Muslim? They preach heaven on earth and leave us with hell instead.
Terrorists worship power and murder, not Almighty God
Benoni