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I think it was the Palestinian UN Ambassador, Riyad Mansour, who said that we might recognise how and when something—like war—begins, but we do not know how it can end. Its impact could be felt for ten years, he speculated.
I no longer try to understand how humankind can engage in pointless barbarity that benefits no one. It matters not whether blame falls partially on one side and the other—the results are immeasurable pain, suffering and further damage of unimaginable magnitude.
To watch the political machinations while countless lives are destroyed is a violation in itself.
I don’t want to dwell on the current wars devouring the planet, even as it implodes from the weight of humans’ unconscionable greed. My thoughts have been focused on the effects for the future that gets bleaker with every passing moment.
I recall the interview with Guyana’s President, Dr Irfaan Ali, on Good Morning Britain, and his words in support of the demands for reparations for slavery.
“During slavery, resources were used to build your country, build up your capacity. You were able to then become competitive, you were able to invest in mechanisation, and developing countries like ours were left behind,” he’d said.
Later, he mentioned that Guyana had commemorated the 200th anniversary of the Demerara Rebellion this year, “and it took 200 years to get an apology from one of the families”. It had come to my mind when I heard Ambassador Mansour speak of ten years to recover.
There will be no recovery, I thought. None.
The loss of lives and the physical destruction through the wars of our time are only the immediately visible impact.
One online comment following the disgraceful UN Security Council meeting a few days ago jumped out at me.
“When we are talking about Hamas, we cannot forget that they are former children who grew up in a climate of constant attacks and humiliations from the occupiers. The children who survive from the current bombings will be the Hamases of tomorrow.
“The attempted separation between the Hamas interests and the Palestinian people is a pure illusion.”
Can we see a connection between our own past experiences and the ghastly baggage currently being unloaded within our societies?
“We are not sub-human,” said Palestine’s Ambassador Mansour, twice.
“We are fighting against human animals,” said Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Are those words not eerily familiar? Do they not invoke the scars of slavery and a history loaded with denigration from colonialists?
Apart from the traumas which span generations, there are so many other horrific ripples. President Ali’s statements about the cost to developing societies without resources to build are relevant to the current situation. The warmongers are destroying not only infrastructure, but are cruelly crushing capacity.
For years to come, the levels of poverty—lives where basic human necessities are unavailable; food, water, shelter, electricity, clothing—will be unlike anything seen before.
The Gaza Strip has been likened to an open air prison.
We are already living in a world of refugees and displaced. Can you imagine such a life stretching out in front of you? Family members gone, some murdered before your eyes; no support systems left; how do you rebuild? What can you rebuild?
The extraction of wealth from societies to furnish the exploiters with developmental goodies is one of the dreadful legacies of slavery, indentureship and colonisation. War adds the dimension of mass destruction amidst the murder and mayhem.
We might think that world warfare—because that is what it is, essentially—will not affect us. The chaos wrought in the global marketplace by the Russia-Ukraine fighting should be a cautionary tale. But it isn’t. Is it?
To come back to the issue I never left, when you start with multiple disadvantages when any single one could be debilitating by itself, how do you start?
I had been looking at some culinary shows exploring the way immigrant communities in the USA had achieved remarkable success in the food industry. The subjects—Haitians, Guyanese, and other West Indians—shared similar tales of hard times back home, lack of opportunity and encouragement, and a sense that they were being suffocated by systems that did not work.
What was different?
They entered a wealthy society with opportunities galore and they thrived. They worked hard, of course, they endured hardships, but they were enabled by being in a place that was rich in resources.
If you think about how many talented people from our hemisphere have shone internationally, you know we do not lack creativity, intelligence and industriousness. If you examine the headlines they make, they are often born here in the Caribbean, but raised abroad, or spent significant time in a ‘developed society’.
I am not trying to cut down our home schooling, so to speak. It just seems to me that we are still reeling from the effects of the extraction of our natural resources so that we remain perpetually struggling just to keep our heads above water.
(via TTPS)
Of course it is exacerbated by the self-serving agendas of politicians who have neither the vision nor the compassion to think of the hapless citizens they have trained to rise up only for party flags.
It is the same thing all over the world. Humans are swayed by appeals to their basest of emotions. We are probably barbarians at heart. Why else would we have had to produce guidelines for the conduct of war?
I feel glum.
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Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
