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When was the last time you looked at a map of our planet? After reading Gwynne Dyer’s column in last Wednesday’s Express, Routine Rockets, I pulled out an old printed atlas to get a good look at the groupings of the countries. Somehow Google maps did not feel appropriate.
Dyer was making the point that it has become almost standard practice for countries to address disputes, major and minor, via hostile military acts.
“Launching a few cruise or ballistic missiles at another country as an expression of displeasure has become as routine in the Middle East as penalty shots on goal are in sports,” he observed, citing a series of very recent events to illustrate his point.
He was focusing primarily on Middle Eastern countries, but the list of participants was sobering at the very least. Air strikes against Yemen by the USA and the UK, the juggernauts who directly and indirectly steer the course of global activities; Turkey into Syria; Iran launching missiles into Pakistan, then Kurdistan in northern Iraq; Pakistan then going for Balochistan in Iran.
It goes on, of course.
This does not include the full-out wars of Russia and Ukraine, and the Israel-Gaza horror. Nor does it include the civil war in Sudan—nine months that have practically ruined the capital city of Khartoum.
I can’t bear to name the territories on the planet that are currently engaged in various armed conflicts. Seen from this perspective, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and a growing number of our regional states are also besieged by violence and a kind of mayhem that signals a complete collapse of social order.
Port-au-Prince is one of the most dangerous cities in the western hemisphere at present.
(Copyright New York Times)
Dyer blames the Middle East responses to spats on the notion that they can retaliate violently with complete impunity.
“That’s what is driving this steep rise in targeted cross-border missile strikes: the complete impunity. If there is any retaliation, it will be tit-for-tat at most, so if you want to ‘send a message’, what’s to stop you? Nothing.”
He urges diplomatic measures instead of these foolhardy displays of aggression.
Copyright: Baloocartoons
Has the idea that you can get away with anything unleashed these macabre impulses? Is it too late for humans to pull back? The consequences are so distressing and appalling.
Has humankind become so enthralled with its creation and ownership of technology that it has lost sight of the essence of its continued existence on this planet?
We are already reeling from the dreadful impact of our inglorious and relentless march to dominion over our environments. The imposition of our will on our natural resources has depleted them to irrecoverable levels.
We have trampled so steadily on flora and the fauna that reports of extinction have become commonplace. We’ve decimated forests and created deserts that are barren, leaving famine in their wake.
In short, we have really mucked up planet Earth.
It isn’t that we are not seeing the consequences. Climates have changed drastically. Headlines are ominous: Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than ever; Rapid melting in West Antarctica is unavoidable; the Washington Post reported the findings of a study: Half of Earth’s glaciers will vanish this century.
Here, on the hotter side of things we pay scant attention to the impact on the colder climes. But it is the growing heat that is affecting us all.
We know first-hand how these high temperatures have been scorching the land and the plants, shrivelling the agricultural industry as farmers cry out for water. We see the unprecedented levels of flooding, the intensity of storms and hurricanes, the earthquakes and the volcanoes rumbling to life.
We have seen all manner of aberrations in weather patterns and the ferocity of natural disasters. Shouldn’t we at least take a moment to reflect on the causes?
This sounds like a doomsday column watching the Doomsday Clock get closer to midnight, and maybe it is. My inclination has regularly been to grab at the positive things that surround us—and I genuinely believe there are many.
But that doesn’t mean we should remain blithely ensconced in our cocoons when everything that is crumbling around us can be salvaged, if we participate in acts of salvation rather than destruction.
Everything that has been mentioned here has its roots in the behaviour of humans. The wars, the violence, the bombs and other weapons of destruction have come from the quest to conquer.
Is any of it not about egos and the desire for control? And who are the controllers?
At the helms are a bunch of rotting old men, reeking of the stench of greed and corruption. Are these the people we want to entrust to safeguard the future of the planet?
All around the planet (I don’t like using the word world to describe Earth), this is the norm—the routine that Dyer identifies—and it is not just about the complete impunity.
All the world could not satisfy the appetite of the British and the French crowns.
It is also because humans have lost their sense of humanity, of caring about the things that exist outside of their immediate circles.
Is it that the preponderance of devices has so extinguished the older forms of social interactions that we no longer know how to see each other as sentient beings?
You know, sentient robots have been predicted to become a reality for decades. But as we look into the realm of artificial intelligence to find them, maybe we should also consider that it might be us humans, who have morphed into sentient robots.
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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.
