Murderous Nations

 

Today, 24^th October, is United Nations Day, on which we commemorate the establishment of the UN and the  “Civilised” world’s  second attempt to create a rules-based World Order, in October 1945.

Here are some extracts from an article published in the Guardian earlier this week by Ahmed Najar, a London-based Palestinian playwright whose family are trapped in Gaza.

“My parents, my sister and her family . . .  haven‘t left their house in days, except for a few desperate, terrifying attempts to find water. [One]time. . .they waited in line for more than  eight agonising hours, but the water ran out before they reached the front.”

”They are living in hell.  The bombardments are relentless, the explosions shaking the ground. On Thursday, Israeli strikes killed 28 people, including children, at a school in Jabalia.”

“. . . I watched an interview last week with Gabor Mate, a Jewish trauma expert and holocaust survivor. . . He spoke about how, when the rest of the world turns a blind eye to cruelty, it only gets worse . . . . [W]hat more does the west need to witness before it stops arming Israel?”

“How can the world stand by and watch as Palestinians are slaughtered, burned alive, starved, bombed?  What has happened to our sense of justice, of decency, of basic human compassion?”

“What does that say about us, about our world and about the future of our children?  If we can’t stop this, if we can’t demand justice and an end to this suffering, then we have failed – not just Palestinians, but all humanity.”

That’s just one war. 

The war in Ukraine grinds on. Here from yesterday’s Guardian are some extracts from an account from the Russian perspective.

“ . . . [N]ear the front line . . . two Russian soldiers recounted how they had fled their position  n eastern Ukraine after they were ordered to advance at night through minefields, a move they called a ‘suicide mission’. ‘Three groups already went ahead and  they aren’t responding. And we are the fourth. This mission was a one-way ticket.  We laid down our weapons and retreated.’”

“Russian soldiers have likened [the nature of Moscow’s warfare] to being thrown into a meat grinder.”

“Western analysts say Russian casualties in the war so far tally up to 115 000 killed and 500 000 wounded.”

“Statistics show that  most of those who are fighting and dying are either volunteers from impoverished Russian regions or former convicts, rather than mobilised soldiers. . .”

“The wives of those who die receive significant compensation, while their children are granted free university education. As a result, the families believe that the government is looking after their interests. . . . Across the country schools, parks and  public buildings have been marked with thousands of memorial plaques in what is framed as the ultimate sacrifice for the homeland.”

 Effectively a country sending its own citizens to be murdered and then declaring them heroes: a concept we thought we'd recognised as "that old lie" by 1918

 To these we can add Lebanon; and Sudan, Libya, Ethiopia and others of which we now hear little or nothing.

Seventy years after the dawn of new hopes we have tragically failed.  As I quoted on this day last year, we need statesmen or women of the same calibre of Mandela, gifted with magnanimity and the power to forgive.  None have yet emerged in the UK, there’s a real risk of the opposite in the US, and no signs in the rest of Europe, China, Asia or anywhere else.

Never before has the world been so comfortably able to share and enjoy the fruits of affluence.

Surely we are not hard-wired to be stupid.

A complete change in the tone of national international political debate is needed.  Instead the formerly "great powers" bleat from the sidelines.

We minions mouth  “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

We also need to vote for it.