Peace or No Peace
Our world has still not achieved the equilibrium it requires to make more lives happier and better. Instead, we are occupied quarreling amongst ourselves. You’d say, we’re a single species and we should therefore be united. For now, that’s utopia. But, there’s a way we can change that; hopefully soon enough to fix the large mess that we’ve created.
Let us actually dive into why attaining global peace at this moment, is akin to trying to eat a physical planet on your own for dinner. You may consider me a thorough skeptic, but you will probably comprehend the reasons behind my skepticism soon enough.
First let’s glance at what is global peace. It is essentially when all nations and people are at peace with one another, resolving any conflict through peaceful discussions and/or arbitration; it is the belief in an ideal state of happiness and freedom.
Now let’s look at 3 reasons why achieving global peace is next to impossible at the current global platform.
POWER
Control. This is what every nation wants. A tip of advantage over another. United States, China, Russia, European Union, United Kingdom and North Korea just to name a few. Economic power is such a diabolical incentive in our current society that it is next to impossible to achieve peace at this condition.
Many of these countries are adversaries like the US and China(trade war), India and Pakistan(problems regarding Kashmir). At a state like this, we can see intensive effects on global peace. Although the UN has worked quite hard to achieve global peace, situations such as the Israeli occupation, Kashmir dispute, Somali civil war, Darfur conflict in Sudan, Rohingya Crisis, Yemen civil war, South Sudan civil war and the Syrian civil war still exist.
ETHICS
Freedom for all. Democratic principles on which world peace essentially hinges on. Why so? Freedom keeps people happy and away from tyranny. The freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
Autocratic countries don’t exactly provide these sorts of freedom, many of them such as China and North Korea even moving further ahead to ban most or all social media to “protect” their citizens from un-patriotic ideas about the nation.
This doesn’t sit well with open democratic nations such as the US or UK. Take an example of the Uighur muslims in China where they are being suppressed and converted. The US declared this as Genocide. You can see why such back and forth accusations deform the chances of world peace.
DISCRIMINATION
Caste, color, creed or sex based discrimination is a hinderance that literally stops world peace. There is an unconscious racial bias in various countries and various ethnic biases in other countries. This leads to the lack of world peace for not all individuals are accepted.
This leads to white-supremacy such as the Proud Boys in the US and even the exceptional numbers of people at the Capitol Hill Riot (coup). In India there is a large caste and sexual preference based discrimination; especially against those of the LGBTQ+ community.
These are all reasons why World Peace is impossible at this moment. But what about the future. Is global peace possible? I strongly think so, in fact, it is quintessentially inevitable.
WORLD PROBLEMS
Sooner or later, nations, people and leaders akin will realize that problems are really getting out of hand; and that global peacekeeping is the only solution. Climate change, over-population and and more. These problems are growing at a steady rate and has caused many countries to join hands to solve these problems before they lead to our extinction. An example is of the Paris Climate Agreement, an agreement that 195 parties have signed unto.
The Paris Climate Agreement sets out a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. It also aims to strengthen countries’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change and support them in their efforts.
BETTER LIVES
Whether nations like it or not, they have to accept the fact that world peace is an important catalyst for better lifestyles. Nations working together in a harmonious manner can increase trade between countries. This encourages and helps developing countries grow and helps all countries trade at much higher rates which results in easier lives for the consumers.
People will be much more happier living in a free and open world. A world where there is peace and happiness amongst the common man.
DEVELOPMENT
The future for humans is as bright as it can get. With a world pioneering in Artificial Intelligence, getting nations together becomes more important than ever. If there will be a war in the future, there will be deaths. Not thousands but billions of deaths. As AI grows, so does the awareness of countries regarding this.
Countries competing against each other in the field of AI are able to restraint each other. Along with this, the UN works as an arbitrator and an analyzer which can help control a nation going out of hand.
At the end of the day, global peace is an integral part of our species. One, that we must acquire before things get out of control. It may be hard to imagine all these countries working together, but it is something that we must achieve in some way, shape or form.
