by Solomon Osadolo

You ever just wonder why we can’t have a period when there’s no conflict or uprising – internal or external – anywhere in the world, with no tyrant leader lording it over his country folk and where there are no religious fanatics and nut jobs trying to tear the world apart at every turn. 

“If everybody in the world says they want peace how can we still sell guns? Somebody must be lying.” – Joan Brooklyn

It’s a pretty safe bet to assume World War 3 would not be happening in our lifetime, if ever. Nations are now more codependent than ever before and, since it’s quite apparent that the next world war could well wipe out the human race (and very likely the planet too) for good due to the nature of weaponry available today, the fear of global annihilation is as good as any measure to keep us from turning the earth into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, right? Wrong. We stay tempting fate at every turn, what with the air of insecurity inundating the world from the conflicts in the Middle East and the various pockets of troubled lands across the globe.

From the occasional local inter-ethnic clashes to the ever prevalent brand of terrorism that is sweeping across the globe from the Middle East, the concept of world peace is anything but ludicrous. There’s not a single news report devoid of stories of thoughtless killings and maiming in places we’ve all come to associate with insurgencies. The scourge of terror is fueled by pure hatred – the kind that’s infectious.

Equally as troubling as terrorism is the war on terrorism. The dander in hunting down evil is that you gradually [have to] become that which you seek to destroy. Counter-terrorism measures, as effective as they’ve proven to be in the last decade, evidently form the other head of the two-headed hydra of which terrorism is the first. They complement each other with devastating effects on our world.

As I write this, the US is contemplating implementing a military action in war-torn Syria – a move that’ll start another offshore war program for the US (after Iraq and Afghanistan) and very likely drag the world to the brink of World War 3. They are convinced that chemical weapons have already been used in the Syrian war (just as they were convinced Saddam Hussein had WMDs, one might add) and, as the self-appointed world police, they feel it is imperative that they step in and restore some order. Surely, other world powers aren’t just going to sit this one out and observe the outcome – not if they have vested interests in the war, they aren’t.

You ever just wonder why we can’t have a period when there’s no conflict or uprising – internal or external – anywhere in the world, with no tyrant leader lording it over his country folk and where there are no religious fanatics and nut jobs trying to tear the world apart at every turn. A moment of relative state of peace across the globe with no looming threat of war in any region is pretty much what the notion of world peace is about. But it’ll remain an idea, some contrived concept no one will see through.

Every man with power wants to rule the world and he doesn’t only have to ask for it. Plus, war is profitable for the powerful and the industrious. For every uprising anywhere in the world someone – or nation – is richer for it. The arms trade booms faster and better in times of war and conflict, thereby bolstering economic might (for dealers) somewhat. There’s hardly any conflict anywhere in the world without vested interests by the world super power nations or their allies. In the race for dominance, they orchestrate profound schemes to have an edge over each other, with the rest of the world as guinea pigs. War is about power, and a lot of that comes with economic might. War is about money and men will do anything for money.

Sometimes I ponder what it’d take to quell the conflicts and keep all the insidious hate at bay. Humanity needs a distraction it seems. Something so major it affects us all. It’ll give us all something to focus on – another target to blow up, if you will. Maybe an alien invasion will do the trick. Something like that should unite the world because it’d be a threat all of humanity shares until it goes away. Also, a deadly virus – more devastating than HIV or SARS – something that threatens human existence may just be the clincher. It’ll unite the world until the scourge ends or is overcome.

But unity is not necessarily the same thing as world peace. The world may be united against a common enemy but it’ll be devoid of peace until the enemy falls. And, as sure as human nature is, the ensuing peace will last only so long until the scramble for power engulfs the globe again. Apparently, we don’t need to battle an inter-galactic foe or be plagued by an insidious infection to have world peace. The only obstruction to the notion of world peace is humanity itself. The quest for absolute power is human weakness.

To have world peace, we have to move beyond just talking about it and convening conferences to romanticize the notion at roundtable events. People – and nations – will have to decide if they would rather have absolute might or let peace have its day in the world. Else, they could try to find out if the subjugation of the entire world would eventually fill their ravenous longing for power. Either way, the odds for world peace don’t look so good.

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Solomon Osadolo is a curious young man who has a knack for finding stuff out. He likes to read and he takes particular interest in technology, music, psychology, writing. He blogs at www.soloxpress.blogspot.com and tweets from @soloxpress.

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.