Stop the hysteria

It was disheartening to see the platform of a world body, which was formed primarily to prevent war and aggression and the threat to wage a war, being used by US President Donald Trump to hurl a threat of war and aggression at North Korea. This is an insult to those who made tireless efforts to establish the UN to resolve conflicts and disputes through peaceful means.

This must have tormented the souls of those pacifists who fought the collective insanity of humankind during the two world wars and invested all their energies on mobilising public opinion for the formation of the UN in the hope to end the destructive phenomenon called war.

It is surprising to note that the defanged world body and its toothless office-bearers did not dare to condemn such a reckless and inflammatory speech. Had such threats been hurled by Robert Mugabe or Raul Castro, a barrage of criticism would have been directed towards them. The entire corporate media would have declared Zimbabwe and Cuba, respectively, to be the most dangerous states in the world and their cities and towns might have been wiped out from the face of the world’s map by now. Had such a provocative speech been made by an Iranian leader, Washington and Tel Aviv and London would have ganged up to discuss a blitzkrieg. Had Maduro of Venezuela dared to make such a menacing gesture towards the US, it would already have been occupied by now.

But since this came from the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, the muted audience at the world body and the defanged Security Council chose to turn a blind eye to Trump’s threat. No condemnation was made. No resolution was passed against this provocative speech. No sanctions were imposed on the world’s sole superpower. No storm was created in the corporate media. No trade boycott was slapped on American companies. Interestingly, no protest rallies were held inside the second-largest democracy – suggesting the demise of the moribund anti-war movement that brought millions of people to protest across the world during the Iraq invasion.

It seems that American exceptionalism has been recognised as an article of faith of the present-day world order. It seems 25 million North Koreans and millions of South Koreans, who could face the brunt of any possible US aggression, do not matter. Their blood is worthless. Their existence is inconsequential. Their cities, towns and villages are not bustling with lives but are a figment of somebody’s imagination. For the international community, such creatures never existed. So what if they are wiped out or erased from the memories of mankind?

The indifference of the international community will push the world towards a conflagration that might not only engulf the Korean Peninsula but the entire region and possibly the world. If the sabre-rattling by Washington is not immediately discussed and deliberated upon by the Security Council and the UNGA, it might encourage the man sitting in the Oval Office to hurl such threats at other states as well. If Russia, China and the EU remain reluctant in challenging the hegemon of the modern world, the war-mongers sitting in the power corridors of Washington and London will start mustering support for a possible invasion that risks the total annihilation of mankind.

The anti-war movement of Europe and North America should spring into action. Pacifists across the world should extend a helping hand to the activists of love and peace. There is no point in taking to the streets after a country has already been reduced to ashes, its cities exterminated and its villages wiped out. Trump is invoking a rhetoric of evil that has been employed by all American war-mongers. This should sound alarm bells among pacifist circles. George Bush and Tony Blair invoked similar rhetoric, pushing Iraq and Afghanistan into the pit of the medieval ages.

War-mongers in Western capitals already have blood on their hands that they have ruthlessly spilled in the names of their people. Conscientious souls in the Western world still regret the loss of more than 30 million innocent people from across the world who were decimated at the hands of the British colonialists and many more millions who were pushed towards death and destruction by France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium and Holland during the colonial and post-colonial periods.

But such regret did not stop Western capitalist governments – mainly France, the US and the UK – from toppling elected governments and imposing wars. The killings of three million people during the Korean War, the decimation of between four million and seven million people during the French and American invasion of Vietnam and the massacre of over 500,000 in Indonesia by the blue-eyed boy of the Western world – General Suharto – are still fresh in the memories of millions of people across the world. The people of the West should not let that happen again in their name. They should not allow the destruction of another country in the name of democracy and the free world.

America does not need Donald Trump, his tedious acolytes and venom-spitting war-mongers. Instead, it needs conscientious people like Rachel Corrie who are even ready to lay down their lives to protect the weak from the strong. It does not need the tycoons of lethal arms industries who want to push the world towards a nuclear holocaust but pacifists who seek the complete denuclearisation of the world. It does not need a corporate media that is adroit at creating war hysteria but restless souls like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn who exposed the brutalities and rapaciousness of the American ruling class that they have perpetrated in the name of their people.

China, Russia and the EU should lobby for appointing honest individuals like Ramsey Clark and Denis Halliday to investigate the alleged violations by Pyongyang. A separate committee should also be formed to probe American provocations. The UN should ban attempts to use its platform to hurl threats of war. It is important to be neutral in matters of investigation. But when it comes to the claims of the weaker and the stronger, the weaker should be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to reform.

The writer is a Karachi-based freelance journalist.

Email: egalitarianism444@gmail.com