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We are now fairly well into the 21st century
and more than a couple of years after the '9/11' attacks in
the USA. So what are world needs and how can they be arrived
at?
The world certainly needs 'security' but the
question is what 'security' and how this is arrived at. Real
security is the ability to live a dignified life in peace,
with enough resources for human dignity, including shelter,
health care, and recreation. 'Security' which comes from the
barrel of a gun is insecurity. True security comes from being
friends with neighbours near and far.
But far more importantly, on a global scale,
the poor world needs food, clean water, and easy access to
cheap medical care and prevention, including HIV. Trade rules
are stacked against the poor world, not least by the EU's
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and the rich world is so
far unwilling to make the changes needed, as Cancun revealed
last year.
The biggest threat within a few decades comes
from global warming. Not only will some nations be obliterated
from the earth, all will face massive challenges and a quarter
of land animals and plants face extinction by 2050 or a couple
of decades afterwards. The world would not be as we know it.
Where will half the population of Bangladesh go to when the
sea engulfs their land? Will the USA, EU and other industrialised
countries, which have largely caused the problem, welcome
them with open arms? The barriers and the fortresses are going
to have to be mighty high in the rich world. And the ecosystem
faces meltdown. This is an appalling travesty of our common
humanity.
And what do we find the leaders of the strong
countries doing? Wasting billions of dollars on wars that
cannot achieve their objectives. Ignoring the peril which
global warming threatens - including in a frightening way
in Ireland where agriculture may be obliterated by a decrease
in temperature through the Gulf Stream shifting. In the case
of the USA, trying to expand its oil empire and increasing
consumption (to be fair, Ireland has also considerably increased
fossil fuel consumption with economic growth), and coming
up with useless goals like putting humans on Mars.
Generals are usually accused of trying to fight
the last war. The stakes are too high for 'the West' to fight
a 'war against terrorism' which is largely of its own making.
This distracts attention from appalling human rights practices
both by certain powers within 'the west' and by its allies
elsewhere. And more so it distracts attention from the more
urgent issues which face the world.
The era when the cavalry (military) could charge
and put everything right has gone from fiction, and was never
the reality. One of the meanings of 'Cowboys' in European
English is of cheats who promise to do a particular job or
task, (usually in relation to work on housing) and do it badly,
if at all, and charge exorbitantly for it. George Bush is
such a cowboy. And Tony Blair deserves to get the (cowboy)
boot for believing him when, for example, it is increasingly
clear that Bush was gunning for Iraq before even coming, irregularly,
into office (e.g. Paul O'Neill's testimony). What the USA
and UK can retrieve from the Iraqi situation remains to be
seen.
The Hutton enquiry in Britain was, to be fair,
primarily into the death of one man. But to exonerate the
British government and blame only the BBC, which despite its
faults is one of the world's premier broadcasters, is inexcusable.
We have seen the evidence. The mistaken intelligence report
indicated that Iraqi military 'may be able' to deploy chemical
or biological weapons within 45 minutes (probability anywhere
between 0.01% and 99.9%, shall we say); the British government
got this changed to 'are able' (probability of 100%) - and
it wasn't 'sexed up'? The new Butler enquiry into intelligence
on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is so circumscribed
as likely to be worthless.
If George Bush and Tony Blair are serious about
trying to make the world a better place and procuring peace
for their people they can achieve an enormous amount. If they
tackle the real needs of the world, and the real causes of
poverty, death, lack of human rights, and insecurity through
the possibility of environmental disaster, they will endear
themselves to the people of this globe, and would be looked
upon by history as far-sighted men of honour. They have the
means. But will they have the will? Not by their showing to
date. So it is up to us, the ordinary citizens, to make our
voices, our lives, and our votes, count, wherever we are.
This month's poem from Lothar Lüken:
Rainy Flag Day
Man opens umbrella -
will it ever change?
Fat woman begging:
Mister, some change!
Athletics Club collect - moist
Friends of the Earth collect - damp
Multiple Sclerosis Trust collect - wet
Student recites poems
on utopia and change.
Busker breaks string,
does a quick change.
Romanian Orphans Fund collect - soaked
Irish Wheelchair Society collect - dripping
Famine Relief collect - a drop in the ocean
Man opens wallet for me,
shivering girl barges in,
holds out paper cup:
Mister, some change!
But his coins clatter
into my official can,
I got the better cause,
I win, I fucking win.
I've had it,
can't take anymore,
drenched to the bone,
desperate for a change.
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