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Peace in a Divided World
A patent paradox—or so it is. While the first day of the year, January 1, is greeted with the annual celebration of World Peace Day, the more inescapable it seems to rather easily be engulfed by the dumbing din of ‘unpeace’—division, conflicts, strifes and wars, violence, terrorism, aggression and oppression, assault on civil liberties and human rights, etc.—all in the intra-national or domestic, national, regional, international, and global levels. While modern-day advancements in information and communication technology would have supposedly narrowed the gaps to bring forth Marshall McLuhan’s “global village,” peoples and nations, as it were, are invariably coming apart, if not polarized, at the seams. Ostensibly, contemporary world events—or, bluntly put, “protocols of the new world (dis)order”—undeniably unveil the despicable indicators of ‘unpeace’: the continuing profligate occupation of alien territories and subjugation of peoples by powerful countries (US on Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.; Israel on Palestine; Russia on Chechnya and areas of Asian Dagestan; China on Tibet; Pakistan and India on Kashmir; Indonesia on West Papua and Timor Leste; Morocco on Western Sahara; and a lot more); the ethnic and religious strifes in Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Rwanda; the lingering tensions between China and Taiwan, North and South Koreas; the domestic armed struggles in some countries (the Acehnese in Indonesia; the NPAs in the Philippines, not to mention the country’s deepening political crisis and alarming incidents of terrorism and criminal activities); intra-national and global arms trade; and, of course, not excluding the heightened global anxiety and fear carried out in the name of America’s war on terror resulting to massive assault on civil liberties and human rights—both in domestic and international fronts—and thus, more than ever, as not only few aptly observe, fragile freedoms are unwittingly held under pressure in virtually every corner of the globe. Inarguably hence, on cursory blush, the contemporary world, or even likely since time immemorial, is yet bereft of a universal and lasting peace, let alone the annual observance of World Peace Day. Present-day realities—akin to the greedy ‘protocols’ of global hegemony—undeniably eschew or evade the possibility, much less the immanence, of a genuine human solidarity, world peace and cooperation. Even more, for some, this candid estimation—nay an outright oversimplification but albeit bordering likely on upright pessimism—of current declining world order has been pushed further to even render the futility of the ever-strident yet never-ending debate or discourse on peace, or world peace in particular. “Really, it’s but quite exasperating, if not plainly futile, to be talking about peace when year in and year out, the victims of oppression, aggression and exploitation continue to suffer their lot and whereas the high and mighty hold on to the status quo of conflict, violence, aggression, or oppression to perpetuate their dominance. I am certainly for peace, but perhaps it is high time to stop talking or cut short on rhetorics and rather delve on concrete action or tangible results for peace,” a prominent Catholic archbishop from the Philippines recently said. Curiously, wherefore, have the affairs of this one civilized world helplessly pushed us to acquiesce both the egregious impossibility, seemingly so, of collective human solidarity or world peace and the inevitability of war or violence? Or, have war, violence or aggression inevitably become a permanent scourge, a sine qua non to humanity and the world? Pax Americana: The root of ‘unpeace’ or declining world order In such spheres of war, inter-societal or inter-national aggression, terrorism and armed conflict, the truism on the cyclical notion of history (“history repeats itself”) can no less be adduced. Gone are the grand old glories of the Roman Empire, the regal exploits of Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores, the purportedly benign pursuits of English and American colonialism, the horror of Hitler’s Germany and World War II, and others more—but their similar repressive, exploitative, or oppressive upshots are invariably reverberated even more to this day. The Israeli occupation and settlement of the West Bank and Gaza, the Iran-Iraq war of 1980, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Chechnya, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, China in Tibet, the Russians in the Caucasus, India and Pakistan parceling up Kashmir—to mention a few—are but present day repetitions of humanity’s cyclical history of war, violence and armed conflict. Indeed, then as now, the fate of weaker nation-states are decided, if not dictated, by other powerful countries. But, what did precipitate the contemporary ‘unpeace’ or declining world order? Professor Richard Falk, a noted international law and human rights expert, readily attributes “America’s imperial geopolitics” as the principal culprit for the present-day ‘unpeace’ and declining world order. Similarly too, Chandra Muzzafar, president of the International Movement for a Just World, cannot agree more in blaming America’s grand agenda of global hegemony that hurriedly sent its war drums beating to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 tragedy and thereon precipitated likewise America’s global war on terror. Likewise, on hindsight, authors Johan Galtung and Dietrich Fischer (“To End Terrorism, End State Terrorism,” December 2002 issue of Impact) claim that “since 1945, the US has intervened abroad 67 times causing 12 million deaths, about half through overt action by the Pentagon and the other half through covert action by the CIA.” And what about the death ledger sheet of America’s terror war in Iraq? Only last month, early December of 2005, US President George Bush openly admitted before media reporters: “How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.” America’s imperial geopolitics or global hegemony provided its agenda for a new world order (if disorder?)—Pax Americana—equally spelling out its hegemonic stance on world peace. For the US, to “maintain peace is to prepare for war”—and for Bush, the world must accept war as the only moral and workable option. But, verily, this is a rather eschewed world order policy cadged from America’s abattoir of global imperialism; while projecting itself as the world’s super cop, America exposes all the more its latent hegemonic interest of global economic domination. President Bush’s neo-conservative policy-approach of ‘unilateralism’ best exhibits or reflects America’s imperial geopolitics. Bush’s strategic agenda or plans were made evident in the National Security Strategy document released in September 20, 2002. This document laid out in stark, arrogant detail the US military strategy and its political rationale. It dismisses deterrence, containment and other strategic perspectives as Cold War relics. It unashamedly adopts ‘unilateralism’ as an approach—on “convincing or compelling states to accept their sovereign responsibilities.” It speaks in blunt terms what it calls “American Internationalism,” i.e., ignoring international opinion if that suits US interests. It asserts an American right to ‘preemptive attack’ against its perceived enemies whether individuals or governments. Of course, America’s enormous military superiority worldwide—a principal requisite in carrying out its hegemonic ends—cannot at all be doubted. From the outbreak of World War II, America’s 174,000 US Army reportedly rose to 1.4 million “standing army” and 2.5 million reserve army in 2001. And by far, as of date, the US maintains overseas military bases in almost 60 territories worldwide, which includes: Afghanistan, American Samoa, Antigua, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, Curacao, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Greenland, Guam, Honduras, Iceland, Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean), Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Johnston Atoll (Pacific), Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kwajalein Atoll (Pacific), Kygyzstan, Luxemburg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, St. Helena (Atlantic), Tajikistan, Turkey, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Virgin Islands, Wake Island (Pacific). The War on Terrorism The world picture of post-9/11 War on Terror is remarkably chilling. The US continues to hold over 600 detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, outside the protection of US courts and law. The US Patriot Act which restricts the rights of both citizens and non-citizens, has provided a template for anti-terrorist laws in many countries. In Britain, more than 500 people have been arrested on terrorist-related charges. Italy and Holland are number one and two in Europe in wiretapping their citizens. In Iraq, about 20,000 armed soldiers are employed by private military contractors, mostly from Britain and the US. Russia has consistently used War on Terror as an excuse to ‘engage in extrajudicial executions, arrests and extortion of civilians as part of its continued occupation of Chechnya. The Australian government has scapegoated asylum-seekers as potential terrorists and either prevented them from entering or kept them in prison camps. In Djibouti, 100,000 residents were expelled in October 2003 because they represented a potential terrorist ‘threat’ to the peace and security of the country. In Southern Thailand, Thai security forces were responsible for the death of 78 Muslim demonstrators in fall of 2004. Bangladesh is trying to amend its telecommunications law to make illegally intercepted emails usable as evidence in Court. In Uganda, the suppression of Terrorism Bill 2001 imposes a mandatory death sentence for terrorists. These and others more are appalling consequences of America’s global war on terror. However, critics—peace advocates and human rights activists—from all over the world are quick to assail that America’s War on Terror is primarily missing the point: it has miserably failed to address the real roots of terrorism and has instead diverted the world’s attention from the deeper roots of global insecurity as poverty, disease and environmental decline. Critics contend that terrorism cannot simply be eliminated or resolved by a demonstration of military force, dispatching troops, sealing borders, or creating a world garrison state in which peoples may come to witness global surveillance, an all-inclusive control of private life, and a drastic reduction in the free circulation of citizens across the planet, across borders. Terrorism, according to Michael Renner of Worldwatch Institute, is “only symptomatic of a far broader set of deep concerns that have produced a new age of anxiety.” Accordingly, Radmila Nakarada, Belgrade University professor, points out the far deeper roots of terrorism: unresolved national aims or denial of statehood, and the inhuman side of globalization. “Responses (to terrorism) have been inappropriate because a blind eye has been turned to the deeper ethnic, social and cultural roots of terrorism. The most widespread forms of terrorism is linked to the unresolved national aims and the denial of a statehood that is violently pursued. The tragedy in America represents a ‘novelty’ because, for the first time, the target was not just the US as a state but as the hegemonic actor of global order…the repressive, inhuman side of globalization is a powerful source of terrorism. Hand in hand across the planet march the fabulous wealth of the greedy giants, and the globalization of poverty. The passive hopelessness and helplessness is transformed into active extremism and fundamentalism which constitute the broad social base of small terrorist groups. In addition, the aggressive globalization driving forcefully the world into a uniform cultural mould inevitably provokes violent reactions,” noted Nakarada in his article “The Tragedy of a Tragedy: Global Terrorism and Repressive Globalization.” But, as poverty has often been factored to fuel terrorism, Chandra Muzzafar of the International Movement for a Just World particularly opposes the claim. In an interview-article published in the March 2003 issue of Impact, Muzzafar explained, “In many of the analyses that have emerged on the causes of terrorism, poverty has often been suggested as one of the factors. This is totally off the mark. Individuals and groups sometimes resort to acts of terror in their attempt to thwart the hegemonic grip of some state or power, which, in their opinion, has denied them justice or dignity. The people involved in those acts of terror may be quite wealthy, as Osama was, or well educated or even religious in the conventional sense. It is their perception of the denial of justice and dignity which is the critical factor. And what appears to figure prominently in their notion of justice and dignity is the question of identity and sovereignty. The struggles of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Basque movement in Spain, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, the Chechens in Russian, the Kashmiris in India, the Palestinians in the Middle East all revolve around dignity, identity and sovereignty. Indeed, if there is any one issue that is central to the problem of terror it is the desire to affirm and assert one’s identity.” The War of Peace Ideologies or Models Certainly, however, all peace ideologues and advocates agree on the notion that peace does imply not only the negation or mere absence of war, conflict, or violence (such otherwise naively smacks of vacuous tranquility) but importantly the active or workable presence and immanence of Justice, Dignity, Freedom and Sovereignty, Truth, Compassion and Respect. But even so, just as the absence of conflict or violence in a given situation is already pragmatically elusive (and, more so, is practically impossible in such case as total or absolute absence of conflict or violence), the relatively varying notions and explications of Justice, Freedom, Sovereignty and Dignity equally pose to be problematic among different cultural settings. Indeed, even as the current declining world order has unfailingly accommodated the strident yearning for peace, ideologies or models of peace and social order do vary in many ways than one. One, peace has often been associated with development. Simply put, peace springs forth with development. But again, development is obviously so broad a term as it is in meaning and concept and is openly suspect to some qualifying or delimiting specifications—economic, cultural, religious-spiritual, etc. The problem becomes manifest when peace is narrowly equated to construe a limited aspect of development, e.g. economic, and the other essential elements are overlooked. Then, there is the “classless society” ideological model of peace, represented by Marxist-communism. Peace, it is argued, is attained at the cost of relentless class struggle or conflict. However, the utopia of “classless society” has been proven historically, if not pragmatically, unfeasible as demonstrated by the breakdown of Communist Europe. Also, others—Asians particularly—would yearn with coveted emulation for peace formulae demonstrated or modeled by the touted “economic miracles” of developed countries in Asia—the state-authoritarianism of Singapore, the democratic religious-political tolerance of Malaysia, the protectionist approach of Japan, and others. But still, it may be gleaned that Asia is so diverse in culture that individual countries have trekked the path of development along with their endemic cultural ingredients. But, on the whole, notwithstanding the foregoing models or approaches of peace, Hannah Newcombe of Peace Research Institute Dundas contends that the debate or battle of peace models—viewed on long-range, fundamental approaches—is narrowed down to only two basic models: one is “world federal government” and the other is “principled nonviolence.” The proponents of these two alternatives to the current world order, according to Newcombe, have not always been on friendly terms. “The pacifist wing of the peace movement has faulted world government model for its continued reliance on violence i.e. enforcing world law against international criminals, or UN peacekeeping forces using weapons, even if rarely. The internationalist wing of the peace movement saw nonviolence as offering no answers to the problem of deliberate evil-doers,” Newcombe said. The two approaches or models, world federal government and principled nonviolence, if taken to extremes, have their individual definitive drawbacks. Newcombe explains the individual characteristics and limitations of the two models: “At its worst, the world government proposals are too centralizing, even if federal structure is postulated. They make Hobbesian assumption about human nature, and extend them to the international arena: just as individuals need a strong government to prevent them from mutual killing and stealing, so do nations. The Hobbesian solution is adopted, giving the government a monopoly of violence. Some schemes suggest that nuclear weapons should be transferred to the world government, while individual nations are disarmed. This begs the question of tyranny—what if those centralized weapons of mass destruction are used to terrorize everybody into obeying a tyrant? The world government model at its worst is too state-oriented, ignoring other actors on the world stage, such as people’s organizations, churches, or multinational corporations… “The nonviolence model also has drawbacks. It tends to be anarchist, as does the Green Movement. While ‘small’ may be ‘beautiful’, global problems still require global solutions. Radioactive contamination, acid rain, and global warming do not respect national borders, or even the borders of bio-regions. The movement’s model of human nature tends to be in the ‘noble savage’ tradition of Rousseau: people would get along just fine if governments left them alone. Human nature is likely to be somewhere between the conceptions of Hobbes and Rousseau. The prohibition of violence is sometimes too extreme; a pilot gone crazy and about to bomb Russia and trigger nuclear war should not be shot down, according to this absolutist view. Also, avoidance of verbal and psychological violence as well as physical violence would leave us almost unable to communicate in conflict situations. No manipulation or coercion? This seems equally unrealistic; we all do it all the time, though usually without physical violence. Moreover, in practice the nonviolent movement also manipulates and coerces others. While the world-government is too statist, the nonviolence movement is too individualist.” Grounds for Optimism Indeed, even peace ideologues are not one in contriving a common formula for peace. But there is no arguing though that the world certainly shares a common humanity and that peace is indeed an “irrepressible yearning present in the heart of each person, regardless of his or her particular cultural identity.” For such, hence, some common grounds may be postulated to pave the way or chances of peace. One, there’s no denying that man is social by nature. The Second Vatican Council aptly puts it: “God did not create man for life in isolation, but for the formation of social unity.” And even a consideration of man’s physical and psychological characteristics also shows man’s natural sociability. Hence, between the individual man and society, the common good holds eminence over the private good. If peace then can be equated as good, it is imperative that it be oriented towards the good of society—or “the greatest interest for the greater number of people”—over private good or individual interest. Another is that, in such an imperfect world, there’s no arguing the fact that all forms of violence, including verbal and psychological, cannot be totally eradicated or eliminated; otherwise, as Newcombe said, “avoidance of verbal and psychological violence as well as physical violence would leave us almost unable to communicate in conflict situations.” Moreover, Newcombe adds, the absence of any form of manipulation or coercion seems equally unrealistic. But even so, notwithstanding the declining order, the imperfect world is certainly not devoid of order or, nonetheless, the possibility for greater order or growth—and hence, likewise the possibility or chances for peace. Finally, no doubt, violence indeed germinates or begins in the minds or hearts of people. Hence, the efforts or work of peace—and its related tenets as intercultural sensitivity, mutual respect, shared spirituality, sense of social justice, etc.—to conquer or resolve violence should likewise begin in the hearts and minds of people. Peace, wherefore, likewise srpings forth from the heart of man — and a “heart of peace” might just as well pave for a “world of peace.”
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Not that US global hegemonic pursuits, and so with its grim consequences of having claimed millions of human lives, did only commence with the September 11, 2001 tragic event—it even dates further back to the 1940’s. Chandra Muzzafar, in his article “The Tyranny of Terror; the Triumph of Truth,” published in the November-December 2001 issue of Impact, particularly notes, “US hegemony extends throughout the world…(it) began on 6 August 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima which obliterated thousands of innocent people from the face of the earth. It is estimated that 3 million people died in Vietnam and Indochina so that the US could maintain its hegemonic power. And in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, and indeed the whole of Latin America, from fifties to the eighties, tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children had perished as a result of a superpower’s desire to perpetuate its control and dominance through covert operations, espionage activities, assassination squads, economic strangulation and organized political subversion.”
The 9/11 tragedy it was that prompted the Bush’s administration’s launching of the global war on terrorism. America’s invasion of Afghanistan and its unprovoked aggression in Iraq, as well as the appalling assault on civil liberties, have been carried out in the name of the war on terror. Since then, President Bush has relentlessly been trotting around the globe preaching the gospel of terror war and prodding other nation-states to follow suit in drawing up and enacting counter-terrorism measures that range from stringent overt-covert police action to government-state legislations that run across or closely stifle human rights, civil liberties and fragile freedoms—and suddenly, every corner of the world, from Bethlehem to Bogota, is deigned prone to terror. Touted as “Total Information Awareness,” the Pentagon mustered every potential of modern information-communication technology—closed circuit TV, biometrics, national identity cards, PC monitoring, remote-sending satellites, CAPPS (Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening Index), etc.— to scour data or information for the US Master Terror Watchlist, which now has more than five million names on it. 
In such age of a declining world order, not only the vicious cycle of violence (as that of 9/11 to Afghanistan and Iraq invasions), of lingering protracted intra-national and inter-national strifes or conflicts, of terrorism and counter-terrorism conspicuously spawn to the fore but even also the likely irreconcilable clash among peace ideologues who are all contriving to proffer their individual proposals or models of social order and peace. Likely enough, peace has invariably become more complicated a concept to be defined as it has even more become less realized in the concrete world order.
In the face of the current declining world order—polarization of world powers spearheaded by America’s global hegemony; inhuman or repressive consequences of globalization; domestic and global arms trade; religious, ethnic and racial strifes and violence; global anxiety of terrorism and counter-terrorism; intra-national and inter-national armed conflicts—are there yet chances for peace?|
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