WE are more used to seeing one big news at a time, but if we examine a lot of big news of recent times, then the world appears headed for one of the worst phases of its history, a dark age from which recovery will be difficult because some of the more serious threats are of an existential nature.
There is not much realisation of this larger reality, and even lesser resistance. However, what can be clearly seen is that there has been worrying news from almost everywhere, from all continents, and on several fronts — wars and civil wars, trade and economy, many-sided environmental crisis, worsening humanitarian crisis, relentless arms race, and big technological breakthroughs getting more threatening than beneficial.
Gaza provides an example of how the most unjust war, the most obviously unjust war, can keep getting more cruel and unjust without the world being able to stop the horrible injustice, suffering and cruelty. The wider Israeli aggressions supported by the United States and much of the West can start a much bigger war and even a world war.
Even higher risks of a bigger war exist in the case of the Ukraine-Russia standoff which has brought the world close to a nuclear war and the third world war on more than one occasions.
The Sudan civil war goes on and on despite its obvious capacity to destroy the nation, its people ad some of the neighbourhood. This has the potential to grow into a bigger African war with even higher mortality, a danger that exists at some other conflict points too in Africa, including DRC-Rwanda.
The world already has over 12,000 nuclear weapons, less than 10% of which are enough to destroy the entire world within a few days. The dangers of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, AI-aided weapons and the drift toward space warfare are also huge and increasing. Over a longer period, about a dozen serious environmental problems can lead to life-threatening conditions while the ability and willingness of the world to check this ecocide before it is too late, appears to be in decline in recent times.
There is more disruption in world trade and related issues now than in any recent time, and international trust and cooperation are in sharp decline. The declining economic strengths of the US (of its own making) combined with its continuing determination to pursue hegemony on the basis of military strength have created a very dangerous situation and there is great uncertainty regarding where this will take the world ultimately.
There is lack of effective leadership to guide the world on a path of peace, safety, justice and protection of environment. The role of the United Nations has hardly inspired any confidence in recent times. Even academics, scholars, statesmen and sages of the world have fallen far short of what an increasingly endangered world needs and expects from them.
While the people of the world every day perform millions of kind acts to keep alive the faith in humanity and its future and it is also true that they definitely desire a future of peace and safety for themselves and their children, all their good wishes have not been mobilised into actual actions for ensuring a future of peace with justice. And this failure hangs like a garland of flowers left to rot over the neck of what was seen for too long as the harbinger of hope — democracy.
One country after another, one continent after another learnt to adopt the facade of democracy without a firm commitment to what democracy was supposed to achieve — a firm commitment to the path of peace and justice and to whatever is most urgent for all forms of life on earth.
Of course, the basic idea of democracy remains alive today and must remain alive in future. But this must be re-imagined in a way in which it is well integrated with the mobilisation of people for facing with determination the most important challenges of peace and safety, of justice and equality, of protection of environment and all forms of life.
Governance, in any village or city, at nation or world level must be in tune with real needs. At present it is not. If in a village we need true decentralisation, at world level we need the ability to resolve the most life-threatening problems before it is too late.
The world is not just in a terrible mess — this would be too mild an assessment of present times. The stark reality is that the world today faces a human-made threat to all beings like never before in its troubled history; the threat may come alive as a big bang or may unravel over the years in the near future.
The least that can be done just now with a sense of urgency is to stop all wars and honestly and sincerely draw up alternative paths for future, paths based on peace, justice and protection of environment and above all on resolving the existential crisis before it is too late.
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Bharat Dogra writes extensively on environment, development and welfare issues. The views expressed here are the writer’s own, and Clarion India does not necessarily subscribe to them. He can be reached at: bharatdogra1956@gmail.com
