Peace is the absence of war, but Barack Obama, the American President, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York recently said: “Peace is not only the absence of war…..”
This then shows that there is more to peace than just the mere absence of war, which renders our global peace questionab-le.
In Somalia, th-ere is no legitimate government. The country is literally run by warlords, with close links to marauding sea pirates, who raid ships loaded with goods in transit, and demand extortionate ransoms, which they use to perpetrate anarchy in the chaotic nation in the Horn of Africa.
Starvation and drought continue in Somalia, with millions of people fleeing the country. Some escape political unrest while others run away from hunger, with millions of children dying from malnutrition every day. It boggles the mind to talk of world peace commemorations, or even its existence when people continue to face such situations.
Coming back home, the International Day of Peace may have had no relevance in our context as we have been divorced from it by the horrible and increasing levels of political violence. It is now over 10 years since the turn of the new millennium, following the then government’s chaotic land seizures from commercial white farmers, throwing the entire nation into long periods of starvation.
In Zimbabwe, years of political and economic crisis have thrown many people into abject poverty, with the country suffering an unemployment rate of over 80%.
Unquestionably, Zimbabwe has had nothing to celebrate during all the successive years of international peace days.
Rather, the country should have invited the rest of the world to come and bemoan the death of peace nationwide at the hands of abusive security forces and violent politicians and youth militia. Journalists and ordinary citizens have been routinely arrested, brutally assaulted and tortured or detained in filthy cells.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Poverty is rife in North and South Sudan, with people still living in tents although South Sudan became independent from the mainland in July this year.
Peace remains fragile in the two states, with we-apons everywhere in the countryside and rampant tribal battles taking their toll in the troubled states.In the fragile border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism and extremism are daily occurrences. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is one of the most fragile areas in Pakistan in which terrorism has grown to become one of the biggest security threats to the region and beyond, jolting powerful nations into action against the scourge.
Militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan continue to incite extremism and violence among young people.
Israel and Palestine continue to engage in a war that has been going on for a very long time while Kashmir, a disputed territory between India and Pakistan, continues to be a source of violence and brutality among the divided Hindu and Muslim communities, forcing over 40 000 people to flee their homes.
World leaders have gone for summit after summit to broker world peace, but more and more conflicts have continued to emerge globally, with reports of over 45 wars taking place across the world presently.
It defies logic for the world to commemorate International Peace Day year in year out when peace is so elusive, if not non-existent; when poverty and corruption have blighted the entire world, and when economic and political suffering is evident everywhere, particularly in Africa.
