Ukraine Is Being Destroyed In A Proxy War, Not for Peace or Sustainable Future-Making – UncommonThought
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[Photo: Looking out after the March 19, 2022 bombing of Kyiv (Manhhai).]
By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
Editor’s Note
Dr. Khawaja is correct. The war on Ukraine is not rational. Nor is the response of the U.S. and NATO rational. Massive sanctions have been placed on Russia effectively cutting them off economically from most of the world. However, there is a cold rationality to what is happening. The arms manufacturers and sellers are beside themselves with glee as the profits roll in, and the U.S. is the number one arms dealer on the planet. Plans are well underway to replace the natural gas from Russia to Europe with LNG from the U.S. Germany, has significantly increased its military spending and most of the EU and NATO are moving in the same direction.
This is also a “war” that is rapidly spreading far beyond Ukraine and the surrounding nations. Both Russia and Ukraine provide much of the wheat to the Middle East and Asia. A shortage of wheat, and the inevitable rise in prices, will not only throw hundreds of millions into starvation but could easily result in internal conflict. Not to mention that it could spur another round of migration, and we can bet that these starving refugees will not be as sympathetically received as the white (largely Christian) Ukrainian refugees. This is not to downplay the distress or dire situation of the Ukrainians, but to highlight that racism and Islamophobia are at least as strong in Europe as in the United States.
While we may not be in World War III, this current atrocity and the inadequate and misguided way that NATO, the European Union, and the United States are responding are clearly not working. The Ukrainians are fighting for their lives, and more than a few are responding with pacifism to the attacks on their towns (as with the citizens of Enerhodar). They are in part, an object lesson for the West, and in part a legacy pipedream of Putin. Of course, this is an oversimplification of a complex situation with deep roots. However, I don’t think that Putin will stop at the borders of Ukraine, and former Eastern bloc states are wise to be concerned about that.
The question is will there be an awakening that leads to peace before decades with of harm to hundreds of millions of people occurs?
Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
Witness to Killing and Destruction – Ukraine Is Fast Becoming the Epicentre of a Cataclysm
Cynicism about politics is endemic across all cultures. When intelligent people think and plan war, it negates the very human nature of reasoned mind at peace within its own consciousness and balanced tranquility. The earth trembles with continuous shelling and bombing, sirens sound alarms of incoming killer hypersonic missiles, frightening thoughts of death and destruction as citizens wonder where to hide in safety across Ukraine. Russian military operatives deny shelling the civilian habitats but civilian causalities on the ground in Mariupol, Khraiv and Kyiv speak another language as if Ukraine and Russia live in conflicting time zones being unable to understand the reality of human existence, peace, and survival. The perpetuated chaos and nationalistic ideals of the few are leading to collapsed civilizations and the resumption of the dark ages. Could wars be ever the source of conflict resolution or peacemaking? No matter how time exists in a frozen intellect, reason will haunt the present and future generations when war was a prelude to peace-making. What are the so-called intelligent leaders of NATO, America, or the EU waiting for? Is America, the EU, and NATO waiting and watching how Russia and Ukraine will end up in this cruelly insane war? Or what advanced weaponry is being used by Russia to annihilate another neighbour? Is Ukraine a testing ground for the planning and administration of more insane conflicts? Surely, men who are universally hated and feared are active in this staged drama of embittered insanity against a helpless nation and people. There is an urgent need for the Russian and Ukrainian leaders to meet face to face and stop this insanity against the people they claim to serve. Those pushing mankind to war and destruction lack the basic qualities of rational thinking and actions.
We, the People witnessing a new normal of a plan to exterminate humans with superior weapons hitting civilian targets and towns in a daily bloodbath. Have we not learned any lessons from the European nationalistic wars of the First World War and the 2nd World War? Humanity continues to argue if wars have become normalized – unknown and unthinkable to human civilizations and rational thinking. We, the People are entrapped and entrenched by the dirty politics and quests for power of the few. It is a formidable challenge to rethink the continuity of the current tragedy in Ukraine.
The Few Waging War Are a Menace to Human Life, the Earth, and the Future
A few egotistical politicians are destroying living beings, the earth, and human habitats without any moral reasoning. Leaders are violating the TRUST of keeping the planet’s safety to its Nature of Things. The planet Earth is not a dead orbiting object but a living entity providing continuous nourishment to human life and existence and to all other living beings. Its governing laws are defined by its Creator. Dead things do not sustain life in this context but living does make the difference. When individuals and nations start acting like insane beasts in complete disregard of accepted norms of human values and ethical principles, surely, it impacts us all and everything whether we acknowledge it or not. No humans can become God nor should they act like God – a plain fact of life. We, the People are witnessing many leaders acting like beasts without any regard to protecting human cultures, life, and civilizations. Global politicians are increasingly showing ignorance and willful arrogance in their policies and practices. None of the leading superpowers appear to be heeding warnings from God. When people and nations challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God and violate all known norms and principles of human behavior, they could well become an object of unthinkable natural calamities, deaths, and destruction.
All the Divine Books of the Abrahamic Faith – TheTorah, The Holy Bible, and The Qur’an are full of such revelations and warnings as REMINDERS to those people who are open to listening and learning and care for accountability and the future. These are staunch warnings to change the thinking and behavior or else we could face the ultimate consequences of demise as it happened to all self-claiming adventurous and powerful kingdoms, dynasties, and nations of the past. Russia is engaging in war, not a “Special Military Operation”, against Ukraine. Ukraine is facing critical crises of rationality and legitimacy of war for its survival and socio-economic and political future but likewise, this is what most other Western leaders too lack understanding and realities of the real world affairs. Ukraine and its people must be protected and should not be allowed to vanish in the dust of shelling and hypersonic Russian weaponry.
The Need for Reasoned Dialogue: One Humanity in Unity for Peaceful Co-Existence
The sanctity of human life is grounded in the need for peace, dialogue, and co-existence. A rational analytic approach would compare the difference between truth and falsehood, cruelty and piety often not combined in one character. After four weeks of warmongering, Russia and Ukraine are active, living, and not destroyed. The ongoing onslaught makes no sense to rational thinking and political accountability. American, European, and NATO leaders appear more like spectators rather than active participants to conflict resolution and peace-making. They are not posing any challenge to the absurdity of a one-sided war on Ukraine. Their lip service to aid Ukraine and its people is merely a repetitive cry for public consumption. It is a challenging time and the question of survival and its urgency must be understood by those having power and influence to call for an immediate ceasefire and warn of the dire consequences of its failure.
America, Europe, Russia, and NATO’s historic record is plagued with violence and extravagant ideas to have invaded and killed millions and millions across the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Lacking the rationality of a just war, they have killed and displaced millions of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria. Their claims of piety and support for good are full of lingering suspicion and disregard to be the office bearers of peace and security of the world. The need is urgent to foster a peaceful dialogue between Russia, Ukraine, America and NATO, or else a lack of rational imagination and action could destroy the national freedom and sovereignty of Ukraine. It is imperative that the people of Ukraine should not be left to a terrible sense of helplessness, inhumanity, and insanity to lose their national freedom. The voices of reason are loud and clear as global humanity cannot suffer the penalties of tyranny and war-mongering. We, the People draw rational results from what we see and what we hear, therefore, we are different, we are responsible and we cannot act or live animals. There is a moral sense of spirituality and humanity to co-exist in harmony with the rest of all creations on this Earth.
Modern wars represent sadistic and cruel minds to undermine human rights, dignity, and life. They destroy all that is built over the ages that we call human civilizations. All of the Abrahamic Faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) reveal the truth of “Trust” – human beings took to be responsible and be at peace with the Nature of Things. Any favorite perversion would contradict this Trust and embark on killing and destruction of human habitats as history has witnessed during the Two WW, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and ongoing in Yemen. This TRUST and its reminder are explicitly mentioned in (The Qur’an, Chapter 33: 72):
“We did indeed offer the Trust to the Heavens and the Earth; And the mountains but they refused; To undertake it, being afraid thereof: But man undertook it; He was indeed unjust and foolish.”
The Earth is a living entity and is meant for us – human beings. We, the People wonder who else except God created life, the Earth, and the living Universe floating in space well balanced and functional since time immemorial. If Immanuel Kant’s ‘Perpetual Peace’ was taken seriously, today’s Russia, America, and Europe would have been at peace and avoided the proxy war within themselves and with the global community. The sudden and inexplicable plunge into continued war will dehumanize the global culture of rational thinking and actions. We, the People of the globe reject the violent assumptions of a just war against the people of Ukraine. The crush for war is instinctively part of human ignorance and arrogance. Ferocious conceptions of war and usage of advanced weaponry will destroy the Earth and the living environment. Nothing will grow out of the bombed lands and charcoaled human communities as it reflects in Mariupol, Kyiv and Kharkiv. Those talking of crimes against humanity are simply uttering words without actions. The essence of time and urgency calls for a reasoned dialogue for peace, not for blame games. One wonders why Russia was evicted from G-8 and why a meeting of G-20 could not be arranged in an emergency situation. The Western leaders (America, NATO, and the EU) have the capacity and moral obligation to call for an immediate end of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. The failure to hostilities must define the consequences and accountability. The atrocities of war must stop immediately and the sanctity of human life and habitats must be assured by all within the global systems of political governance.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012. His forthcoming book is entitled: One Humanity and The Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution
All material is under a Creative Common share with attribution license unless otherwise noted.
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