22.04.23 – Madrid, Spain – Rafael De La Rubia
1.1 Violence in the human process
Since the discovery of fire, the domination of some men over others has been marked by the destructive capacity that a certain human group was able to develop.
Those who handled the aggression technique subdued those who did not, those who invented the arrows devastated those who used only stones and spears. Then came gunpowder and rifles, then machine guns and so on with increasingly destructive weapons up to the nuclear bomb. Those who came to develop it have been those who have imposed their dictation in recent decades.
1.2 The breakthrough of societies
At the same time, progress has been made in the human process, countless inventions have been developed, social engineering, the most effective, more inclusive, and less discriminatory ways of organizing. The most tolerant and democratic societies have been considered the most advanced and those that have been more accepted. There have been enormous advances in science, in research, in production, in technology, in medicine, in education, etc. etc There have also been notable advances in spirituality, which are leaving fanaticism, fetishism and sectarianism aside and are making thinking, feeling and acting converge with spirituality instead of being in opposition.
The above situation is not uniform on the planet as there are peoples and societies that are at different stages of the process, but a global trend towards confluence is clear.
1.3 The drags of the past
In some issues we continue to handle ourselves sometimes in a primitive way, such as international relations. If we see children fighting over toys, do we tell them to fight among themselves? If a grandmother is attacked by a gang of criminals on the street, do we give her a stick or a weapon so that she can defend herself against them? No one would think of such irresponsibility. That is, at a close level, at the level of family, local, even national coexistence, we are advancing. More and more protection mechanisms are being incorporated for individuals and groups
vulnerable. However, we do not do this at the country level. We have not resolved what to do when a powerful country subdues a smaller one... There are many examples in the world.
1.4 The survival of wars
After the 2nd World War it was necessary to create the United Nations. In its preamble, the spirit that animated the promoters was recorded: "We the peoples of the Nations
United, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice during our lives has inflicted untold suffering on Humanity, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person..." 1 . That was the initial impulse.
1.5 The fall of the USSR
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union it seemed that the period of the cold war had come to an end. There may be different opinions about that event, but the truth is that its dissolution did not produce any direct fatality. The agreement was that the Soviet bloc would dissolve but that the NATO, created to counter the Warsaw Pact, would not advance on the former members of the USSR. That commitment has not only not been fulfilled, but Russia has gradually been encircled on its borders. This does not mean that Putin's position on invading Ukraine is defended, it means that either we seek security and collaboration for all, or individual security cannot be guaranteed.
In the 70 years since the US detonated the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs, they have become the arbiters of the world situation.
1.6 The continuation of the wars
In all this time the wars have not stopped. We now have the one from Ukraine, the one that has the most media attention due to certain interests, but there are also those from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia or Eritrea, to name a few, because there are many more. There have been more than 60 armed conflicts every year between 2015 and 2022 around the world.
1.7 The current situation change
It has just been a year since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began and the situation, far from improving, is rapidly worsening. Stoltenberg has just admitted that the war with Russia began in 2014 and not in 2022. The Minsk agreements had been broken and the Russian-speaking Ukrainian population had been harassed. Merkel also confirmed that these agreements were a way of buying time, while Ukraine strengthened ties with the US with clear drifts towards leaving its neutrality and aligning itself with NATO. Today Ukraine openly calls for its inclusion. That is the red line that Russia is not going to allow. The latest leaks of top-secret documents show that the US has been preparing this confrontation for many years. The consequences are that the conflict escalates towards unknown limits.
Finally, Russia withdrew from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New Start) and for his part President Zelensky talks about defeating Russia, a nuclear power, on the battlefield.
The irrationality and lies on both sides is obvious. The most serious problem that all this entails is that the possibility of war between nuclear powers is increasing.
1.8 The vassalage of the EU to the US
Those who are suffering the disastrous consequences of the war, in addition to the Ukrainians and Russians themselves immersed in the daily conflict, are the European citizens who see it as their maintenance of international peace and security, to ensure, through the acceptance of principles and the adoption of methods, which will not be used; armed force but in the service of the common interest, and to use an international mechanism to promote the economic and social progress of all peoples, we have decided to unite our efforts to carry out designs. Therefore, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco who have exhibited their full powers, found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations, and hereby establish a international organization to be called the United Nations. Products become more expensive and their rights and democracies recede, while the conflict escalates more and more. The high representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, J. Borrell, has described the situation as dangerous, but continues to insist on the warlike route of sending arms to support the Ukrainians. No effort goes in the direction of opening negotiation channels, but rather it continues to add more fuel to the fire. Borrell himself announced that "in order to safeguard democracy in the EU, access to the Russian media RT and Sputnik is prohibited." They call this democracy...? There are more and more voices asking themselves: Could it be that the US wants to maintain its hegemony at the cost of the misfortunes of others? Could it be that the international relations format no longer supports this dynamic? Could it be that we are in a civilizing crisis in which we have to find another form of international order?
1.9 The new situation
Lately, China has come out as a mediator proposing a peace plan while the US is tensing up the situation in Taiwan. In reality, it is about the tension that occurs at the end of the cycle where a world dominated by a power is moving towards a regionalized world.
Let's remember the data: China is the country that maintains the greatest economic exchange with all the countries on the planet. India has become the most populous country in the world, ahead of China. The EU suffers an economic collapse that shows its energy weaknesses and autonomy. BRICS GDP 2 , which already exceeds the world GDP of the G7 3 , and it continues to grow with 10 new countries that have applied to join. Latin America and Africa are beginning, with their many difficulties, to wake up and are going to increase their role as international references. With all this the regionalization of the world is evident. But faced with this fact, Western centralism is going to put up serious resistance, claiming its lost hegemony. The hegemony is led by the US, which refuses to give up the role of world policeman and intends to reactivate a NATO that a year ago was ready to die after his crash out of Afghanistan...
1.10 The regionalized world
The new regionalization is going to produce serious friction with the previous model, of an imperialist nature, where the West tried to control everything. In the future, the ability to negotiate and reach agreements will be what will shape the world. The old way, the previous way of resolving differences through wars, will remain for the primitive and backward regimes. The problem is that some of them have nuclear weapons. That is why it is urgent that the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPAN) be extended, which has already entered into force in the United Nations, which is signed by more than 70 countries and which is being overshadowed by the international media to hide the only way It is possible that it is: "that we learn to resolve conflicts in a negotiated and peaceful way". When this is achieved on a planetary level we will enter another era for humanity.
For this, we will have to reformulate a United Nations, endowing it with more democratic mechanisms and eliminating the privileges of the right to veto that some countries have.
1.11 The means to achieve change: Citizen mobilization.
But this fundamental change is not going to take place because the institutions, governments, unions, parties or organizations take the initiative and do something, it will take place because the citizens demand it of them. And this is not going to happen by putting ourselves behind a flag, nor by participating in a demonstration or attending a rally or conference. Although all these actions will serve and are very useful, the true strength will come from each citizen, from his inner reflection and conviction. When in your peace of mind, in your solitude or in company, you look at those closest to you and understand the serious situation we are in, when you reflect, look at yourself, your family, your friends, your loved ones... and understand and decide that there is no other way out and that you have to do something.
1.12 The exemplary action
Each individual can go further, they can look at the history of man and look at the number of wars, setbacks and also the advances that the human being has made in thousands of years, but they must take into account that we are now in a new, different situation. Now the survival of the species is at stake... And faced with that, you must ask yourself: what can I do?... What can I contribute? What can I do that is my exemplary action? … how can I make my life an experiment that gives me meaning? … what can I contribute to the history of humanity?
If each one of us delves deeper into ourselves, answers will surely appear. It will be something very simple and connected to oneself, but it will have to have several elements for it to be effective: what each one does has to be public, for others to see it, it has to be permanent, repeated over time (it can be very brief). 15 or 30 minutes a week 4 , but every week), and hopefully it will be scalable, that is, it will contemplate that there are others that can join this action. All of this can be projected throughout life. There are many examples of existences that made sense after a major crisis... With 1% of the planet's citizens resolutely mobilizing against wars and in favor of the peaceful resolution of differences, generating exemplary and scalable actions, with which only 1% manifest, the bases to produce the changes will be laid.
We will be able?
We will summon that 1% of the population to take the test.
War is a drag from human prehistory and can end the species.
Either we learn to resolve conflicts peacefully or we disappear.
We will work so that this does not happen
To be continue…
1 Charter of the United Nations: Preamble. We the peoples of the United Nations resolved to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war that twice during our lifetime has inflicted untold suffering on Humanity, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of large and small nations, to create conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations emanating from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, to promote social progress and raise the standard of living within a broader concept of freedom, and for such purposes to practice tolerance and live in peace as good neighbors, to unite our forces for the one who was at the origin of that Big project. Later, little by little, those initial motivations were diluted and the United Nations has become increasingly ineffective on these issues. There was a directed intention, especially by the world's greatest powers, to gradually remove powers and prominence from the United Nations at the international level.
2 BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa 3 G7: USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom
3 G7: US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and UK
The original article is found at PRESSENZA International Press Agency