What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?
Perhaps it seems a bit strange or a bit silly to be contemplating the idea of a real possibility for world peace amidst the current chaos of ongoing wars, proxy wars and genocide? What this article aims to illustrate is, not only is it not strange to contemplate the real possibility of peace in our 21st century, it is of vital importance that we not overlook the presence of the baby in the currently overflowing, titanic tub of earthly bath water.
My contention is that there is an actual opportunity that is being born as you read this, for humanity to begin to make a collective shift toward inner/personal and outer/social peace, love and understanding in this decade, in this century. And there isn’t anything silly or inappropriate about it.
The Current Dilemma/The Current Opportunity
In order to continue to follow the logic of this article it’s important that you, the one reading this piece, allow yourself to be open to the following fact, at least as a possibility: Over the course of the last 75 to 80 years the United States has enjoyed the perks of being the world’s most powerful nation. In fact, since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the US has been the sole, uncontested superpower that has militarily and economically dominated all other nations of the world.(1) This thirty year era, the unipolar era (1991 – 2021) is now over. For the first time in almost every currently living American’s lifetime, the US has lost its previously uncontested status as a world hegemon.(2) You may not have read it in The Washington Post or heard it on cable news yet, but I assure you, it has happened.
The faction that is currently in power in the US, those who’ve spent the last 23 years pushing for neo-imperialist expansion via occupations, wars and proxy wars, view what I mentioned above as a hugely problematic dilemma. On the other hand millions, actually billions, of other people who live on this planet we share, do not view the end of US economic and military dominance as a dilemma. In fact, they view the current situation as a chance to escape the enchainment of US/Western dominance. They see it as a possible opportunity to escape the military violence, the economic sanctions, the forced debt and the growing desperation that a super-wealthy few have been knowingly and/or unknowingly imposing on the majority of the world’s population in the 21st century.(3)
The World Has Transitioned From Unipolarity to Multipolarity
In other articles I’ve written, I’ve gone into detail about multipolarity and its causes. If you would like to gain a more comprehensive understanding of multipolarity then I recommend you give those articles a read.(4),(5) In synthesis though, over the course of the last ten, specifically over the course of the last three years, a growing coalition of countries called BRICS has been expanding rapidly. Aside from China, which is fast becoming the number 1 global economic power on its own, this coalition includes India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates and several others.
This grouping of countries, which is likely to double in size within the next two years, already has a larger collective GDP than the Western G7 countries. BRICS members also account for over half of the world’s population and over half of the world’s production of goods.
In other words, the US’ bullying days are coming to an end. The power of BRICS members’ ability to overcome the toughest of economic obstacles has been on clear display over the course of the last three years in the case of Russia’s withstanding fourteen rounds of US/NATO sanctions. In fact Russia has done more than withstand the US’ attempt to break them economically. Russia’s economy has actually improved due specifically to the assistance of China and India over the course of the last three years. Their economy actually rose from being number 6 in the world to being number 4 just this past year.(6)
Those Who Oppose This Change and Who Are Attempting to Derail it.
Those currently in power in the West, those who vehemently oppose what has already begun to happen and has no chance of being reversed, have been using perpetual wars, massive economic sanctions and threats of violence in an attempt to somehow thwart the growing contingency of countries that have chosen multipolarity (rather than US hegemony) as the way of the future.(7)
The US/NATO’s approach of implementing death and destruction as a deterrent has failed miserably and absolutely. Aside from the millions of people that have been senselessly killed over the course of the last 23 years, the US has consistently lied and broken its agreements time after time, in conflict situation after conflict situation. America’s penchant for violence and deception has sown seeds of distrust and fear of the US all over the world. America, a country that was previously admired by nations all over the globe, is now viewed as deceptive, dangerous and destructive.(8)
This Article’s Proposal: Converging Diversity in a Multipolar World
As difficult as it might be to comprehend right now, there is absolutely no reason that the US couldn’t join, or at least link up in solidarity with, the growing global multipolar movement. Unfortunately a sizable portion of Americans have been systematically propagandized to view many of our nonWestern neighbors as backward, as anti-democratic, as “other” and even in some cases, as “evil”. I will tell you now, after studying the world situation over the course of the last four years, that around 80% to 90% of the negative things we’ve learned about the Chinese, about Palestinians/Arabs, about Russia and Russians, etc., is nonsense.
There is absolutely no reason that the US, along with the rest of the growing majority of this planet’s population, could not exist and thrive in a world of mutual interdependence and of converging diversity in the 21st century. In other words, it’s time for those in power and for those of us who’ve been brainwashed into believing that speaking about the need for improved communication and diplomacy is the stuff of “useful idiots”, to drop our worn-out belief systems about the world and its people. The term “useful idiots” was coined by Vladimir Lennin in the early 20th century and then later revived by Hillary Clinton, who is a war-mongering neocon, in the early 21st century. We must disabuse ourselves of their nonsense, of their duplicity, of their violence.
What are our other options? To go to war with China, Russia and half of the Middle East? To attempt to kill and maim our way back to 1991? This seems to be what neocons like Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, John Bolton, Victoria Nuland, Donald Kagan, Mitch McConnel, Lindsey Graham and Hillary Clinton have been pushing for over the course of the last 10 years.
Obviously there’s only one coherent heart and head centered option for us: To move toward peace and reconciliation within ourselves and with our global neighbors.
In Next Week’s Article (Part 2)
Maybe you’re thinking something like, “Easier said than done man! What about the Neocons who still retain power? What about Trump? How will he roll with or will he attempt to roll over the changes the world has undergone and is still undergoing?
In Part 2 of this article we’ll look at the potential obstacles to achieving peace and how to handle them, how to “place” ourselves in relation to them so that we can move forward and not regress as individuals and as a social whole.
CITATIONS:
https://medium.com/the-geopolitical-economist/multipolar-vs-unipolar-world-order-a-comparison-3a3c3bbd85d4
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/05/why-geopolitics-matters-more-than-ever-in-a-multipolar-world/
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neoliberalism-As-21st-Century-Imperialism%3A-its-and-Cody/95cd799cfb79f242e5494f177c48b7d17b262232
https://www.pressenza.com/2024/11/the-biggest-world-news-item-of-2024-was-not-the-recent-us-election/
https://www.pressenza.com/2024/03/the-birth-of-the-american-uniparty-and-the-rise-of-the-multi-polar-world-order/
https://simonmercieca.com/2024/06/02/russia-is-now-the-fourth-largest-economy-in-the-world-world-bank/
https://orpa.princeton.edu/export-controls/sanctioned-countries
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/02/10/allies-fear-the-us-is-becoming-less-reliable-with-growing-concern-over-a-possible-trump-return/
