The most brutal year in living memory comes to an end soon. Catastrophic events raged out of control, as nation upon nation, made preparations to intensify war as an instrument of expansion and military and political dominance in every hemisphere encompassing all our continents.
The conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine Sudan are undoubtedly the most inhuman conflicts in recorded human history. Syria, the cradle of civilization, has become a horror story, as a once beautiful land, becomes a scorched land, balkanised by its neighbours. It is an act of insanity when self-defence is allowed to commit slaughter on such a horrendous scale.
Our failure to stem the brutal carnage is unconscionably irresponsible. Anger and despair, have enveloped the world and the hatred and division that afflicts and divides humanity is increasing by the hour.
The grim signs of impending convulsions and human destruction can now be discerned, in as much as the prevailing pleas for tolerance appears to be selectively ignored. Unimaginable horrors precipitated by certain powers serve as a prelude to global events that could decimate the whole of humanity. When uncritical assent is given to certain countries to commit genocide under the guise of proportional retaliation, then the law of savagery, becomes the global enforcer.
The whole of humanity, must remember 2024, as the year when human character was debased, human conscience stilled as human beings were ripped to shreds, decency and shame obscured, when water and food were used as a weapon of war. The world will remember the grotesque bombing of medical institutions, where the gravely ill were sent to early graves, where medical dressings were used as burial shrouds for those who were mutilated under the most ferocious military assault in human history.
The year 2024 was the year that saw the extinction of hope in the hearts of deprived and anguished and brutalised millions across the entire troubled world. Powerful leaders of all religions lost their moral stewardship as they displayed silence and cowardice as innocence became the victim of unprecedented savagery in world affairs. It was Edmund Burke, who offered these profound word;
”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
Sadly many nations, have in 2024, ignored The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Justice will triumph one day and the transgressors will face legal prosecution. Divine retribution is a certainty. Crimes of these magnitudes, will destroy civilization, because the intensity of such killings are an affront to humanity.
FAROUK ARAIE | Johannesburg
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media or IOL.
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