AT a recent session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that the world needs to change paths to avoid a future filled with military escalation, repression, disinformation, deepening inequality, and rampant climate change.
A dire warning made at a time when at least two major wars are being fought in Europe and the Middle East (Ukraine and Gaza-Lebanon and now, Iran), the UN official’s words should resonate with world leaders and citizens of most countries. As Turk stressed, “we are at a fork in the road,” and we may add that the correct path of peace is being hidden by some officials, mostly Americans, who believe that the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza should be scaled up in order to de-escalate it.
“We can either continue on our current path – a treacherous ‘new normal’ – and sleepwalk into a dystopian future, or we can wake up and turn things around for the better, for humanity and the planet,” High Commissioner Turk warned.
‘For Turk, the world appears comfortable with the “crossing of innumerable red lines, or readiness to toe right up to them.”’
In a world wracked by conflicts, Turk insisted that “states must not – cannot – accept blatant disregard for international law.”
While the United Nations also maintains that peace is the right path to progress for the human race, still this organization of nations which is controlled by its big and important members is unable to find a solution to the long-running Russian war on Ukraine, the civil war raging in Sudan, and the exponentially escalating war of Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, that has now engulfed the participation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran itself.
With the United States deploying 10 aircraft carriers in the region and Russian President Vladimir Putin issuing an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “leave Lebanon or face the consequences,” this Gaza Strip conflict may well lead to a global conflict – the next big one, fought with the most modern technology of mass destruction.
For Turk, the world appears comfortable with the “crossing of innumerable red lines, or readiness to toe right up to them.” He expressed hope that since we are in a record year of elections globally, the votes of all the right-thinking citizens of the world could matter.
“With some elections already having taken place, and others still to come this year, I urge all voters to keep in mind the issues that matter most to them – be it a home, education for their children, their health or job, justice, their family and loved ones, the environment, to be free from violence, tackling corruption, being heard,” he said.
With US elections this November and the Philippine midterm elections next year still in the offing, Turk’s words about how this democratic political exercise could change the course of the world should appeal to many.
Turk spurned “heated rhetoric and simplistic fixes, erasing context, nuance and empathy. Paving the way for hate speech and the dire consequences that inevitably follow.”
He urged “all voters to be vigilant. Be wary of the shrill voices, the ‘strongman’ types that throw glitter in our eyes, offering illusory solutions that deny reality.”
We agree with the UN official that the future of the world “cannot be endless, vicious military escalation and increasingly horrifying, technologically advanced methods of warfare, control and repression.”
In other words, a dystopian future is not the right road to take.