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(Two-minute read)
We all know that when a war breaks out it does not take much time for it to escalate.
The continued presence of US and Russian nonstrategic weapons on the European continent already poses a serious risk of “accidental use, miscalculation, and inadvertent escalation.
With Europe reduced to sanction spectator status in the face of a heightened possibility of a nuclear detonation on its doorstep. Even a cooperative European defense could do little to prevent a retaliatory nuclear response.
Imagine a scenario – as in the past – in which Moscow misinterprets a conventional missile flight as nuclear.
Nuclear risk reduction is a common security interest of all states – one that transcends alliances and umbrellas, and even the geopolitical circumstances that have stagnated arms control and disarmament.
Putin knows that a nuclear war would not only be the end it would also ensure the destruction of Russia.
At a time when the nuclear risk on the continent is acute, European states have every reason to take the lead.
The prospects for the possibility of nuclear weapons use in Europe, whether intentionally or inadvertently must be avoided at all costs.
So perhaps if Europe were to place all of its nonstrategic warheads in storage, this would allay the possibility that Moscow might misinterpret conventional missions in the first place.
Such a move by Europe would not send a message of weakness to Russia, rather it would give Putin a choice. Destroy Russia or not.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We are incapable of living in peace with each other as there will always be incentives for conflict.
Wars are inevitable because of the disposition of man and if we are unsuccessful in tackling climate change we will be seeing lots more of them so the answer to this question is that wars will be inevitable.
The plagues of wars these days seem more elusive than a cure for Covid/Climate change…No end to the carnage seems to be in sight. A lucrative arms trade ensures that the world’s armies—and guerrillas—will continue to be grimly effective.
More localized for the moment and ironically, this wholesale butchery is occurring during an age that has seen unparalleled efforts to outlaw war as a way of resolving disputes between nations.
The machine gun is no respecter of the fittest or boundaries, with the bomb annihilating the strong along with the weak.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “Mankind has grown great in an eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish. . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker.”
Over 2,000 years ago, Plato said that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Is his bleak assessment a bitter truth we must learn to accept?
If war were inevitable, there would be little point in trying to end it.
War is not something created by the heat of passion. It takes years of preparation and indoctrination, weapons production, and training.
This is why we must use more effective and less destructive tools to resolve conflicts and to achieve security. Militarism has made us less safe and continues to do so.
War long predates Capitalism/ Communism. War in human history up to this point has not correlated with population density or resource scarcity.
The idea that climate change and the resulting catastrophes will inevitably generate wars could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The looming climate crisis is a good reason for us to outgrow our culture of war.
Hunger in the world must be abolished, inequality must be irritated and profit for profit sake
Why?
Because weapons must be the arbiters of so many disputes.
There is an interrelation between different factors that lead to war?
All wars have some plausible situations in the eyes of the decision-makers such that the anticipated gains from a war in terms of resources, power, glory, territory, and so forth exceed the expected costs of conflict, including expected damages to property and life.
Thus, for war to occur with rational actors, at least one of the sides involved has to expect that the gains from the conflict will outweigh the costs incurred.
There has to be a failure in bargaining so that for some reason there is an inability to reach a mutually advantageous and enforceable agreement.
A lack of enforceable agreements is often one of the main ingredients leading to protracted wars.
Being faced by an armed rational or irrational foe leads a rational country to arm to some level. In turn, this now means that either a foe who is irrational or a foe who thinks that I might be irrational will be armed, even more, and this feedback continues to build.
So here we are after two world wars still unable to have any real understanding as to why we are witnessing the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine.
Now, Ukraine is the pawn.
America has bombed a sovereign country every day for the last twenty years, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Yet that is never part of the story we tell ourselves.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have used NATO to surround Russia.
Despite assurances, NATO would not expand to include former Soviet bloc countries, we have done just that. We weaponized Ukraine, minimized diplomatic solutions such as the Minsk Protocol, played a role in the 2014 coup that ousted the government there, and installed a pro-Western one.
But it does not seem to prevent our pro-Western government, our news media, our own selves from repeating the war myth it now becoming our bedtime story, one that seeds a nightmare.
The West as the good guys and everyone else as evil. We have arrived at this point of peril in Eastern Europe because we have lost the ability to see the world through the eyes of another.
It thus becomes impossible to comprehend the behavior of other nations, to understand their fears, their concerns. We know only our own created story, our own myth, we care only for our own concerns, and so are forever at war.
We become provocateurs rather than peacemakers.
Ukraine should not have to suffer invasion by Russia. And Russia should not have had its safety and security threatened by NATO expansion and weaponry.
A good portion of our overview of the causes of war is thus spent discussing a framework of different bargaining failures.
So how will this Russian/ Ukrainian war be ended?
The same as all wars a tragedy, creating the ground for the next war.
We seem to be caught somewhere in an unplanned downward trajectory slipping lower and lower, circling around and around toward some kind of catastrophe that is as yet unvisualised and unseen.
We are very close to passing some irreversibly turning point, after which we will not be able to go back.
Let’s see if maybe we can miss the huge disaster that now seems to be looming in our future. We need to turn our full attention to fixing our environment.
Are we truly incapable of resolving these concerns without slaughtering each other? Is our intellect that limited, our patience that short, our humanity so curdled that we must repeatedly reach for the sword? War is not genetically set in our bones, and these problems are not divinely created. We made them, and the myths surrounding them, and so we can unmake them.
We must believe this if we are to survive.
This is a long hard battle to be won. Let’s pick our own future.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
There has never been a period like this in the history of humanity.
The past 50 years of human activity caused massive losses in biodiversity, habitat, soil health, and air quality and the impacts are clear in every corner of the globe.
Overall, humans have now directly altered three-quarters of the globe and the rate of global extinction is estimated to be tens to hundreds of times higher now than at any prior moment in human history.
Life on earth is deteriorating fast.
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns a million could be wiped out if humanity keeps delivering blows to nature. Even the status quo is untenable: an estimated 500,000 land species already don’t have sufficient habitat for long-term survival.
With the global population set to rise to 9 billion by 2050, conservation is about more than a touchy-feely walk in the vibes of the wood (though the report also shows enjoyment of nature is one of its undeniable benefits). It’s about ensuring everyone has enough to eat.
We have 12 years to drastically start drawing down emissions to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius, but we cannot tackle nature deterioration separately from climate change and our social goals.
I don’t think we – the modern people – can even survive a day without having access to the internet. The problem is, most people are sheep sitting on the sidelines through no fault of their own doing what everyone else does, supporting the status quo, and not stepping out of line.
Because most of the decision-making power in the world now belongs to a relative handful of idiots who want to empower themselves and disempower everyone else, the evolution of the human race has been held back for hundreds of years.
Evolution is the purpose of life, and the purpose of all non-living matter in the universe is to create the conditions under which life can evolve.
We, it seems are so busy creating such a fucked up world that nobody cares any longer. When you hear politics speak they always mention stuff like health care, transportation, city infrastructure, human rights, free markets. Even though these things are of importance, they don’t set a path for others to follow in the long term.
The result is that Politics don’t have a clue what our future should look like. We all know what happens after the elections. The winning party hardly executes more than 30% of what they’ve promised.
For most people, the idea of long-term thinking is a luxury good with most of us finding it difficult these days to make both ends meet, thus we can’t afford to think about something pleasant in the future. Our idea about tomorrow narrows down to “what’s for dinner.”
Thanks to technology most of us are now living this hamster wheel life where we’re in constant pursuit of more things, but we never actually reach a state where we are truly satisfied.
Your desire to feel good now destroys each and every thought about a possible long-term project. Meaning, you scroll mindlessly on your phone where you see stuff you don’t have and you start wanting them. This loop becomes your ultimate habitat and your one purpose in life becomes feeling good all the time.
Unfortunately, there is no product or service that can make us happy all the time.
Up to recently, we live in a globalized world where everything seems possible then came Covid which has shown that nothing is possible without those things we take for granted.
Have we learned the Covid lesson? Not on your nelly. It has just made some Drug companies super-rich with I am all right jack syndrome countries.
I’d say that it’s not the world that’s fucked up, it’s people who are fucked up.
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In our hectic world where trivial content is spreading like a wildfire, we are preoccupied with trying not to drown in the vast ocean of poorly organized information corrupting our senses.
Not a future anyone wants but, unfortunately, everyone seems to have.
We’re not the only ones on this planet.
Is there any way to un fuck it? Of course, there is.
There is only one thing that has happened on planet Earth, and it is still the only thing happening here, just as it is the only thing that has ever happened, or will happen, in the entire universe, and that one thing is… evolution.
So what should we do?
Capitalism must be saved from its own excesses.
We should keep our technology but do away with the things that enslave us. We should enshrine common goals of what would be in the interest of the country in law.
A different yardstick than profits:
The capitalist vehicle in which humanity is progressing must be redesigned. It is putting too much pressure on the Earth’s resources. It is leaving too many people behind with inequality.
Different ownership:
Who owns the enterprise? The people at the bottom, or people at the top of the economy?
We need innovations in production models that provide more jobs so that business is not only for the people but by the people too.
We need to rethink the purpose of the corporation. Serve the people or profit. The idea of who owns the enterprise by taking a broader view of the benefits companies provide to societies, one may conclude that the private sector is not all good and that the public sector is not all bad.
Community-owned – genuinely ‘social enterprises’, with clear public purposes, with limitations on the returns their investors can get, and with transparency in their accounts to the public of the value they create for society, could be partners with governments in providing some public services.
The expansion of government to its present scale has politicalized virtually all economic life. The wages being paid most workers today are political wages, reflecting political pressures rather than anything that might be considered the normal working of supply and demand. The prices farmers receive are political prices. The profits business is earning are political profits. The savings people hold have become political savings, since their real value is subject to abrupt depreciation by political decisions.
We should remove private enterprises from making profits from the essentials of life – water – energy – transport – health – education
The entire “reason for being” for capitalist-based entities, is the maximization of profit for the ownership of the company or corporation.
With the result that many of us view life as simply a struggle for survival, and sadly, for many people, that’s all it is.
Technology:
We should ensure that technology does not enslave us.
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You can take this post however you’d like, not everyone thinks the same as I do, and I understand that. But, you can’t deny that this world is a tad bit messed up and it’s only getting worse.
Fortunately, there is a way out.
If you want to make a change, start caring more about others. No matter what you’re doing.
There is no reason that allowing all of us to invest in the future by issuing Green Bonds would not be a step in the right direction. ( See previous posts) It would allow us to address and finance the changes needs fairly, giving all of us a stake in the future.
Global cooperation towards a sustainable future.
Of course, the above is only words but the way we are going it would not surprise me to hear Donate a pound to save a Ukrainian.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Since the beginning of time, many of our heroes were warriors who over-powered those who would try to harm or take from us the things that we cherished. A strong defender of us as a society or culture, soldiers who sacrifice everything to defend our borders, cultures, our freedoms are indeed heroes to us.
These days with us holding our politicians in such low esteem there are different types of heroes. They come in many ages shapes and sizes, and heroic acts.
So, what is it specifically that a hero does that creates awe in us? What makes us pick one over another? What is it about our heroes that makes us stand up and take notes and then admire, adore or try to emulate them?
A hero is someone who “we” determine to have demonstrated behaviors and decisions that are ethically and emotionally worthy of our awe. We see in them something we think is not in us. A true hero does not set out to be recognized, nor do they seek adoration for their actions.
A hero can be anyone. Modern-day heroes are not only found in the movies that are all about saving a woman or saving the world, they are unsung. Movie stars are hailed as heroes, sportsmen are hailed as heroes, and even the electricity-line repairman is hailed a hero if you’ve been without power for a few hours!
But are any of their achievements outstanding to the point of being heroic?
There aren’t many heroes these days and there isn’t much opportunity to be heroic when we are at peace with relatively few being ever revealed (or noticed) in everyday life.
We seldom seem grateful for our good luck. Many of us feel that something important is missing – ideology, idealism, belief.
Currently, health care workers are going beyond the call of duty to save lives. We will need the courage to stand up and be counted? More heroes are emerging in today’s pandemic.
Unsung frontline heroes who turn their empathy, compassion, and sense of goodness to their fellow humans. They are the type of heroes that make a real difference in the world today and they deserve every praise and respect.
Indeed these are resolutely unheroic times that receive a passing clap without any medials.
For me, the Hero of our times is the Hubbel Telescope which shows us not just the beauty of the universe but its past existence. History is far from over, as modern society is facing unparalleled and unpredictable challenges never before encountered.
The world is in need of heroes.
We define our ideals by the heroes we choose, and in turn, our ideals define us.
From ISIS to LGBTQ+ rights to cyber warfare, the 21st century is rife with brand new dilemmas which have no concrete histories to compare our trials to and no frames of reference to which we could learn how to overcome them. So as the line between what is right and wrong blurs more with each passing day, people now, more than ever before, need something to believe in and give them hope.
What do you do when confronted with people who, for pretty good reasons (money, power, both mostly ill-gotten or accidents of fate) have god complexes? This is a topical question in our current moment of the super-rich and populist leaders, but maybe it has always been high on the human agenda.
Right now, almost anything involving fantasy elements, no matter what the medium (comics, novels, children’s books, film, TV, the vast spectrum of tie-in merchandise), involves a protagonist battling against adversity to realize their hidden powers, the full expression of their magnificent selves. And fantasy can lay claim to being the dominant genre of our age.
We are in the midst of what may very well be the most divisive time on our planet with its very foundations proving to be unstable due to new freedoms created by technology, not under the control we are exposed to both advertisers and geographical vagaries of morality.
While the TV was once under the control of terrestrial networks who were beholden and thus ended up self-bowdlerizing, a new freedom of expression has seemingly erupted.
Since 9/11, liberal democracies have increasingly implemented laws in the name of protecting the population against the threat of terrorism, but which have simultaneously undermined the rights of all citizens.
The criminalization of political criticism and expression is not new.
The idea that the threats we face are in some way more acute than those that have gone before – and therefore necessitates a restriction of hard-won freedoms – is bull shit. We are slowly being turned into the product by Technology.
Technology may seem like a huge advancement to society, but with large advancements comes equally large setbacks. “Technology is great until it doesn’t work.”
We are now in a new era where instead of the big lie reaching the White House or the Boris the welter of little lies, we look at the Government’s Covid-19 restrictions that have infringed on our freedoms being accepted.
Who knows what sort of arbitrary authoritarian policymaking may be acceptable in the future?
It is the invisible ink that legitimizes falsehoods in your morning paper; and on social media, it’s the sorcery of data. It’s the evil that changes our lives as an adjective as well as a noun. It’s spawned a new war on the lie. It’s fake.
Truth has died in this stampede of fake news.
It is time to get back to normal – not the new normal that some have in mind for us – Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, unregulated technology, profit-seeking algorithms, and they’re like. Not the expansion of surveillance with restrictive laws limiting people’s right to peacefully protest.
We need new heroes that are not manufactured, by capitalists but by Humanity’s love of life.
All human comments are appreciated. All like click and abuse chucked in the bin.
After more than three centuries of deliberate, systematic race-based exclusion, the political system that had intentionally disenfranchised black people continues to do so, yet in less overt ways. Simply by allowing political systems to work as they are designed – to grant advantages to white people and to put people of color at various disadvantages is no longer acceptable.
However, Racism never goes away, it just adapts. This is why reverse racism is an erroneous concept.
There is no such thing as a race-neutral policy, every policy is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.
Race intertwines with sex and class in a sticky web of exploitation and oppression but nobody is born racist.
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The problem with this question is that immigration cannot be discussed properly because anyone who wants to raise the subject is labeled bigoted or racist — even if they’re talking about white Poles/ Romains, Irish, or second-generation English.
When seeking to get a picture of the inequality and social injustice’s it is starkly evident that major ethnic and racial inequalities are still the problem in many countries.
To have any meaningful discussion about racism, discrimination, or prejudice one must first understand the difference between them even though they are all intertwined.
Prejudice refers to irrational or unjustifiable negative emotions or evaluations toward persons from other social groups. Prejudice comes from the words ‘to judge before. It is forming an unfavorable opinion or feeling about a person or a group of people, without a full examination of the situation. In theory, it is possible for somebody to be prejudiced without anybody else knowing about it. You can’t help but be prejudiced.
Discrimination refers to inappropriate treatment of people because of their actual or perceived group membership and may include both overt and covert behaviors, including microaggressions, or indirect or subtle behaviors (e.g., comments) that reflect negative attitudes or beliefs about a non-majority group. Discrimination is racism made real. It should never be tolerated.
Racism refers to prejudice or discrimination against individuals or groups based on beliefs about one’s own racial superiority or the belief that race reflects inherent differences in attributes and capabilities.
Racism is the basis for social stratification and differential treatment that advantage the dominant group. It can take many forms, including explicit racial prejudice and discrimination by individuals and institutions as well as structural or environmental racism in policies or practices that foster discrimination and mutually reinforcing social inequalities (e.g., attendance policies that favor a majority group).
Racism can also take the form of unconscious beliefs, stereotypes, and attitudes toward racial groups in the form of implicit bias.
Other forms of racism are modern symbolic racism in which individuals deny the continued existence of racial inequality while contributing to discrimination and aversive racism through ingroup favoritism for the dominant racial group.
Prejudice and discrimination harm all people but racism is more than just personal biases it is systemic and white people can’t experience racism because they aren’t systemically oppressed.
When it comes to the idea of reverse racism, people are talking about prejudice, not racism.
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Britain, perhaps ironically through her Empire, has become a multi-ethnic state but unfortunately, like most countries that were founded on the sweat of immigrants, its INSTITUTIONS ARE STILL FULL OF RACISM / DISCRIMINATION. ( True of many countries)
Racism is now such a charged subject in Britain that even outside observers feel they have a right to offer hyperbolic comments about the state of the nation.
The danger with crying racism at every turn is that it conceals real problems.
A belief that innate differences make some groups inherently superior to others is generally taken to be the core idea of racism. Britain to this very day personifies this belief with a class system everyone in the UK fits into whether one likes it or not.
The class system’s residue is here to stay.
The long-term unemployed, homeless, etc. Low-level unskilled or semi-skilled workers, “Chav,”“Champagne socialists” Middle-class white-collar workers, Toffs “old money” which means they have been rich for a long time, Aristocrats “Blue-blooded,” the royal family and those with titles, such as lords or barons, fall into this group.
Explaining the British class system is a hard thing to do even for a Brit. One reason for this is that moving from one class to another is increasingly possible, but the complication is that there are some unwritten rules that mean you can be considered upper class by some people and not by others!
So the class system is alive and kicking in the UK but in today’s society, it doesn’t have the same status as it once did but a substantial minority of the British public subscribe to some form of racist belief an entire kaleidoscope of words exists to refer to foreigners.
If you are a foreigner (black or not) arriving into the country with a label of Refugee, Asylum seeker, Immigrant. Alien, Undocumented, Outsider, it envokes to me, anti-immigrant rhetoric, setting up us and them sort of divide immediately on arrival.
Social class is clearly no longer neatly defined by occupation. So while Britain is looking out for the old bigotry, new ones creep in. ‘Culturalism ’ What the current class system changes into next very much depends on what we do, or don’t do.
The problems, now, in short, are not about race: they are fundamentally social and economic, better seen in terms of social class and economic inequality than in racial terms.
Perhaps if the overall wealth of the nation was used to introduce a basic income rather than a living wage or leveling up the divides between us and them could narrow and we might in the future be valued more by what we contribute to society, not by how much we take out.
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So where are we?
Of course, the battle for survival will take the presidency.
Nations across the world face a vast array of issues and problems, from defense to societal issues and climate change. All of which could be argued to be just as pressing of an issue as the others, so with so much to juggle, what should their focus be?
We are facing the real possibility that the climate crisis could steal the chance at a better tomorrow from people all over the world.
Immigration has already become a pressing issue across Europe in recent years, as people flee from conflict and unrest in other parts of the globe, add climate change and war in Ukraine and it won’t be who or what color is coming but how many.
Band-aid solutions must be replaced with a focus on tackling the root causes of systemic racism along with the structural causes of racial inequality within education, employment, and self-responsibility.
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In England’s case, the departure from the EU was fuelled by posters like the above that resulted in the middle class fearing losing their privilege voting to leave. We can only institute change when people understand the conversation around racism and prejudice. When white people realize their prejudice holds power that keeps minorities oppressed, they can then work to change the system we live in.
It is now raising its ugly head in Sport, in Policing, in Politics, in every fabric of its economy – Leveling up.
This can be intentional, or not.
Of course, atrocities were committed by whites in the name of the British Empire, but is that all its white forbears contributed? Did they bequeath no benefits to the world, including to black people?
There is no simple answer to either of these questions.
Even the charge of colonial guilt is hopelessly one-sided.
The British spread their might but did not share their knowledge.
In England’s case, the abiding poison of white privilege is the rectitude of racism that still remains in its class structure that is the problem. Of course, there are systemic and institutional factors in play here and they must always be kept in sight.
Britain remains a racist country and there is only one remedy for racism that some claim to be an even more lethal virus than Covid: whites must admit guilt, offer an apology, and make amends. But there are other things that affect blacks and whites alike: things such as luck or an individual’s own behavior and sense of responsibility and so on.
Are we at risk of getting things dangerously out of proportion?
‘Pound Shop Enoch Powell’ is an unsettling reality.
Legislation has long been on the statute book outlawing racial discrimination for which blacks themselves have no responsibility. Racism is terrible, but I would like racists to feel comfortable expressing their prejudice so we can identify them and be forewarned.
Unfortunately, Britain has much to show for 150 years of global dominance- Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Bermuda. The Empire has gone back to being a small island nation taking the knee in more ways than one. The reality of Britain’s post-Brexit standing, alone in Europe is beginning to become clear.
They talk tough but look pathetic.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Statues also considered art can be seen as a way to celebrate, remember, and tell the stories of culturally or historically significant people. However, they are marks of history or recognition of good deeds and bad – or both.
Our relationship to a statue normalizes the past for better or worse, in doing so their (statues or monuments) power ebbs and flows.
We live in uncertain times, but all around us, historical forces that have always shaped our lives have now become visible.
This is the blindness of everyday life.
Facts matter and the protests are, at the bottom, about facts – the historical truth of colonialism, slavery, and patriarchy, and the contemporary truth of the people they still marginalize.
Some argue that statues are an important ‘window’ into the past as they reflect who – and what – was important at the time they were built.
I can remember when Nelson was blown sky-high by the IRA in 1966 followed by Wellington.
Fast-forward to 2022.
The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have displaced nearly 20 million people, part of the largest refugee crisis in modern history. The top 1% of people now own half of the global wealth, while the bottom 70% account for less than 3%.
The past few years have seen a recession, with the steady breakdown of international norms, the rise of illiberal democracy and re-entrenchment of authoritarian regimes, and the emergence of rightwing populism in the west, leading to the self-inflicted wounds of Brexit and the Trump presidency.
Meanwhile, the world faces a new existential crisis: climate change. The impact of decades of unchecked growth is now undeniable, with rising temperatures and quickening cycles of natural disasters that threaten new calamities every day.
Suddenly life feels overdetermined, shaped by forces larger than any individual, community, or nation.
Little by little, we begin to connect the inequality of the present to the past and this is why statues, buildings, and street signs have become flashpoints because they embody the tension between two worldviews of having and not having.
Virtually all western cities are monuments to colonialism.
Either they were superimposed on earlier indigenous settlements (New York), founded to support the trade in slaves and natural resources (Cape Town), or substantially built with capital extracted from the colonies (pretty much any major European city).
Removing a few of the most egregious statues will not, as some people fear, erase the histories of these places, nor diminish the cultural heritage their residents are, for better and worse, heir to.
So what are we allowed to see, hear, and what if anything can be done?
We can modify statues to recognize historical truths and to perform a kind of apology, but that’s as far as agonism goes. Given the now impossible-to-ignore continuity between the misdeeds of the past and the conditions people face in the present, this feels insufficient.
Erasing history and arguing that people in the past can’t be judged by attitudes today – statues should be preserved because they teach people about the past, even if it is seen as unpleasant now.
I am of the opinion that new plaques should be added which explain why the person is controversial, reflecting both the good and bad things they did.
Everyone agrees as society’s values change, reconciliation can’t just be about the past it must be forward-looking by reflecting a country’s diverse population which were and still are traditionally focused on white men.
Beliefs or views held by the figures when they were alive will not be erased by removing statues to museums.
The question now is.
Does the plaque justify that the statue should stay in place?
The statues were built to honor and enforce white supremacist views, and the intent or damaging effect has not been erased by time.
Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism of any kind to achieve are a grotesque affront to moderne the day cultures of mixed societies.
Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage.
We don’t want to leave this so that people looking back in 50 years will say: you know, they took the statues down, why didn’t they do something about racism?”
Finally here are a few examples to chew over.
The UK The Foreign Office has a painting. The picture shows the racial world of Britannia is ordered.
The superior Anglo-Saxons show their naked bodies, but cover their loins, subordinate races, such as Indian and Arab, are fully clothed, and the ‘least’ of races, the African, is still a naked infant.
Here we have a racial meta-narrative clearly imprinted on the body. British imperialist Cecil Rhodes statue is above the entrance to Oriel College, on Oxford High Street.
Is his non-removal an “act of institutional racism”?
He was a slave trader in the 17th century (the 1600s) and part of a group called the Royal African Company, which transported about 80,000 men, women, and children as slaves from Africa to the Americas.
The Statue now has the below plaque.
The plaque directs readers to the college’s website and an article entitled “Contextualisation of the Rhodes Legacy”.
Edward Colston: Slave trader.
He was a slave trader in the 17th century (the 1600s) and part of a group called the Royal African Company, which transported about 80,000 men, women, and children as slaves from Africa to the Americas.
It made him very rich and when he died in 1721, he left a lot of money to charities and good causes.
We cannot weigh morally significant achievements against serious wrongdoing in order to justify public statutes of wrongdoers. In my view governments have a duty to condemn and repudiate serious wrongdoing that is incompatible with retaining public statues of historical figures who perpetrated serious rights violations.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
You might think that this is a peculiar question but last year as far as global tragedies are concerned has been quite the year, with the Covid pandemic shining a light on how just fragile and unequal we all are.
Because most of us do not experience racism, it’s particularly important that we understand what racism is and learn how to be anti-racist.
More than 5 million people worldwide have died from the viral disease so far. At the same time, many companies have made a lot of money during the pandemic by selling personal protective equipment, tests, therapies, and vaccines.
With world governments borrowing billions just 2.5% of the 6.4 billion vaccine doses administered globally have been given in Africa, despite accounting for 17% of the world’s population.
Why does racism persist in the modern world?
Because the term race was born after scientists classified the different systems such as Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Asians as systems that were called races. Meaning that race was what identified people and therefore located them in a different position in society.
The psychological study of racism can be summed up in one word: Evolving.
Early psychological theories of racism justified the domination of one race over another because of Charles Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest.
To illustrate. The creation of a race has fostered inequality and discrimination for a long time and it has influenced how we relate to each other as humans. This is what racism means and where its routes start and the reason why it still exists today in the modern world and that has changed societies, molded several economies, laws, and social institutions.
“Race” is said to be a complex term that historically defined and changed every single individual’s position and destiny forever but what exactly do people count as racist these days?
2020 brought the rise of Black Lives Matter protests that made people aware that even other people of color do not tend to experience racism as violently as Black people do.
Let’s look at racist beliefs first.
Because white people aren’t negatively impacted personally by racism the most vocal “anti-racist” voices are sheltered people who don’t actually understand anything about other ethnicities other than what disingenuous media personalities feed them.
It is important to recognize that it is much more multifaceted and systemic. It exists within systems, organizations, and cultures. In this way, racism is embedded in the reality of everyday life.
What is the structure of racism? Why is racism so insidious?
In reality, our institutions are not so far removed from the years of colonialism, slavery, and segregation, and racism is still ignored, condoned, or even actively supported in many facets of life.
Ignoring racism doesn’t make it go away. Rather, it perpetuates it, effectively shutting down the possibility of moving forward by not having important conversations about the problems and possible solutions.
For too long, racism has been relegated to the past or reduced to individual beliefs and actions.
Because we don’t realize how much prejudice and stereotyping are going on beneath the level of awareness. It’s unconscious, implicit bias and can be looked at in one of two ways
The first is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized which is how the Oxford dictionary describes it.
The second stereotyping point of view is racism as a belief that behavior, preferences, and capabilities are related to a person’s race or ethnic background.
On the other hand, we have the oppressors who are brainwashed to believe that all members of a certain race are inferior and undesirable. The oppressed on the other hand are taught to believe that every individual from the oppressing group views them with the same disdain.
It even affected civilizations and ethnicities that no longer exist.
For example, racism in the USA and England goes way back to their founding years in the form of slavery. These days the toxic attitudes towards minority groups prevail in both countries with the social and political aspects of the discrimination. This can be seen everywhere from workplace prejudice and disproportionate incarceration prevalence to racial profiling and mistreatment by law enforcement officers.
The perpetrators and antagonism of racial discrimination are in the wrong no matter what justifications they may have. Unfortunately, racism is with us and will stay for the foreseeable future.
Why?
Part of the challenge to fighting racism is that in the modern world it boils down to being intertwined into the everyday culture. Therefore is not addressed by countries. Any racial intent behind policies being pushed to punish racial groups is refuted
However, given the nature of the matter, individual changes in attitude and perspective will be a lot more effective than any laws will ever be.
We might have been fooling ourselves with the sense that all this was going away—and it’s not. When the economic picture gets more negative, that tends to be associated with more prejudice toward outgroups.
All cultures have a hierarchy that leads to discrimination so undoing our own racism isn’t a quick task—it’s a lifelong journey. For us to finally win the war on racism we have to make it a personal fight to make opportunities equally available.
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The military-industrial complex and its clients, seem to have decided that the next place we need to go and kill people (or at least sell weapons to help others kill people) is Ukraine, assuming that Russia decides to slice off a section of its former province.
However, misfortunes of geographical fate do not mean that we should wander into conflict.
Now is not the time for more foreign and military adventurism and yet another pointless war just to expand NATO to the Russian border. ( How near do you have to be to fire a rocket?)
In fact, it boggles the mind that European powers are not standing firm against such an escalation considering they have the most to lose from a war in Europe.
It is high time to reject warmongering and embrace appeasement; yes appeasement; mutual strategic appeasement to avoid another devastating European war and dreadful world crisis.
Fortunately very few of us alive today have ever experienced the horrors of war, it is turned into entertainment by Hollowood and Net flicks.
Perhaps this is the reason that most of us are silent and not shouting.
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The pace of change in an ever more challenging global environment inevitably has a significant impact on how the powers of the world influence and protect their national interests.
The UK Government is using the phrase ‘Global Britain’ since the EU referendum in 2016 to summarise its post-Brexit foreign policy.
Let me tell you that it is a cynical attempt to distract from the state of the UK since it left the EU.
If you believe everything written in the mainstream press in Britain or heard on the airwaves, you would no doubt think that Russia is on course for either an all-out invasion or a coup d’etat in Ukraine.
Boris Johnson has just touched down in Ukraine is whipping up hysteria around the ‘threat’ of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. – presumably to single-handedly avert the impending ‘catastrophic invasion’. He will not tolerate Russia’s ‘destabilizing activity.
Putin is shitting in his pants in case he gets an invitation to a drinks party in no 10.
We have all heard the Boris lies – and know the imperialist interests that hide behind them.
Unfortunately England no longer a member of the European Union and now thinks that is it is once more a Global Power. Global Britain’ was dreamt up as a way of underlining that Brexit did not mean insularity.
Mr. Johnson needs to consider whether it really makes sense to create a grouping of democracies without engaging closely with the EU, whether some of those he is inviting really merit the label ‘democracy,’ and, indeed, what balance he wishes to strike between sanctioning and engaging with China.
It is hard to believe, that he repeatedly called for a free trade agreement with China.
With one of the highest numbers of death from covid his leadership of the country, is hinging in part on setting an example at home and this is not a UK Government that has, as yet, shown an aptitude for thinking beyond the short term.
It is obvious to all that Britain/Uk ( Whatever it is now called- The four Ununited Nations) with its departure from the EU signaled a lessening of international ambition and commitment. Its economic recovery from both the pandemic and from Brexit, and its ability to retain its unity in the face of separatist challenges are far bigger political problems than selling arms to Ukraine and then sending British soldiers to be killed by the very arms it sold in the first place.
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To deliver on the rhetoric of a Global Britain, the Government will need to make hard choices and to show evidence of clarity and long-term vision that, to date, have been rather notable by their absence.
All the while, Ukraine looks at Britain with confusion and consternation, with officials in Kyiv distancing themselves from the alarmist picture being spun by Washington and its obedient allies.
You would think that after two world wars, Vietnam/ Afghanistan not to mention the numerous other wars in progress, we would all understand that wars are easy to start, costing young lives, for nothing to change other than the reassess of the warring nation’s place in the world.
Global Britain is now the UK government’s mantra for its post-Brexit foreign policy which involves thinking and acting globally but the UK is regarded by most Americans as a kind of historic theme park that helps tourism.
Beyond the slogan, what is now it’s global standing.
On the military front, British threats are just farcical. Britain could make all the sound and fury it likes, and it would signify nothing.
Obviously, the countries with the most influence are those with military power and it depends on the range and depth of bilateral and regional relationships. Militarily, Great Britain is less than great.
Boris Johnson not surprisingly is supposed to be cutting the British army to 72,500 soldiers by 2025, its lowest level for 300 years. By 2026 the Royal Navy will be down from 13 to 10 frigates. There has been a huge shift in emphasis from conventional forces to cutting-edge warfare, with investment in drones and laser weapons.
It is often said that the first casualty of war is truth.
While this is nothing new the press has once again wasted no time in greasing the wheels of war.
The truth is, there is no appetite for war. The idea that you can invade a country is for those that want to commit Harry Carrie.
Putin’s maneuver has already brought relative success, forcing NATO and the US to the negotiating table for discussion of Russia’s demands.
It is not in Russia’s interests to invade. An all-out invasion would prove disastrous for Putin and his oligarchical regime.
But why let such facts spoil a good story?
When it comes to Global Britain there are few better distractions than banging the drum about war.
As an increasingly irrelevant world power, Britain is relegated to playing the role of faithful sidekick and loyal accomplice to the interests of US imperialism – a ‘special relationship’ which more resembles the way a poodle looks wistfully to its master.
For a recent example of this flag-waving rabble, the UK’s evacuation from Afghanistan – in step with the US – was utter humiliation.
British imperialism – now a third-rate power; a veritable pygmy in terms of world relations – was (and still is) in no position to give any credence to being a world power. So Boris is making no serious commitments that he will actually ever need to honor.
Such people have pitifully short memories, it seems, as this is precisely the sort of rhetoric that preceded NATO’s road to ruin in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and many other countries.
But the real question is as always. Should the world standby and watch as one nation invades another.
The truth is that there is no answer to this question as wars lead to new wars.
In the 350 years since the Eternal Peace Treaty (actual name) was signed in 1686, Ukraine has been either a vassal state or province of Russia. Ukraine has been independent only since 1991, and that independence happened only as a consequence of the United States and its allies winning the Cold War.
Ukraine will continue to be a hotbed of chaos and division, as long as it is ruled by a rotten capitalist oligarchy; crushed between the interests of competing for capitalist nations.
Is this what is worth fighting for. I would say No.
War always costs more than you expect. Hostility takes over every facet of your accustomed life. It worms and digs its way into each tiny crevice, spreading, ripping, and shredding everything that is familiar. Eventually, fighting congeals and reforms itself into a living, breathing reality that consumes everything you knew.
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British imperialist Cecil Rhodes statue is above the entrance to Oriel College, on Oxford High Street.
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