Man, supposedly the most intelligent creatures of a super-rich biosphere, has collectively painted himself into a corner, a problematic future of existential dimensions.
About 25 000 people die of hunger every day or hunger-related causes.
This is one person every three and a half seconds. It is children who die most often. The Finnish philosopher George Von Wright concluded that man's placing competition before morality, materialism before community, and economy before ecology will lead to man’s annihilation.
We are in the midst of the worst economic and financial crisis since the great depression. In its attempts at stabilising the world, mankind has tried religion, atheism, communism, capitalism, democracy, republics, dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, theocracies, fascism, and education. All mankind has to show for this effort is what we have today.
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, war, threat of war, insane distribution of wealth, abject poverty, malnutrition, starvation, executions, abortions, nuclear proliferation, pollution, alienation, social stratification, greed, arrogance, oppression and countless moreexamples of social cancers that have placed not just mankind, but all life on thisplanet, on the brink of extinction. Poverty is the absence of all human rights.
The frustrations and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society. To build peace, we must find ways to provide opportunities for people to live decent lives.
As we seek to strengthen the fabric of international security, there needs to be a concentrated focus on the root causes of instability, conflict and confrontation everywhere. The danger signals are unmistakably clear.
The co-existence of a world of wealth and prosperity and a world of poverty and misery is too profound a contradiction to be ignored. It lies at the heart of an emerging crisis. More than one billion people are still condemned to abject poverty.
The despair and frustration that form their daily experience breed tension and trigger an instability that is bound to erupt from time to time.
Whatever the cloud of uncertainty may hang over the future, we must not fail to lay the foundation of a more stable and equitable world order that fosters greater hope and wider opportunities for mankind.
FAROUK ARAIE.Johannesburg.