The World Social Forum and the Agenda for Peace – Middle East Monitor
The world is terrified to see the war in Ukraine, which has global significance because it involves the second largest nuclear power. But the world did not go to war against Russian military operations. There are other wars going on, but not reported. Beginning with the unauthorized UN occupation of Palestine, the Israeli army killed 219 Palestinians, including 63 children in May 2021 alone. There is also the war in Yemen which continues to claim lives every day and with more than 20 million people in need of humanitarian aid, without access to water or food; the war in Myanmar, where during a peaceful demonstration, in March 2021, more than 500 people were murdered by the military and it is a conflict that mobilizes powerful economic interests, especially in the United Kingdom, a country including Myanmar is a former colony; the war in Syria which has already claimed 500,000 lives, half of them civilians and that the opposition to the government receives military support from the United States and European countries.
In addition to these, there are many regional conflicts, almost all funded by the US war industry and countries like the UK and Israel. The reality is that the world has been at war since the end of World War II. Lists circulating on social media show that since then only the United States has declared war, sending weapons, armored vehicles, helicopters, missiles and thousands of troops against more than 50 countries in all regions. of the world.
The logic of war is morally based on the idea that it is permissible for human beings to murder other human beings in order to defend their own rights. Thus, peoples, groups, collectives and countries arm themselves and the UN itself defends the principle of self-protection. However, this practice creates a spiral of violence. If a country arms itself to “feel” safe, neighboring countries will feel threatened and, necessarily, will arm themselves to protect their security. The practice of war is therefore harmful and ineffective by its own logic. The more a country arms itself to defend itself, the more other countries arm themselves and insecurity will increase, in an endless spiral.
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Logic tells us otherwise. The solution is disarmament. But for that, it is necessary to dismantle the war industry, the main economic “asset” of the United States and Israel. In fact, wars have everything to do with capitalism. During World War II, the United States remained “neutral”, if it could, building a powerful war industry and military inputs to, so to speak, fuel the conflict. After 1945, this industry grew stronger with the Cold War and with several wars supported by American governments, such as in Vietnam and Korea. Unfortunately, common sense dictates that if the United States declared war on Ukraine, there would be no surprises and the event would be within the normal range. After all, the US government, with the connivance of the UN, is treated like a global army, free to commit atrocities without international retaliation.
On the other hand, although being a nuclear power, Russia did not behave in the same way. The very annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation took place, not on its own initiative, but because of the Ukrainian civil war after the 2014 coup. Hence the surprise of most people in the face of the Russian initiative towards Ukraine. However, in this case, Russia has chosen the wrong path, because the logic that fuels this conflict is the logic of war, where there is no good side. Russia, in the name of self-defense, wants to impose its protection rules on Ukraine. Ukraine, in a logic of serving as an instrument of NATO and the USA, seeks to strengthen its military and political power, threatening Russia. More than that, in both countries, what fuels the conflict is an ultra-nationalist sentiment that has, as its moral basis, the denial of the other, a phenomenon that in Ukraine is amplified with Nazi-fascist elements.
What is certain is that the outcome of this crisis will not be promising for humanity. Even if the conflict ends in the next few days, the trend will be for an increase in the armament policy in all countries, as Germany has already decided by tripling its military budget. Everything indicates that other countries will follow the same path. At this time of enormous challenges, the worst-case scenario is increased military tensions and the breakdown of global alliances for peace. The world must mobilize to face the pandemic which costs thousands of lives every day, to fight against global warming and its effects on the lives of people and the planet, to fight the inequalities which generate millions of deaths in because of hunger, lack of access to water, health, sanitation, housing, work and a basic income.
The World Social Forum has always been a privileged space for civil society, independently from its governments and with a view to universal citizenship. It is up to the WSF to oppose all wars – against the wars in Ukraine, Yemen, Palestine, Syria and Myanmar. Promote a worldwide internationalist movement for the defense of peace and for a new world order. If global citizenship does not revolt against its leaders, arms escalation will dominate the agenda for decades to come, with unimaginable consequences. It’s a very big challenge, that’s for sure. But a necessary necessity.
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I repeat here what I wrote already in 2012, when the WSF Free Palestine took place in Porto Alegre: the WSF was born with a radically democratic path, where there are no institutional hierarchies that overlap the rights of people and universal citizenship. It was born with a methodology of dialogue and consensus, where the most diverse and different points of view are free to be presented, heard and criticized. This is not the place for single thought or absolute truths. In the WSF, many new struggles have arisen, many social issues have emerged from invisibility, and the horizons of human and social rights have widened.
It is this new political culture that can offer a democratic perspective and dialogue as a means of confronting conflicts. The WSF defends the right of peoples to self-determination, to build autonomous and democratic states and, in the same way, believes that it is possible to create a context of peaceful coexistence among all peoples. We are in the area of peacebuilding. Global citizenship needs peace and must mobilize to demand it.
It takes a good dose of solidarity and empathy to understand what is happening at the moment. Finding commonalities is necessary for the conflict to end and for it to end in a way that is respectful and dignified for all parties. Defending peace is our main mission these days. I sincerely hope we can.
Porto Alegre, March 1, 2022
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