War & Peace

A missile crosses the night sky over Damascus

A missile crosses the night sky over Damascus

The UK is yet again intervening militarily in the Middle East. The actions this week in Syria are as unlikely to bring lasting peace to the region as our previous interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. Tensions with Russia are as bad as during the Cold War.  Theresa May ordered these current attacks without debate or a vote in Parliament.

The global armaments businesses are always looking for opportunities to battle test their weapons systems. There is a remorseless logic to the military industrial complex. A peaceful world would be the death knell for their business model. Many of our global political leaders see the world in frighteningly adversarial terms. Each military action ramps up the dangers of further escalation, and with nuclear weapons in the hands of unstable world leaders the prospect of total global devastation is all too real.

Can we envisage a more peaceful world?

There are parallels with action on climate change. Many people struggle to imagine how the modern world would function without fossil fuels. As I keep stressing in numerous blogs, technologically and philosophically a radically less polluted world is possible. The fact that the fossil fuel industry is forever seeking to sow doubt in this fact has greatly slowed progress. Likewise, a very much more peaceful world is possible. It requires politicians very much more strongly committed to cooperation and to building social solidarity. The military industrial industries seek to undermine such a worldview. When neither an ecologically sustainable future or a peaceful future are in the interests of certain industries it is time to change the economy that promotes such suicidal business models. To do that requires a different breed of politicians.

The European Union is far from perfect but it has probably been the greatest example of cooperation replacing conflict in human history. It is also leading the world in action on climate change. Local communities across Europe are cooperating on peace and sustainability through processes like the Aalborg Commitments. Ramping up such initiatives globally would be a vital step toward a better and more peaceful future. The UK should put itself at the heart of such a process, and of course the nonsense of Brexit needs to be reversed.

The UK has local elections on 3rd May. Issues like international military action and Brexit may not be the responsibility of local government, but they certainly effect all local governments in myriad ways. It seems to me that UKIP, the Tories and Labour are all wedded to an isolationist and adversarial mindset. Electing more local councillors from the Greens, Lib Dems, SNP and Plaid Cymru might be a way to open up a spirit of greater cross party cooperation and peaceful international cooperation and engagement. It would certainly be a powerful message on Brexit. Caroline Lucas is a voice of sanity on this latest attack on Syria, as on so much else. We desperately need more politicians like her at every level of government.

It often feels like we as individual can’t do much about huge global issues, from climate change to world peace, from hunger and poverty to biodiversity loss. Voting is one thing that we can do. Today, make sure you’ve registered to vote, and if your council is up for election on 3rd May do please vote. Of course to create meaningful change we need to do so much more than just voting, but voting does matter: one tiny step on the long road to a more peaceful future.

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