Around 70 world leaders had assembled at the Arc de Triomphe
in Paris on 11th November to commemorate the centenary of the
armistice signed at Compiegne, France at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day
of the eleventh month of 1918 that ended the First World War between the Allies
and Germany and thus "the whir of the shells and the whistling of the bullets” that
left ten million soldiers dead and six million wounded and maimed, was finally
silenced.
Now the question is: Have we learnt any lesson from the
disastrous consequences of this War? The honest answer is, no, for, this did
not end the bloodshed in Europe and the world. With the collapse of
Austria-Hungary, Germany, Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire, there erupted revolutions,
counter-revolutions, border-conflicts and murderous ethnic disputes, and
within two decades from the end of the First World War, all this culminated into
Second World War between the Axis powers—Germany, Italy and Japan—and the
Allies—France, Great Briton, the US and the Soviet Union—resulting in 40-50
million deaths making it the bloodiest war in history.
And unfortunately, not even the Second World War could evoke
the ‘pity of war’ among the nations and its leaders. For, man’s passion for war continued unabated
with Korean War, Vietnam war, Gulf wars and now the Russian aggression in
Ukraine. Over it, the alarming development is: Countries are now
developing/resorting to newer technologies to change the very nature of
warfare. Today, the focus has shifted to
cyber weapons.
Cyber weapons are being increasingly used now against
civilians and their daily infrastructure. For instance, in May 2017, the
WannaCry malware attack disabled an estimated 250 000 computers in more than
150 countries. Within a month of that attack, the NetPetya attack, that was said to have been
sponsored by a country, affected a third of Ukraine’s computers resulting in the
impairment of international shipping and air delivery operations.
Incidentally, these attacks are not computers attacking
other computers. It is the governments that are today deliberately resorting to
cyber weapons to attack computers on which people rely for their day to day
needs—for instance, the WannaCry malware attack on the UK’s National Health
Service resulting in cancellation of thousands of appointments. And if civilian
infrastructure such as electrical grids, etc., is attacked by such weapons launched by governments, the impact could be much worse. As everything is
getting connected, such attacks can easily disrupt anything, throwing public
life into disarray and making people panicky.
In short, maintenance of digital peace is gaining greater importance. And
Cyber-security calls for the tech companies/organizations/people joining hands
with governments in strengthening the technology ecosystem so that innocent
citizens and enterprises are protected from cyber-attacks.
Next to it is the threat of growing ‘nationalism’ among the
countries, which the French President Emmanuel Macron observed in his address
to the world leaders assembled at Arc de Triomphe in Paris to commemorate the
centenary of signing Armistice, as “the
exact opposite of nationalism”. Indeed, airing his disappointment at the
growing nationalism, Macron warned the world leaders thus: “Old demons are
reawakening, ready to sow chaos and death. Sometimes, history threatens to
retake its tragic course and threaten our heritage of peace that we believed we
had definitively settled with our ancestors’ blood.”
Echoing Macron, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany observing, “Isolation wasn’t the right answer 100 years ago”, raised a vital question:
“How could it be wise to isolate ourselves today” in the name of nationalism,
that too, “with a widely interconnected world?”
When viewed from these two leaders' perspective, the ongoing
challenge posed by the US to the rule based global system—striking down the
trade agreements, walking out of global agreements signed earlier, giving a goby to well-defined alliances,
etc.—appears to be a potential calamity. In its new avatar of a wrecker of the
rule-based global system backed by its
sheer muscle power, the US is likely to set a bad example for smaller,
particularly to rogue states which in
turn could simply unleash great damage.
Now, against this backdrop, what the leaders assembled at
the centenary celebrations of armistice were supposed to do to ensure the
future well-being of mankind. Obviously, the first lesson would be: nations
must reflect honestly on these challenges and first and foremost learn not to resent
one another. Rather, as the French President observed, what is called of us all
is: Combined effort to mitigate the threat of “global warming, poverty, hunger,
disease, inequality, and ignorance” and simultaneously wage a joint battle for
peace and a better world.
That said, we must also note that—as Boris
Pasternak observed—we, being “the guests of existence… travellers between
two stations, must discover security within ourselves”. He went on saying:
“During our short span of life we must find our own insights into our
relationship with the existence in which we participate so briefly. Otherwise,
we cannot live! This means, as I see it, a departure from the materialistic view
of the nineteenth century. It means a reawakening of the spiritual world, of
our inner life, of religion. I don’t mean religion as a dogma or as a church,
but as a vital feeling.” When the
leaders look at the global problems from this perspective, with such a ‘vital
feeling’ everything turns possible and life becomes enjoyable to everyone. But the
greatest ‘if’ is: Can the leaders shed their ultra-egos and turn spiritual?
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