Posts Tagged ‘peace’
Hypocrisy and power
06
Feb
In the analysis of political and ideological currents,
the notion and problem of hypocrisy is neglected, so it is possible to defend democracy by defending autocratic attitudes, by combating corruption, to justify elements of active and passive corruption, in fact, the active one which is the fact of offering illegal compensation (and it is not said what is illegal) and passive is when a public official receives undue compensation (when possible) from third parties.
The term hypocrisy in ancient Greek (hypocritás) is similar to the current one, it is when a social actor intentionally acts in a simulated way, in acts or words, that hide how he thinks or how he actually acts, the rule today is to say the opposite to confuse public opinion.
As a term used by contemporary authors, I remember Machiavelli, as critics of political reason, and Foucault, who sees it as a central element of power relations, although his analysis moves to the psychological field.
Byung Chul-Han’s psychopolitics moves to the media field, the author believes that the power of digital media facilitates this type of relationship, although he does not directly call it hypocrisy, but gives an interesting recipe in his book “What is power”, “The modern loss of faith, which does not only concern God and the beyond, but reality itself, makes human life radically transitory”, so there is nothing perennial, since everything changes.
The basis of modern hypocrisy is to induce man to believe in a life of ease, what Byung Chul-Han calls an excess of positivity, pain and sacrifice have been abolished, “We forget that pain purifies. The culture of enjoyment lacks the possibility of catharsis. Thus, we suffocate it with the residues [Schlacken] of positivity, which accumulate beneath the surface of the tanning culture.”
This makes man happier, the answer is the opposite of what society promises, depression, bipolarity and boredom are contemporary diseases, “Depression is the illness of a society that suffers under an excess of positivity”.
Men and women, freed from this society of performance, exercise, and despiritualized asceticism, without suspicious and persecutory attitudes, become more affable: “Ordinary men and women, given the opportunity for a happy life, will become more gentle and less persecutory and inclined to view others with suspicion.”
It is possible to reestablish mutual trust, healthy relationships, empathy and fraternity, making society healthier and less conflictual.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2018) What is power?. NY; Wiley.
Hopes for peace
05
Feb
The Russian elections take place on March 15th
and 17th, but Putin’s likely political opponent, former deputy Boris Nadejdin, had his candidacy rejected this Friday, February 2nd by the vice-president of the electoral commission Nikolai Bulaiev, who said reasons for irregularity and which will point out other technical problems.
This procedure is routine in Russian elections, and sometimes opponents disappear or are arrested for some reason or minor infraction, dictators control the state machine to forge a democracy that does not exist in practice and nationalist governments also grow.
One of the reasons is that some people on the list were considered dead, Nadejdin joked:
“You and I are the most alive of the living. If anyone imagines that they see dead souls on my subscription lists, that’s not a question for me, maybe they should look for the church, or an exorcist”, according to news on Telegram, a fair election could change the outlook for the war in Ukraine.
Peace in the Middle East is also possible, Israel wants the release of all hostages and Hamas wants an end to the war, reiterating this Saturday (03/02) that the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip are prerequisites for hostage release agreement.
New attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen were carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom this weekend, and the organization, a group of multiple militias, is believed to be armed and financed by Iran, which denies the accusations.
According to the American Department of Defense, there are several militias financed by Iran, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, after two Americans were killed in the interception of a boat carrying weapons to rebels in Yemen, the American Department of Defense released a photo (above) .
There are always circumstances and situations that can end a war, it is necessary no limit condemning the power of tyrants and warmongering governments so that the world moves towards peace.
Resistance or catastrophe
30
Jan
So says the article by the century-old thinker and
educator Edgar Morin, in the article for the Italian newspaper La Reppublica, we are “heading towards probable catastrophes”.
And he asks: Is this catastrophism? This word exorcises evil and gives an illusory serenity. The polycrisis that we are experiencing across the planet is an anthropological crisis: it is the crisis of humanity that cannot become Humanity, the word polycrisis has already been used by the author in other contexts: that of thought, the ecological and social crisis, now he adds one anthropological, other authors say the age crisis of the anthropocene.
He, like other authors, pointed to this crisis, but believed that a change of direction was possible, now it seems too late, “we don’t know if the world situation is desperate or really desperate”, it doesn’t mean with or without hope, like or without despair , we have to move on to a Resistance, and now different from that of the 2nd. war in which France was occupied by the Nazis (photo), now the world is occupied by polarization and hatred.
The facts and situations drag us into an unprecedented war, “we are condemned to suffer the struggle between two imperialist giants with the possible warlike intervention of a third”, as the author says, “the first resistance is that of the spirit, which must be capable of resisting the intimidation of all the lies spread as truth and the contagion of all collective drunkenness”, calls for a spirit of sobriety and of those who believe, of faith and hope.
Today we must know how to resist hatred and contempt, “it requires the effort to understand the complexity of problems without ever giving in to a partial or unilateral vision. It requires research, verification of information and acceptance of uncertainties” wrote Morin.
This “resistance also implies the coordination of associations that are dedicated to solidarity and the rejection of hate. Resistance would thus prepare young generations to think and act through the forces of union, fraternity, life and love.”
It’s not about finding justice in some kind of hate, but hating the hate itself, it’s not about cheering for this or that side of the war, but making war on war itself.
The resistance that Morin calls for must involve all people of good will and solidarity among those who truly know the consequences of such a war, beyond speech.
The resistance of the spirit of humanity
29
Jan
Victor Serge wrote “Midnight of the Century” in
1939, in the middle of the 2nd. world war, now in an article published in La Reppublica, on 24-01-2024, the French sociologist Edgar Morin published an article: “The resistance of the spirit” about the crisis of current wars.
The war in Ukraine mobilized economic aid from much of the world, while on the Russian side, economically weakened by the sanctions imposed by Western nations, it strengthened both technical-scientific development and the bloc formed with China.
Serge, an anarchist by origin, who supported the Russian Revolution, saw it bureaucratize and persecute all real and imaginary enemies in the Stalinist period, described in “The Great Terror” (1934-38), years before describing the horror to midnight, and whatever you say about today.
A new focus emerged after a massacre of civilians by Hamas on October 7, 2023, followed by deadly Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip.
In Morin’s analysis, which has been developed for some time, the progress of knowledge occurred by creating barriers in disciplines that are increasingly closed in their object, which leads to a new type of almost blind thinking, linked to the dominance of calculation in a technocratic world, the progress of knowledge does not consider the complexity of reality and becomes blind.
The result of a lack of clarity and understanding of human life exposed by the ease of access to all life on the planet, without its understanding, has led to dogmatism and fanaticism, and a crisis of morals while hatred and idolatries spread.
Recalling the years of Nazi occupation in France (photo Carentan France, June 1944 From the LIFE Magazine Archives), in which Morin himself was a member of the French Resistance, he now evokes a resistance of spirit that avoids almost desperate or truly desperate action, and maintains hope through Resistance.
This resistance implies safeguarding or creating an oasis of communities endowed with a say in relative autonomy (agroecological) and social and solidarity economy networks.
This action also implies associations that are dedicated to solidarity and rejection of hate.
War in Balochistan
22
Jan
I believe that most people ignore the
existence of this region, which makes up 44% of Pakistan’s territory, it was bombed by Iran last week (16/01), in response Pakistan bombed Iran, starting a conflict that could escalate between the countries, in the same week that it bombed targets in Syria and Iraq.
According to Pakistan, the missiles on Thursday (18/1) targeted “terrorist hideouts” and killed 9 people, all of this means that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps army has taken action, as tensions between the Houthis and the US grow. in the red sea.
Something little publicized, but which is strategic in the world economy, is the economic route that starts in Gwadar in Balochistan to Kashgar (China), China has invested in land routes.
The region of Baluchistan (map) has more than 12 million inhabitants, is rich in gold ore and is considered a kind of “lawless land”, but more than economic interest, what the war awakens there is the alert and the readiness of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that signals against Israel in tension in the Gaza Strip.
The war in Ukraine also worsens tensions, the harsh rhetoric of Macron’s French government, which stated that “Russia cannot win the war” hardens NATO tensions with harsh attacks on several Ukrainian cities causing chaos in the country.
The narratives seek to justify to the right or to the left what is obvious: the civilian population suffers, on a larger scale the world population if a recession comes, relations from economic to social worsen and peace becomes increasingly distant.
There are no justifications for a “just war”, if in the past rigid territorial divisions and the “wealth of nations” (a classic by Adam Smith, which Marx read to write Capital) were a reality, today only the justification of power and of greed justify neocolonialism.
One breaks with the truth, with common sense and even with reason, in order to justify a logic of power, as Plato said in antiquity: “If a city of good men were to arise, it is likely that people would fight to escape. of power, as we now struggle to obtain it, and it would become evident that, in truth, the authentic ruler must not aim at his own interest, but at that of the governed” (Plato, The Republic).
The time of the clearing
19
Jan
If we are in times unsuitable for thought and
intelligence, unsuitable for human and moral values, it means that it is also a time of clearing, it is a time that many consciences and men will be able to awaken and see and find the clearing.
For this, a metanoia is necessary in philosophical, political, everyday and even religious thinking, remember that the prophets were killed and ignored precisely by “religious” people.
The threshold of an unlimited civilizing and humanitarian crisis is close, but if we look at everyday culture, we talked about this so much from the very Brazilian Ariano Suassuna to the Englishman Anthony Daniels in previous posts, politics and thought also seem polarized between two extremes that in many values are confused, and one of them is war and the desire for power.
Even those who invoke peace hide interests of power, of greed for greater wealth and oppression of those they believe to protect, it is a sad scenario of little light and where men of good will who desire a less dark look at the future should have.
Looking at the etymology of the word clearing in Heidegger’s philosophy, it comes from the German word Lichtung, whose meaning, in addition to clearing in the forest (he himself lived for some years in the black forest of Germany), its root Licht is the word for light, which will mean hidden things, or entities whose truth must come to light, as some translators use as unveiling.
What a propitious time this is, and why we are approaching it, because whenever the prophetic words of thinkers and mystics who ask for a change of course in humanity have not been heard, this time of darkness approaches followed by a great clearing.
In the biblical passage of Mark 1:1-19, Jesus clarifies that the death of John the Baptist is this sign of the clearing, that Herod asked for the head on a platter for his wife after his daughter Herodias danced for the king, the death of the last and greatest prophet begins a new era.
The reading says (Mc 1,15): “Time has already come to an end and the Kingdom of God is near. Convert yourselves and believe in the Gospel”, and for those who believe in the biblical clearing, it is the time of change.
Time to recover and live true humanitarian values, even if they are not Christian, the desire for peace, to look at Others with the dignity that each one has and to live justice
A new war front
15
Jan
The fear that the war between Hamas and Israel
would set the Middle East region on fire is little by little confirmed and escalated, the bombings carried out by Western forces (USA, United Kingdom and Holland) in the Yemen region, where the extremist Houthi movement has its bases. The group is aligned with Iran, and the region is one of the poorest on the planet, and the Houthis maintain control over international flag ships that sail through the Red Sea, a strategic location for military forces in the region (see map).
In the distant past it became part of the Kingdom of Sheba, more than a thousand years ago, being mentioned even in Genesis, and also in the Quran, more recently because it had more rain than other regions of Arab countries, it had good agriculture, with coffee plantations.
This is where the type of Arabic coffee comes from, and it came to be called Happy Arabia along with Oman in the period when sedentary tribes developed an agricultural economy.
It came to be divided into North and South Yemen, a period in which one region became communist dominated, but was reunified again and during the Arab spring the country entered into great political and social instability, plunging into a bloody civil war, which according to UN data left 22 million people in a vulnerable situation.
The US and UK military incursions in the region increase tension with Arab countries and could provoke an even greater military escalation in the region. Another source of tension was the election in Taiwan of the Democratic Progressive Party (PDP) candidate, Lai Ching-te, 64 years old, he achieved 40.1% of the votes against Hou Yu-ih (Koumintang, KMT) with 33.5 % and Ko Wen-je (Taiwan People’s Party, PPT) with 26.5%, his election represents the approval of a nationalist policy contrary to China, Lai was vice-president of the current president.
The escalation of the war in Ukraine follows, where winter favors the “winter general”, due to the difficulty of moving and maintaining troops across Ukraine in cold regions, Russia has carried out intense bombings in several cities using the air force.
The crisis in Israel has completed 100 days since the October 7th attack by Hamas, and is now driven by attacks by Hezbollah that are supported by Iran, which has declared itself as having no role in the attacks that started the conflict.
The situation of belligerence across the planet is intensifying, the American elections will be held this year in November and the parties are already using war situations as a campaign.
The escalation of wars
08
Jan
Although it cannot yet be declared a world 
war, the interference of Russia and the United States in several wars on the planet is already open and declared, Ukraine, on strong air attacks in all regions, issued a warning this Monday about these attacks, in Palestine the news They say that over 70% of the territory is uninhabitable due to the war.
Tension continues in the East, the North Korean dictator considers himself at war with the United States and on Saturday (06/01) more than 60 artillery shots were observed on the border with South Korea, tension in the area is growing, and there are American ships nearby.
Kim Jon-Um’s motivation was the naval exercise near the Baengnyeongdo and Yeongpyong islands, a border region between the Koreas (map above) although North Korea’s response could be thought of as defensive, Kim’s declaration was of open war with the In the USA, the warmongering stance of conservative South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol strains relations with North Korea, which calls him a “gangster”.
The United States does not rule out open intervention in Eastern Europe, China maintains reservations, but always declares that the island of Taiwan is a rebel province and considers it part of Chinese territory, it is a declaration that an inevitable American defense and probable Japan in the area would also mean China entering the war, this scenario is a third world war, and we are on a very fragile threshold of this possibility.
From an economic point of view, the road in the BRICS of countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Ethiopia is also a cause of tension, since the Arab countries ally themselves with the socialists.
There is no longer any way to ignore the level of global tension for 2024, although hope will always remain with those who sincerely desire peace, and do not use it as warlike rhetoric.
Wars, narratives and cruelty
18
Dec
It was scary that in times of pandemic there were
groups, people and even leaders who cared little about the sudden death of people who were infected by the COVID-19 virus. An increase in solidarity and compassion was to be expected, but it did not happen.
Now with the wars that are escalating and reaching countries that orbit around ideologies, they awaken a feeling of hatred, revenge and terror that borders on psychopathy, not having sympathy for the brutal death of a human being, whoever it may be, has a certain psychopathy.
There is no shortage of narratives, even apocalyptic fatalism, as if human evil was justified by some sincere religious feeling, everything that is not love and compassion should never be linked to a divine connection or a sincere humanitarian feeling.
Chinese social media giant Tik Tok released data on fake accounts that spread disinformation about Russia’s war with Ukraine last Wednesday (12/13) in an attempt to “artificially amplify pro-Russian narratives,” the report says verbatim .
The site directed videos to Ukrainian, Russian and European users, falsely labeled as official news outlets, seeking to confuse the real data of the war.
Also regarding the war against Hamas, the data released is not always what witnesses, not only pro-Palestinian, but also bodies present for humanitarian aid in Gaza, report that there are deaths of civilians and cruelty also against the population, which is not all Muslim and not pro-Hamas, does not in any way mean justifying Hamas’ terrorist acts, but simply establishing the truth.
Fortunately, the conversations between the presidents of Venezuela and Guyana (photo), despite there being no agreement on the disputed territory of Essequibo, the dispute was agreed in the diplomatic field without involving military forces, we hope that the word will remain.
The United States once again moves maritime forces close to North Korea due to intercontinental ballistic missile fire, which caused an immediate American reaction.
The year-end scenario is worrying due to the forces involved, so far countries such as Iran, Turkey, Qatar, Syria and Yemen, potential allies against Israel, remain in diplomatic threats, while Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt still remain in conflict. diplomatic pressure, an all-out war in the region would be catastrophic and trigger a global war.
Ukraine without progress, Hamas in trouble and Guyana
11
Dec
Winter is just beginning and Ukraine lives in
constant bombings made by drones in Kiev, on the front few advances the so-called counteroffensive did not happen due to Russia’s strategy of installing mines on the combat front, Ukraine’s only advance was crossing the Dnipro river In the North, little or nothing is done in the field of negotiations.
With the dominance of Russia and the decline in aid to Ukraine, not only in Western countries, but also in the USA, where promises of support are blocked in congress, the number of nationalist governments is growing and that plan to maintain national reserves than support an external war, Finland and Sweden, which fear a Russian attack, reinforce their arsenal, and in Finland’s case the border was closed.
With an attack in the middle of the war, Hamas saw Israel withdraw from the truce negotiations and the war resumed, there is no prospect of peace and the Arab countries tried to approve a UN resolution of truce, but the United States, Israel’s ally, vetoed it. .
Hamas continues to suffer heavy losses with Israel present massively in the north of the Gaza strip (photo), certainly the leaders must be out of the country, but its military structure in Gaza is being destroyed, even the complex of tunnels built that gave Hamas security and mobility, some made under hospitals that they used as human shields.
The danger that Hamas did not count on was the strategic and military support from the USA, but the opposition from Iran and some Arab countries, where there are groups similar to Hamas, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, in recent years, is increasingly strong. Now Hassan Fadlallah, the group’s political leader, said that Israel’s air strikes are a new escalation of war against the group.
There are more than 70 small conflicts across the globe, they are not forgotten here, we talk about coups and violence in Sub-Saharan Africa, in the east there is always tension between China and Taiwan, but in the escalation of a third war Venezuela’s willingness to invade comes into play. the Essequibo region, today belonging to Guyana, which is rich in oil.
Brazil has already sent troops to the border, at the moment it is just about preserving the national territory, however Lula oscillates between support and criticism of Maduro who approved a popular consultation on the subject, the United States sent planes to the region in a military exercise air force in support of Guyana.
The good news is that there is a round of dialogue scheduled for next Thursday (14/12) between Guyana and Venezuela, but for Guyana there is no question of giving up part of its territory, the Essequibo region represents more than 70% of the territory and is rich in oil.
