Strikes to counter violence

Yesterday Obama ordered strikes on Iraq in a desperate bid to contain the widening conflict between the terrorist outfit ISIS and Shias, present ruling Sunnis and Christians. Conflict in the region is escalating for the past few months. Poor Obama, basically a pacifist, unwilling to get into fresh global conflicts especially because of several past misadventures and spiraling fiscal deficits in US, has been forced into this war reluctantly. A fair amount of Muslims globally are also weary of the long standing Shia Sunni conflict which is also devastating them in so many ways - physically, economically, emotionally.

Time has come for all races and religions to have the self realization that conflict and war are self debilitating and annihilating. So many conflict zones erupting everywhere. Then with the shooting down of MH17 last month, there is increasing risk of sophisticated SAM type weaponry getting into the hands of these trigger-happy desperados. It’s virtually the wild-wild west replicating itself all over the world. Since the times of Genghis Khan and other marauding tribes violence has always been a constant feature of human kind. The ancient scriptures and tales are replete with instances like the Mahabharata war, Egyptians and Hebrews, Romans and Christians; and so on - the list is endless.

Humankind has an embedded streak of violence which is present in all societies. Killing is part of the yin yang of human DNA. Hence the deep love for murder mystery and horror movies and TV serials. Most of us deep inside love to see gore and macabre which we are scared of being involved with ourselves but would like to watch from the safety of our living rooms on TV or in the darkened cinema halls collectively with others. We like living in our make believe worlds where violence, killing and death happen only to others and never to us. Only when we come to face to face with its horrors do we step into the nightmare of violence.

A lot of the violence and war emanates from economic imbalances; scarcity leading to search for land richer is sources of food, minerals, water, etc; illusions of grandeur where one community with its leader wants to control greater geographical areas and peoples, aka empire building; love for power; imposing one religious beliefs on more people; extermination of another race felt to inferior (arising from deep inner insecurity); and so on.

At a community level there is also so much of individual violence against our neighbors, kith and kin, and society. Society keeps rounding up these criminals and incarcerating them. Still the problems do not end with increasing the prison population. Society has to bear a cost to keep some of its members in high security prisons. Globally there are parts of so called society where there is high level of mindless violence which even the guardians of law, the police, are afraid of entering. The police would rather let these poorer sections living in slums and ghettos kill each other rather than try to enter these hotbeds and maintain law and order. Most cities and states have these lawless jungles which lead their parallel existences.  

Violence is so much part of our lives. Peace is an illusion ironically. Only mythical societies have love and peace. They exist only in the figment of our imagination and between covers of books for children. Violence is perhaps the most searing reality of life and existence.