Mid-East violence, hunger and development

The August 5 militant violence which rocked Egypt’s Sinai peninsular, coming so disturbingly in the run-up to the 16th Non-aligned Movement Heads of State Summit in Tehran later this month, should serve as an ominous reminder of the convoluted nature of the Middle East question. The violence which claimed scores of Egyptian lives also underscores the fact that the world has been virtually looking on helplessly while the problem took on more and more complex dimensions.

In other words, the world community, inclusive of NAM, has failed to advance notably along the road of conflict-management in the Middle East over the past decades and has, consequently, allowed the conflict to grow in complexity.

Some quarters in Israel were quoted as saying that the Sinai is currently matching Afghanistan from the viewpoint of political anarchy and runaway violence and while this observation may not be factually correct in most detail, it draws attention to the relentlessly growing nature of militant anti-West and anti-Israeli violence, sourced primarily by a non-acceptance of prevailing global political realities.

Sinai militants

The continuing blood-letting in Afghanistan has its roots in the Taliban’s non-acceptance of the West’s attempts to impose its political and military will on the violence-battered country.

Given the links that sections of the Taliban are said to be enjoying with the Al-qaeda, it could be safe to surmise that the unresolved Middle East conflict, which, besides other factors, is providing outfits such as the Al-qaeda with a reason to be in existence, is continuing to detonate violence against the West and its perceived allies in the Middle East and outside.

It is relevant to recollect that the Sinai militants were reportedly going for some Israeli targets and although the Egyptian state has initiated some law and order measures in the wake of the violence, it is only a comprehensive political solution based on the two-state formula which would bring some durable stability to the region.

Middle East peace would depend considerably on how even-handedly the international community, symbolized by the UN, sets about the task of resolving the seeming conundrum.

A Middle East settlement would also depend heavily on how collaboratively the US, which is Israel’s principal ally, acts with the UN in its peace-making. Unless and until these conditions are met the Middle East would continue to bleed.

Political violence

However, there are many not so easily perceivable dimensions to the Middle East and other festering issues of its kind which the UN in particular, must focus on and help in resolving, for the establishment of relative global security and peace. This relates to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other kindred efforts at bringing a measure of material relief to the masses of the developing countries. The more concerned observers of world affairs would like to know how much progress has been made by the relevant sections of the world community in achieving the MDGs, for instance.

It is worrisome that the international community fails to keep the focus on poverty alleviation and linked projects that have a bearing on how evenly the wealth of the world is distributed among its masses. This is of the prime importance because political violence is invariably ‘systemic’ in nature and if militants the world over are to renounce arms, it will be on the basis of the degree to which they too could share some of the wealth of the world, the bulk of which is today said to be accumulating in the hands of some one percent of the world’s population only.

Difficult challenge

No doubt, ensuring global economic equity is a profound and most difficult challenge for the UN and other global actors who have set themselves this task but the world ought to have made some progress in this regard over the decades. It could do the credibility of the international organizations concerned some good if they could keep the world updated on how far they have succeeded in ensuring that the masses of the world too partake of global wealth, if such wealth is indeed ‘trickling-down’ to the people.

This task needs to be taken on urgently because we are told that world food prices are set to rise, once again, in the teeth of prolonged drought conditions the world over. It is not correct to make out that drought alone contributes towards world food crises in view of the fact that the political will of governments to evenly distribute the wealth at hand too, has a profound bearing on the problem but the ‘writing is on the wall’ and something would need to be done to alleviate the lot of the world’s deprived if the bogey of political violence is to be kept at bay.