CIVILIZATION VS BARBARISM. WHICH MESSAGE DOES THE WORLD ASPIRE TO?

“To the victor belong the spoils. You’ve all heard that.” A US president speaking at, not to, UN members this week. The current leader of the free world is an insult to the world. An insult to an organization with a bedrock principle to avoid the atrocities and horrors of war. An organization intent on respecting and upholding human rights. An organization that strives for a true equality across the world. With respect for all. Preamble to the UN charter. “WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS” were, they wrote, “DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained.” And what does our president bring to this table? Insults. Threats. Denigration. Disrespect. And lies upon lies. “I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?” Much of the Iranian delegation walked out. Trump threatened Mexico. Boasted of US attacks on Venezuela that kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. He railed against and threatened Cuba like a wannabe warlord intent on conquest. The Cuban delegation walked out. Trump went full white nationalist, accusing the “U.N.’s top human rights officials” of wanting the U.S. “to open up our borders to gangs and criminals from [the] world’s most dangerous places….” And he boasted of his greatness. False narratives abounded about his fabulist success in bringing peace to the world. While embracing, in front of the world, the idea that powerful countries will have spheres of influence, dominating their neighbors. This is the worldview of Vladimir Putin, who seeks to have control over the countries around Russia, including Ukraine. Likewise, in Trump’s worldview, the US will control the western hemisphere. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, rebutted it all. He warned that the world is descending into a purely transactional system. Where might makes right. Where money and bullying replaces the need for cooperation among nations. And the people have no purpose other than to serve the state. He said this…”No discussion of inequality can ignore its most universal form: The inequality between men and women. Everywhere, women and girls continue to face discrimination, violence, exclusion, and abuse. Around the world: Their rights are being rolled back. Their voices silenced. Their bodies turned into battlegrounds. And their freedoms treated as bargaining chips.” “This is an outrage—and a profound waste for humanity. Peace is more durable when women are at the table. Economies are more dynamic when women have equal opportunity. Societies are more resilient when girls can learn, lead, and live free from fear. And institutions are more effective when power is shared equally.” “Equality is not a dream,” Guterres said. “It is a decision.” “In the face of a global catastrophe more than 80 years ago the United Nations was created as an act of defiance. The defiance of people who refuse to surrender the future to fear. The defiance against the self-defeating notion that might makes right. The defiance of countries that know our futures are bound together.” “The defiance of hope.” To defenders of Trump’s methods of ‘shaking things up,’ this is not what he’s doing. He’s disrupting the world order purely for self-interest. He is an existential danger that the world is rejecting. And come November he’s going to experience ‘the defiance of hope.’ We the people are going to take our country back.