What’s happening to the Human Race?

Even as the scourges of the climate crisis make life a daily misery for hundreds of millions of people the world over while condemning millions of others to a horrible death by suffering, starvation and war, it is as though the Even as the scourges of the climate crisis make life a daily misery for hundreds of millions of people the world over while condemning millions of others to a horrible death by suffering, starvation and war, it is as though the people entrusted with leadership in our world live on a different planet, unresponsive to the needs of most of mankind and indifferent to the grave challenges facing them.

Each day, every week, month and year, we see how life on earth is being trampled, and in addition to our reckless desires to try and solve problems by military means, thereby multiplying the suffering. We see the death and suffering by the thousands caused by earthquakes in Afghanistan, landslides in Sudan, floods in Pakistan, drought, and forest fires in North America. Yet these do not seem to be our priorities otherwise we would heed the desperate appeals of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, the horror stories from our CARICOM neighbour, Haiti, and above all the human abomination and genocide in Gaza and Palestine.

Why do we accept the “leadership” in the world which cannot fund support for humanitarian causes and projects but each week, month, year, can support the genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Zionists and fund both sides of the fratricidal Ukraine war?

How come, one nation, because of the open backing of those to whom we bow, can openly defy the rest of the world, telling us virtually to “Go to Hell” and “Mind yo’ business”? How come the so-called “mightiest nation on earth” which is host to the world body, the United Nations, is denying visas to Palestinian delegates to the upcoming UN General Assembly to try and undermine the proposed full recognition of Palestine as an independent state? Why is the world so apparently powerless on these issues?

The apparent powerlessness and indifference are best demonstrated when we see journalists, from societies which preach to us about the virtues of so-called “journalistic freedom” being shot for letting us see what is happening in Gaza and the rest of Palestine and the murderers openly admitting it without any sense of remorse. What of children being starved to death daily, yet our international headlines begin with one or two people killed in the Ukraine war? To justify this callous disregard for human life, we are being confronted with the false choice of, “Peace or war”? We, especially those of us “darker than blue”, have neither a stake in any war nor in any supposed “peace” which allows such atrocities to go unpunished. We cannot be worse off than we were under chattel slavery, or indentured servitude or indeed under colonial rule and the harsh rule of the plantocracy. We fought them all, suffered greatly in the process but threw off those yokes.

Today, we are afraid of the withdrawal of US visas, by the sanctions and tariffs imposed any time Donald Trump cannot find solutions to his myriad problems, our governments are hamstrung by financial and economic sanctions emanating from the financial capitals of the world. One week we are told that we must hold up on shipping parcels to the USA, the next week Grenada and St Lucia are among 46 nations to be banned from shipping seafood to the USA due to some regulations issue. Remember us and exporting fish to Europe, and have we forgotten what the USA, Britain and the EU collectively did to our banana industry? Yet they continue to be our “models” of development. Is it not time for us to, while not ignoring smaller challenges, begin to consider the wider issues which impact on our lives?

Time for us not to be carried away by the myriad issues we find in social media, not only distracting us but making us unsure what is the truth or reality today.Time to wake up, read, digest and think. Time for us to refuse to accept inferior status, to be prepared to suffer from all kinds of infractions on our rights and dignity, just to achieve recognised migrant status. Time for us to join others in speaking out and doing whatever little we can to condemn not just the bombing and shooting of innocent civilians in Palestine as a whole, but moreso, the dehumanisation of people having to wraggle with each other to access their fundamental right to food while watching their children starve before their very eyes. Can our governments even in CARICOM together with our churches, business community and civil society, not set aside one day for collective prayer and registering our opposition to genocide?

Look how we get “hot and sweaty” about elections, each side treating the other as the “enemy”. Yes, we are entitled to political choices of our own but we must never lose sight of the broader picture, the fight for human dignity and freedom.

• Renwick Rose is a Social and Political commentator.