Conflict cannot survive without your participation. — Wayne Dyer
Today’s Discussion:
49 killed in mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand
At least 49 people were killed and 20 seriously injured in mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Friday, in a carefully planned and unprecedented atrocity that shocked the usually peaceful nation.
The attack was unleashed at lunchtime local time Friday, when mosques were full of worshipers. Footage of the massacre was streamed live online, and a rambling manifesto laced with white supremacist references was published just before the shootings unfolded (March 15, 2019).
Negotiations between the Taliban and the United States
The Afghan Taliban announced in December 2018 that they will meet with American negotiators in the Qatar to find a peaceful solution to the 17-year armed insurgency in Afghanistan. They had previously stated they would not negotiate with the government of Afghanistan, who they considered a puppet government.
On February 25, 2019, peace talks began between the Taliban and the United States in Qatar, Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Barada is notably present. US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad reported that this round of negotiations were “more productive than they have been in the past” and that a draft version of a peace agreement had been agreed upon. The deal involved the withdrawal of US and international troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban not allowing other Jihadist groups to operate within the country. The Taliban also reported that progress was being made in the negotiations.
Going deeper into ‘Conflict and Peace’:
Past and Current
The World has always been a part of wars and conflicts since military equipment became popular between dynasties. In early times, people fought with hand made tools, sitting on animals, and the wars were not too much destructive. As the time passed, modern fighting equipment came which took millions of lives when a war began. The human history has faced many wars. The most prominent ones are:
- World War 1: A global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. There were 20 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians.
- World War 2: A global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The estimate of total deaths ranges from 50 million to more than 80 million.
- Mongol Conquests of China: The Mongol conquest of China was a series of major military efforts by the Mongol Empire to invade China proper. It spanned six decades in the 13th century and caused 40 to 70 millions deaths.
- The Cold War: The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others).It was the war in which atomic power was used by USA on Japan causing widespread destruction.
The images below are of wars listed above. Click on them to read the description.
Although there were many wars in the past, many issues are going now a days too. A few are listed below:
- North Korean crisis: It began when North Korea conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests that suggested that North Korea’s nuclear weapons were increasing at a faster rate than had been assessed by the U.S. intelligence community. This created resentment and led to U.S threats. There were chances of war between North Korea and USA but peace is now settled.
- War in Afghanistan: The War in Afghanistan followed the United States invasion of Afghanistan of 7 October 2001. The U.S. was supported initially by the United Kingdom and Canada and later by a coalition of over 40 countries, including all NATO members. Result is millions of deaths.
- War in Syria: The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria fought between the Baathist Syrian Arab Republic and various forces opposing both the government and each other in varying combinations. Result here is also cries and deaths.
- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the mid-20th century. These conflicts began with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The Palestinians have suffered a lot. Attempts of negotiations are being failed and no positive outcome of peace is coming.
As we have seen, the consequences of all these wars are deaths and human sufferings. Everyone is worried about the third world war which day by day looks near to happen. Due to very modern fighting equipment, it is evident that there will be widespread destruction. Everyone should work hard to ensure that such a thing would not take place.
Although wars are still going on, human beings are taking these conflicts as lesson and want to prevent any type of destruction in future. For this purpose organizations such as United Nations have been created to resolve the global issues. They work hard to ensure that there are no issues going on in the world. People themselves now a days contribute in peace making by their little efforts. The image below shows group of forty eight skydivers linked hands and jumped and formed peace spell in the sky to spread awareness regarding peace.
WHO WE ARE?
Our aims and objectives
We are Global Perspectives students from Beaconhouse Bahria Town Campus Lahore, Pakistan. We are GCE O Level and IGCSE students and Global Perspectives is one of our subjects. In this, we were made a group of three (Ahmed Iftikhar, Hassan Kamran and Subhan Zahid) and were given a variety of topics and we chose ‘Conflict and Peace’. Then we were asked to spread awareness among people of the various conflicts going on in the world and what are the ways through which everyone can contribute in peace making. To fulfill this task, we did many efforts and were successful in our mission. Our activities and the outcomes we produced are presented in the upcoming pages:
Conflict and Peace 