Death and the arms traffic

In my household, we call Aljazeera, CNN, BBC World and others ‘’attack news stations’’ in reflection of the fact that there is hardly any news bulletin they broadcast that one will not hear a tale of one attack or another in one part of the world. Do we realize that every (blessed?) day in this […]

In my household, we call Aljazeera, CNN, BBC World and others ‘’attack news stations’’ in reflection of the fact that there is hardly any news bulletin they broadcast that one will not hear a tale of one attack or another in one part of the world. Do we realize that every (blessed?) day in this our increasingly violent world at any top of the hour, half hour, quarterly hour or whatever period that a news bulletin is read on radio or TV, we are sure to hear the word attack used in it? And this is not merely a reflection of the dominant Western news canon in which bad news is good news but because of the reality that in one part of the world or another, a violent attack with dangerous weapons, such as guns, is taking place.
Armed robbers, newly radicalized jihadists, rebels with or without causes, assassins, militants of all hues, deranged lone gun men on the prowl for innocent victims, national armies and paramilitary men and women, smugglers who feel they should not be stopped for any reason, drug barons and gun runners, all employ guns to achieve their diverse purposes, turning our world into hell on earth. Yet those who run the world are not doing anything about it.
When a virus that has the potential to create an epidemic, not to talk of a pandemic, breaks out, the world reacts responsibly in solidarity with the community where it has broken out to contain and eliminate it to save that place and the rest of the world. But deadly arms and ammunition that wreak greater havoc than mega pandemics, decimating mankind in scores, in thousands and in millions have been in existence over the years, yet we seem to have accepted their existence and use as part of human life. The guns do far more havoc than the biological agents which do not attack humans with malicious intentions. This is amazing to me. Is this an example of what the philosophers call the folly of mankind?
Parasites and viruses are not our creation. But guns and ammunition are. We have enough wisdom to rise up and contend with in order to contain what we do not create but seem lukewarm or nonchalant to deal with what we have created with our own ingenuity and hands and what we can easily control. When small insects and tiny viruses threaten us, we react reasonably but when we humans threaten our own very existence, we develop a paralysis of will to deal with the threat. Is this what they call the cannibal instinct in man in action?
Each year, governments around the world draw up national budgets and in a good number of them, national defence or to put it more crudely, the acquisition of instruments of mass destruction, usually takes the lion’s share. Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, who has become the moral conscience of the world, calls such budgets ‘death budgets’. And he is right. It is difficult to understand why governments budget for things that will bring death instead of what will make life more meaningful for a significant portion of their population.
I am not a student of power politics and therefore cannot see the rationale in the production and stocking piling of arms by countries of the world. But since I am concerned for the safety and wellbeing of the human race, my advocacy here is that the time has come for us to begin to talk seriously about the danger to man of the existence of arms and ammunition, especially the proliferation of small but dangerous firearms in the hands of people who should not have them at all. Already, we have in stock enough dangerous weapons to destroy this world a thousand times over.  We should begin to think of a UN Decade for the Elimination of the Arms Industry and Control of Weapons of Havoc in Circulation all over the world. I do not know whether I should call for the elimination of all arms from the surface of the earth or its tighter control. Whatever is the right thing to do, let it be done to eradicate the lethal arms industry. Our claim to civilisation is being seriously questioned by the casual way and manner human lives are taken every day all over the world in the name of fighting some causes.
There are too many guns and other weapons of mass destruction in circulation and people who have no business being in possession of them have them, to our ruin and unhappiness. Something must be done about it. The hungry-looking rebel in Sudan, Congo DR, Uganda, etc  who cannot cultivate a small plot of cassava farm not to talk of producing a bicycle spoke, why does he have guns, sophisticated guns for that matter, worth several thousands of dollars? Where and how does he get them? In whose interest is he fighting?
I personally do not blame some rebels or bandits; rather, we should blame the world order that makes it legal for someone to manufacture deadly weapons of mass destruction and allow it to be circulated into the hands of even deranged people.  When the UN Security Council meets, I expect that they will talk about arms proliferation and the need to curb it but their greater concern is usually about how to protect and advance the interest of the powerful West against those of any others who appear opposed to them. The UN is a very hypocritical organisation because it usually makes pious noises about those who commit crimes against humanity but neglects those who make the committal of such crimes possible.
I sincerely think that if we approach the issue of crimes against humanity from the supply angle it will make greater meaning than prosecuting often ‘’innocent’’ fries who use those weapons produced by the death industrialists.  If guns are not allowed into the hands of some questionable persons, the committal of horrendous acts of barbarity will not be easy or possible.